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FORTUNE 500: Shakeup at the top
Surging oil prices pushed Exxon Mobil to No. 1, displacing Wal-Mart, while solid growth worldwide gave a lift to most of the 500.

By Grace Wong, CNNMoney.com staff writer
April 3, 2006: 8:25 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Exxon Mobil hauled in nearly $1 billion a day in sales last year, making it the biggest company in the United States and knocking Wal-Mart from the No. 1 spot for the first time in four years, according to the latest FORTUNE 500.
The oil company's revenue and profit were the biggest ever for a U.S. company, while Corporate America overall racked up a staggering $9.1 trillion in sales and $610 billion in profits -- both records.
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But even while Exxon (Research)'s sales jumped to $340 billion and its earnings surged 42.6 percent, the oil company's stock posted a one-year return of 11.7 percent, which wasn't very high on FORTUNE's list of best-performing investments.
Soaring oil prices were a big part of the reason for Exxon's revenue gains. Crude prices broke the $70-a-barrel level after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, while oil demand climbed worldwide.
Oil demand was climbing because the global economy was humming.
Anchored by renewed strength in Asia, especially Japan, and a solid performance in the U.S., worldwide economic growth was 4.25 percent last year, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
And furious growth in China and India, as well as the long-awaited recovery in Japan, helped swell the bottom lines of American companies, which receive an increasing share of their revenue from operations overseas.
Exxon wasn't the only energy company to benefit from last year's spike in oil prices. A range of businesses -- from pipelines to providers of oil and gas drilling equipment -- dominated the Fortune 500 when it came to revenue and profit growth.
It's no surprise, then, that energy companies took five of the top 25 spots on the list.
Chevron (No. 4) and ConocoPhillips (No. 6), the second- and third-largest oil companies after Exxon, both moved up, from No. 6 and No. 7 last year. Independent refiner Valero Energy (No. 15) jumped seven spots, and Marathon Oil (No. 23) moved into the top 25 from No. 31 last year.
Together, the five largest oil companies gushed about $836 billion -- or 28 percent of the combined revenue of the 25 largest companies -- making 2005 a year for Big Oil to remember.