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ExxonMobil makes $10.4 billion
2nd-highest profit ever for any public firm

Surging oil prices may be emptying the wallets of drivers topping off their gas tanks, but they're filling the coffers at ExxonMobil, which Thursday reported the second-largest quarterly profit for a U.S. company.

Exxon, the world's most valuable company based on market value, reported a quarterly profit of $10.4 billion, 36% more than a year earlier. The massive profit is just shy of the record $10.7 million Exxon earned in the fourth quarter of 2005, says Reuters Fundamentals. It has posted four of the five largest quarterly profits ever reported, excluding unusual items.

Exxon's profit even surpassed Wall Street's high expectations by 6%, says Reuters Estimates. "They beat (estimates) consistently and quite handily," says Gene Gillespie, analyst at Howard Weil. "It was an excellent quarter."

So excellent, following a 65% jump in profit at ConocoPhillips (COP) to $5.2 billion Wednesday, political outrage has been renewed. Several Democratic representatives, including Steny Hoyer of Maryland, have called for a government effort to modify U.S. energy policies.

But on Wall Street, the energy industry has become a powerful force that's driving Corporate America's growth.

Energy companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 are expected to post 27.8% higher second-quarter earnings, says S&P. The six largest oil companies are expected to post more than $36 billion in earnings, Thomson Financial says. The industry's second-quarter growth beat all nine other industry sectors except for utilities (28% estimated growth). And energy's strong second quarter comes after 36.3% growth in the first quarter, which topped every other industry.

Energy companies are turning into such a force that they're lifting the earnings reported by the Standard & Poor's 500. Roughly a third of the earnings growth for companies in the S&P 500 came from energy companies, according to Reuters Estimates.

And energy is a big reason why the S&P 500 is expected to post 9.9% earnings growth in the second quarter, S&P says. Going into the quarter, S&P expected growth of 9.2%, potentially ending what has been 16-consecutive quarters of double-digit earnings growth.

Energy's earnings are just one part of what's been a positive earnings season, though. Of the 294 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported so far, 70% have beaten estimates, says Thomson Financial. And earnings have come in 5.8% better than expected.

But Ashwani Kaul of Reuters Estimates says companies have become cautious about the rest of the year. Largely due to guarded guidance from companies, analysts now expect earnings to grow 12.5% in the third quarter, vs. the 14% they expected two weeks ago. "Companies are taking a cautious approach for the second half," he says.