DALLAS – Soaring energy prices catapulted Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, to a second-quarter profit of more than $10 billion.

The company promises to ignite industry-wide growth and public outrage all year.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC came close to matching Exxon Mobil Corp.’s 36 percent quarterly earnings boost on Thursday, posting net income of $7.3 billion, an increase of 40 percent from the year before.

The oil and gas industry’s prolific profits come as motorists in the U.S. pay an average of $3 per gallon at the pump and as Washington lawmakers consider opening two drilling areas of the Gulf of Mexico currently off-limits.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) said Thursday that American consumers have been “tipped upside down and have (had) their savings shaken out of their pockets at the gas pump.”

Across the globe, energy-intensive businesses, such as shippers and chemical manufacturers, are feeling the pinch from higher prices, while oil exporting nations in the Middle East and beyond are experiencing rapid economic growth.

Crude-oil prices are hovering near $75 a barrel and analysts do not foresee a drop anytime soon given the world’s rising appetite for fuel and supply threats that pump fear into the market.

“We continue to see demand growth year over year,” Henry Hubble, Exxon’s vice president of investor relations, told analysts. “We’re selling everything we can make.”

If prices stay at these levels, look for more record-breaking profits soon, said Fadel Gheit, analyst for Oppenheimer & Co.

“The rising tide lifts all boats,” Gheit said. “Unless there is a price collapse of oil, you will see the second half of the year best its first half.”

Congress has been urging the big oil companies to put more of their profits toward boosting the supply of energy for consumers. This week the Senate sought to help the industry by working on an election-year bill that would open a large area of the central Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling.

By a vote of 86-12 the Senate agreed Wednesday to proceed with the legislation that opponents fear could clear the way to lifting a federal drilling moratorium that has protected 85 percent of the country’s Outer Continental Shelf from New England to Alaska for a quarter century.

Hubble told analysts that Exxon will boost capital spending from the previously stated $19 billion by another $1 billion this year, though one-third of that increase is tied to rising costs for labor and equipment.

Exxon Mobil’s production has increased 6 percent from a year ago and 9 percent if the impact of divestments are excluded.

“For a company of this size to report that sort of production, that growth is quite remarkable,” said Tina Vital, equity analyst for Standard & Poor’s.