Nashville, Tenn. ? President Bush defended the huge profits of Exxon Mobil Corp. on Wednesday, saying they are simply the result of the marketplace and that consumers socked with soaring energy costs should not expect price breaks.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Bush also addressed oil’s future, offering a more ambitious hope than in his State of the Union speech for cutting imports from the volatile Mideast.

Bush, a former Texas oilman, said of oil costs, “I think that basically the price is determined by the marketplace and that’s the way it should be.”

“I believe in a relatively quick period of time, within my lifetime, we’ll be able to reduce if not end dependence on Middle Eastern oil by this new technology” of converting corn, wood, grasses and other products into ethanol, he said.