Higher production increased refining profits and inflated oil prices surged up the Exxon Mobil Corp.'s first quarter earnings by 69%.

The analysts predicted the increase of $2.06 per share, though increase in Exxon Mobil's share prices was $2.14 a share, is mainly attributed to increase in production of natural gas and higher profits on chemicals. Still, the oil giant got penalized by decrease in its oil stock due failure in matching the previous quarterly profit record.

Exxon shares were down by $1.16 at $86.61.

The increase in production of the company was 10% to 4.82 million barrels of oil equivalent per day caused the increase in exploration and production revenues by 49% and the increase in production of natural gas is 24%. The decline in oil production of the company by 15,000 barrels per day is mainly due the effects of contracts for production sharing with foreign governments, OPEC quota and divestments. But neglecting these effects the oil production of the company would have been soared by 2%.

The chemical profits of the company surged to $1.5 billion, helped in overtaking the predictions made by the analysts.

Nancy Pelosi, Leader of Democratic House, said, "There is no reason American taxpayers should subsidize Big Oil's profits", in a statement.

According to the U. S. government, the gross domestic product slipped to 1.8% from 3.1% during the fourth quarter of last year.