Exxon Mobil adds $2 billion to drilling, refining budget

Exxon Mobil Corp. said Wednesday it will plow an extra $2 billion a year into oil and natural-gas drilling, refining and chemicals manufacturing in order to lift output by 25 percent by the end of the decade.

The world’s largest publicly traded energy company, which reported the highest profit ever for a U.S. company in 2005, said capital expenditures would rise from $17.7 billion now to almost $20 billion a year between 2007 and 2010. By then, the company plans to pump 5 million barrels a day of oil and natural gas, up from 4 million barrels per day in 2005.

•As it struggled to gain new subscribers, TiVo Inc., the maker of the popular set-top digital video recorder, on Wednesday reported narrower fourth-quarter losses in line with Wall Street expectations.

To attract more subscribers, TiVo also announced a new pricing structure similar to cell phone service schemes: subscribers would no longer have to pay upfront for the set-top-box but would face only charges based on the length of a service contract.

•Strong gains in Europe and the introduction of the spicy chicken sandwich at its U.S. restaurants helped McDonald’s Corp.’s comparable sales rise 4.7 percent in February, the fast-food chain said Wednesday.

Sales at restaurants open at least 13 months rose 5.4 percent in Europe, where results have lagged during the company’s U.S.-led resurgence in the past three years. McDonald’s said the increase was driven primarily by strong results in France and Germany, with United Kingdom sales also rising modestly. The addition of promotional menu items and premium burgers helped results in all three of those markets, it said.

•Citibank said Wednesday it has blocked the use of some of its PIN-based debit cards after detecting fraudulent cash withdrawals in three countries.

Citibank said it began monitoring affected accounts after the breach “and in mid-February, we detected several hundred fraudulent cash withdrawals in three countries.”

The industry officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the three countries were Britain, Canada and Russia.

The bank said it blocked transactions on cards that may have been compromised in the breach after the fraud was detected. Debit cards often require the use of PINs, or personal identification numbers, for security.