Saudi oil giant Aramco announced record profits in 2022 on Sunday March 12 thanks to soaring crude prices, drawing criticism in the midst of the climate and energy crisis. The company, largely owned by the Saudi state, posted a net profit of 161.1 billion dollars, up 46% year on year, according to a press release published on the Riyadh stock exchange. These are the highest profits for Aramco since listing 1.7% of its shares on the Saudi Stock Exchange in December 2019.
Like other oil majors around the world that raked in record total profits of $151 billion in 2022, Aramco’s results have caused quite a stir. “It is shocking that a company is making more than $161 billion in profits in one year through the sale of fossil fuels, the main driver of the climate crisis,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard. , in a press release. “It is all the more shocking that this surplus has been amassed in the midst of a global crisis in the cost of living aggravated by rising energy prices”, a consequence of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, has she added.
On Wednesday February 8, it was the TotalEnergies group which announced a profit of 20.5 billion dollars, or approximately 19.1 billion euros. By way of comparison, the profits of the French multinational were 16 billion in 2021. Among the other closely followed indicators, the adjusted net income amounted to 36.2 billion dollars, double compared to 2021.
Other global oil giants are also posting impressive results. The American oil major ExxonMobil made a record profit of 55.7 billion dollars in 2022, taking advantage of the jump in the price of hydrocarbons linked to the recovery in demand and the drying up of Russian supply.
And his American compatriot Chevron is not to be outdone, since the company posts 35.5 billion in profits. The British energy giant Shell recorded the highest profit in its history in 2022 and announced massive redistributions to its shareholders. Shell saw its group share net profit climb to $42.3 billion. For its part, the British group British Petroleum revealed a profit of 26.7 billion dollars.
How to explain these record profits of the oil companies? The price of a barrel, which more than doubled thanks to the surge in hydrocarbon prices, was driven by the rebound in post-pandemic demand and by the drop in Russian exports after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The invasion created a shock wave in the oil market with the price of a barrel immediately soaring to reach the peaks from March to May 2022. With such profits, the important question is where does this money go? A large part of the profits is redistributed to the shareholders in the form of dividends.