As Jon Stewart pointed out recently, let’s not feel bad for the oil companies.

Poor BP set a record quarterly profit of $6.118 billion, or roughly $55,000 per minute.

And news comes out today that Exxon second quarter profits for this year jumped 36 percent.  They netted "earned $10.36 billion in the second quarter, the second largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company."

Also, Shell just announced its second quarter profits.  They went up 40 percent in the second quarter, with a net yield of $7.32 billion.

Meanwhile, at the pump, here’s the NC graph:

Happy motoring, everybody!

UPDATE:  Think Progress reminds us of the politics behind the oil and gas interests:

One year ago today, Congress finalized the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which lavished $14.5 billion in tax breaks on energy firms, nearly 60 percent of which went to “oil, natural gas, coal, electric utilities and nuclear power.”

One year ago, the average national gas price was $2.14. Today, it’s $3.00. The country is no closer to ending its addiction to oil, and fuel economy standards are still stuck at 27.5 miles per gallon (where they’ve been for 20 years). Meanwhile, “five of the world’s largest energy companies are expected to report combined second-quarter profits next week of more than $30 billion.”

For most Americans, this is no reason to celebrate. But most Americans aren’t “Representatives of industries who are benefiting from tax incentives available through the Energy Policy Act of 2005.” Those industry reps are holding a “celebration” of the bill on Capitol Hill today with Energy Secretary Bodman….