Oil company profits soared in the last quarter amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and skyrocketing gas prices, The New York Times reports.
ExxonMobil last week reported a record $19.7 billion in earnings between June and September.
Shell reported bringing in $9.5 billion over that time, the second-highest earnings on record.
Chevron raked in $11.2 billion in the third quarter, which is also its second-highest ever.
In total, the International Energy Agency projects that the net income for the world’s oil and gas producers is set to double from last year to a record-high of $4 trillion.
“Today’s high fossil fuel prices have generated an unprecedented windfall for producers,” the agency said last week.
Biden calls out:
President Joe Biden has called out oil giants for collecting record profits while hiking prices on consumers.
Biden slammed Shell for announcing a $4 billion stock buyback scheme.
“That’s more than twice of what they made in third quarter of last year. And they raised their dividends as well, so the profits are going back to their shareholders instead of going to the pump and lowering the prices,” Biden said last week.
He also called out Exxon CEO Darren Woods, who defended his company’s quarterly dividend as returning their profits to customers.
“Can’t believe I have to say this but giving profits to shareholders is not the same as bringing prices down for American families,” Biden tweeted.
Democrats push windfall tax:
Democrats in Congress have called for a windfall profits tax on oil giants’ profits over the summer.
“Not in a legal definition, but in most people’s minds, what’s happening with refined products, profits and margins probably qualifies as a windfall… “The optics are pretty bad. Record profits … aren’t exactly being cheered by a population that says, hey, we need a break from inflation,” Tom Kloza, the global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, told The Hill.
“If you were to have a virtual map of what’s occurred so far in the month of October, which is outside the realm of the third quarter profits, the numbers aren’t just off the charts, they’re off the wall the charts are on,” he added.
