Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp.'s earnings probably rose for the seventh straight quarter because of soaring energy prices, capping Chairman Lee Raymond's career with the most profitable year for any company in U.S. history.

The world's largest publicly traded oil company is expected to report Jan. 30 that fourth-quarter earnings per share increased 11 percent to $1.44, the average estimate from 20 analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. That would bring net income for all of 2005 to more than $34 billion, topping the U.S. record of $26.3 billion set by MediaOne Group Inc. in 1998.

Raymond, succeeded by Rex Tillerson as chairman and chief executive officer on Jan. 1, capitalized on record prices by drilling new wells in Russia and Africa and increasing gasoline production at Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil's refineries.

``Without a shadow of a doubt, Exxon has the best management in the oil industry,'' said Doug Leggate, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in New York. ``They've been riding the momentum of higher prices for some time now, and they've got a pipeline of new opportunities that promise volume growth.''

Leggate tied with two other analysts as the most accurate forecaster of Exxon Mobil earnings in an October poll by StarMine Corp., which measures analyst performance. He said he expects the company to report fourth-quarter profit of $9.7 billion, up 20 percent from a year earlier.

During Raymond's 12-year stint as CEO, Exxon Mobil shares returned an average of 13 percent annually, including dividends. That compared with a 10 percent average annual return for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. He spent more than four decades at the company.

Bigger Than Wal-Mart

Profits at Exxon Mobil and other oil companies soared last year as energy prices, already lifted by increasing demand in Asia and the U.S., set records after damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita choked off supplies from the Gulf of Mexico.

The average price of crude oil was a record $56.70 a barrel last year, up 37 percent from 2004, based on benchmark futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Exxon Mobil's sales rose 27 percent to more than $335 billion in 2005, according to the average analyst estimate. That would push the company past Wal-Mart Stores Inc. as the largest U.S. company by sales.

Exxon Mobil, whose revenue exceeds the gross domestic product of such countries as Austria and Egypt, had $34 billion in cash and cash equivalents as of Sept. 30, even after almost doubling share buybacks to $12 billion, company filings show.

A 10 percent dividend increase announced by Exxon Mobil on Jan. 25 was the biggest since the company was formed in 1999 through the acquisition of Mobil Corp.

Chemical Engineer

Raymond, a University of Minnesota-trained chemical engineer who joined Exxon as a researcher in 1963, was paid $38.1 million in 2004, including $28 million in restricted stock awards, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Raymond and Tillerson both declined to be interviewed for this article.

To prevent its reserves from falling, Exxon Mobil each day must find the equivalent of about 4 million barrels of oil to replace the crude and natural gas the company is pumping. With the easiest big deposits already tapped, Raymond looked to increasingly remote and complex projects.

``They're going really deep and operating incredibly delicate systems in some of the harshest environments on earth,'' said Douglas Christopher, who helps manage $8 billion in assets, including Exxon Mobil shares, at Crowell Weedon & Co. in Los Angeles. ``High oil prices are the incentive they need to continue doing that.''

Russia, Angola

Exxon Mobil started pumping oil from the Chayvo field off Russia's coast in October as part of the $12.8 billion Sakhalin 1 development. Output there is expected to jump fivefold by the end of 2006 to 250,000 barrels a day. Exxon Mobil has a 40 percent stake. Some wells were drilled from shore, extending six miles (9.7 kilometers) to the field, to avoid having to drill in the ice-choked Sakhalin waters.

The company also increased output during the fourth quarter from the Kizomba B project, about 230 miles off the coast of Angola. Production began in July, five months ahead of schedule, and is expected to peak at 250,000 barrels a day. Exxon Mobil is operator and 40 percent owner of the project.

The Angolan and Russian projects and new wells slated to go online later this year in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan will enable Exxon Mobil to boost oil and gas production by almost 5 percent after half a decade of no output growth, Daniel Barcelo, an analyst at Banc of America Securities LLC, said in a Jan. 4 note to clients.

Barcelo, a member of Institutional Investor magazine's 2004 All-Europe Research Team while at Lehman Brothers Inc., said Exxon Mobil's net income will rise 15 percent this year.

Record profit margins on gasoline and other refined fuels contributed to fourth-quarter profit gains. The average U.S. gap between crude costs and fuel prices widened to almost $11 per barrel processed from $6.74 a year earlier, according to prices of futures contracts traded in New York. Some Gulf Coast refineries damaged by hurricanes in August and September were still shut down, reducing supplies.

Citigroup's Leggate said Exxon probably increased the amount of oil it refined in 2005 by 20,000 barrels a day to 5.732 million barrels.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Carroll in Chicago at jcarroll8@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 27, 2006 00:02 EST