WASHINGTON — As consumers struggle with record high gasoline prices, Exxon Mobil Corp. announced Thursday that its revenue totaled more than $82 billion in the first three months of the year.

The world’s largest publicly traded oil company boosted its profit by 44 percent, to $7.86 billion, from the same quarter a year ago. That left Exxon with a cash hoard of $30 billion.

Other oil companies’ profits are surging as well, leaving them with piles of cash. "There’s an embarrassment of riches now that is unavoidable," said Lawrence Goldstein, president of the New York-based Petroleum Industry Research Foundation Inc.

Exxon Mobil pumped an average of about 2.54 million barrels of oil a day last quarter — slightly more than the output of Kuwait. The Irving, Texas-based company’s sales for the quarter were more than the annual economic output of New Zealand.

Exxon Mobil and other major oil companies are benefiting from the same thing that has hurt consumers and is slowing economic growth: high crude oil prices. A barrel of oil averaged nearly $50 for the quarter, about 42 percent higher than during the same time last year.

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Increasing demand in China, India and elsewhere has pushed the world’s oil production close to its limits, leaving little cushion in the event of a terrorist attack or some other problem that affects production. Concern over those issues has caused traders to bid up the price of crude.

Among companies reporting quarterly profits in recent days, ConocoPhillips Inc. was up about 80 percent compared with the same quarter last year, Royal Dutch Shell Group climbed 28 percent and BP PLC’s increased 35 percent.

The major oil companies are selling crude they pump from the ground at higher prices while their costs are not significantly increasing. At the gas pump, where gas prices remain above $2 a gallon, Exxon Mobil is reaping more profit than in previous years as margins have widened slightly, analysts said. But the company’s officials are quick to note that their gasoline refining and marketing is far less profitable than their crude production.

The oil companies, which also produce natural gas, are benefiting from continued high natural gas prices, but analysts said those operations have not generated significantly more profits compared with last year.

Exxon Mobil’s profits have increased significantly in its chemical production businesses — a sector that has become more profitable as a result of worldwide economic growth bumping up demand.

It said it is returning some of its profit to shareholders by increasing dividends and accelerating a stock buyback program. The company has not dramatically accelerated spending in exploration and drilling, which analysts attributed in part to a lack of opportunities that would yield the kind of profits that Exxon Mobil demands.

"The whole industry is cash rich and opportunity poor," said Fadel Gheit, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. in New York.

Other major oil companies have also resisted significantly increasing their budgets for exploration and drilling, leaving some international energy officials concerned about whether there will be enough oil flowing from the ground from now on.

The profit announcements come a week after the House approved energy legislation that gives billions in subsidies to oil and gas companies to encourage new production. The Senate plans to consider its version of the legislation next month.

Lawmakers who opposed the legislation said the profit reports are evidence that the subsidies are not needed. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said oil companies are asking for subsidies at the same time they’re "shaking money from out of (consumers’) pockets at the gas pump."

"I’m sure that they are chuckling at the continued support that they receive from the Republicans on these subsidies," Markey said.

But supporters of subsidies said that oil prices eventually will fall and the energy legislation is designed to encourage production even when that happens. "Profits aren’t always up," said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. "There are lots of times the oil market is different and the profits are down or non-existent."

In 1980, after a rise in oil prices and company profits, Congress approved a windfall profits tax on oil companies. As prices and profits have risen during the past year, a similar tax has not been on the agenda. Markey said he was too busy fighting against oil industry subsidies to press for a tax on oil companies.

The industry says among oil companies that have reported earnings this quarter, profit margins have averaged nearly 9 percent, which is just below the average across all U.S. companies that have reported results this quarter. Exxon Mobil had a profit margin of about 10 percent. It said its results were boosted by the sale of an interest in a Chinese oil company.

"There’s no windfall profits," said John Felmy, the chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group in Washington.