The Justice Department had alleged that Mobil, based in Fairfax, Va., underreported the value of oil it took from federal and Indian lands in California, the Rocky Mountains and the Gulf of Mexico between 1980 and last year.
Oil companies pay royalties based upon the value of the oil they have extracted.
The state of Texas, in lawsuits filed in 1995, claimed that Mobil and eight other oil companies underpaid royalties for oil production on state lands. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Texas officials on Friday praised the twin settlements. Royalties collected by the Texas General Land Office for drilling on 20.4 million acres in state lands and the Gulf of Mexico benefit public education, with the money flowing to the Permanent School Fund and the Permanent University Fund. Earlier this year, the Justice Department intervened in a lawsuit filed in Lufkin, Texas, by private parties against 16 oil companies. As part of the Mobil settlement, the complaint against Mobil was unsealed Friday in Lufkin and dismissed.