more than 30 billion bucks in profit. will he let that sink in. that s what exxon made last year. allison, this is serious cash flow. oh, yeah. you re talking about serious cash. look at exxon s earnings from last year, $30 billion, it s 60% higher than in 2009. and you can get the number one reason for this, of course, is oil prices. oil began last year at $79 a barrel. over the course of the year, it jumped 15%, climbing even higher this year. we re sitting at about $100 a barrel today. but oil isn t everything for exxon. exxon s profits are up because the economy is recovering. that means there s more demand for oil and gas. also, exxon is a big player in the natural gas industry. it makes money off the natural gas industry, as well. does any company come close to exxon s $30 billion in profit?
road. shepard: what about oil refineries? there a lot of that business down there. any effect? well, not yet. let me tell you what s going on. 11 refineries in the new orleans area, baton rouge so, that s a big number there nearly 15% of the nation s refining capacity is right there. right now they are doing okay. but oil prices are spiking anyway. up $1.33 a barrel today alone. gas future, up as well. so we are starting to see that, but there is no expectation at this point that those refineries are going to be impacted. but katie bar the door, you know what can happen. shepard: i feel so bad for them. i know. shepard: good to see you. good to see you. shepard: thank you. another courtroom showdown over president obama wants health care overhaul. the judges are trying to decide part of the law is constitutional as the legal fight moves closer to the highest court in the land. we will get the live upbreak and breaking news. word of tanks rolling into small towns in syria.
the drop ain t going to be big. analysts are all over the map with this one, but most see a decline of 10 to 20 cents over the coming weeks, so that keeps us in the high $3 range. and for most people, to be honest with you, the difference between gas that s, let s say, $3.76 and $3.96, it really isn t huge. it s still, very high. and that s because oil prices are still up there. we ve got oil prices trading at about $100 a barrel today. so the reality is, carol, a modest decline may be in the cards, but that $2 gas that you were talking about, it s long gone. yeah, i don t think we ll ever see that again. but it s nice to dream. what about the outlook for the markets. yes, you can do that. what about the markets, we saw that big sell-off last week, any chance of a bounceback today? we could see some modest gains today. we ve got a light economic calendar. oil is climbing today, we ll definitely keep an eye on that.
robbery gone bad. maybe these guys accepted a ride from the wrong person. the investigation clearly underway. martha: oil broke $110 a barrel today. so gas hit $5 a gallon in washington. you have got a new forecast for what you can expect this summer. and a close call involving a jet carrying first lady michelle obama. we ll investigate with a pilot who has almost three decades of flying experience. he will tell us what happened up there and how scary it was. new flood worries spreading across the south as we keep an eye on the deadly storm system targeting the eastern part of the united states. that s coming up. you know, you four your whole life into a place you live. then mother nature comes by and
implicati implications. new reports show it could hit our economic recovery. alison kosik at the new york stock exchange. how big an effect could this have? reporter: you know, carl, $100 oil we are seeing beginning to hurt the global recovery, from a new report that came out today from the national energy agency. this is really terrible timing. u.s. economic growth it is already very fragile. and we heard the same thing from the imf yesterday, which cut its own forecast for u.s. gdp this year to a 2.8% pace. i want to show you exactly what this means with this chart. take a look. last quarter, we grew at a 3.1% pace. now, 3.1% is pretty mediocre by historical standards, 10.8% that would be considered below par. so you know what expect the economy to be under pressure for some time. the imf sees oil $107 this year and next as well the same now, we are just below $109 a barrel