HOUSTON — Exxon Mobil Corp. today reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008, breaking its own record for a U.S. company, even as its fourth-quarter earnings fell 33 percent from a year ago.

The previous record for annual profit was $40.6 billion, which the world's largest publicly traded oil company set in 2007.

The extraordinary full-year profit wasn't a surprise given crude's triple-digit price for much of 2008, peaking near an unheard of $150 a barrel in July. Since then, however, prices have fallen roughly 70 percent amid a deepening global economic crisis.

In the fourth quarter alone, crude tumbled 60 percent, prompting spending and job cuts in an industry that was reporting robust, often record, profits as recently as last summer.

Steel plant plans $13Min upgrades

BRIDGEVILLE — Universal Stainless & Alloy Products Inc. plans to spend $13 million to upgrade its melt shop near Pittsburgh over the next 15 months.

The company says the improvements will make its operation in Bridgeville more efficient and eventually save the company $7.5 million a year. The company hopes the improvements will start saving the plant money by the end of the year.

The upgrades to the plant's design, automation and layout should cut production times, improve on-time delivery of products, increase how much the plant produces, and lower its operating costs.

WASHINGTON — The economy shrank at a 3.8 percent pace at the end of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, as the deepening recession forced consumers and businesses to throttle back spending.The new figure, released today by the Commerce Department, showed the economy sinking at a much faster clip in the October-December period than the 0.5 percent decline logged in prior quarters.Although economists expected an even worse fourth-quarter performance — a staggering 5.4 percent rate of decline — the results were still grim.The report provided clear evidence of the economy's rapid deterioration as the housing, credit and financial crises — the worst since the 1930s — feed on each other. It's a vicious cycle that has proven difficult for to break.