Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the two largest energy companies in the United States, said Friday that profits rose in the second quarter as they continued to reap the benefits of rising oil and gas prices.
Exxon reported income of $17.9 billion for the three months through June, more than three times what it made a year ago. The energy giant’s revenue rose to $115.6 billion, from $67.7 billion a year ago. Chevron’s performance was similar, with profits more than threefolding to $11.6 billion while revenue rose to $65 billion, compared to $36 billion a year ago.
After oil prices nearly doubled from a year ago, the best results were expected, but Exxon and Chevron still beat analysts’ forecasts for profit in the quarter. Shell, the largest oil company in Europe, also reported a record quarterly profit.
The energy industry’s windfall followed a spike in crude oil, natural gas and gasoline prices this year, mainly due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and attempts to punish Moscow by selling petroleum to the rest of the world. to stop. A global economy that has recovered from the coronavirus pandemic and oil producers’ reluctance to ramp up production quickly has also pushed crude oil prices sharply.
In the three months to June, the U.S. crude oil benchmark averaged about $109 a barrel, or 64 percent more than the same period a year earlier, data from Bloomberg shows. On Friday, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude was closer to $99 a barrel.
Gasoline prices in the United States hit a national record average of just over $5 a gallon on… 14th of June, according to AAA, but have also fallen in recent weeks. On Friday, the national average price was about $4.26 a gallon.
Those gas prices have become a major problem for Americans dealing with inflation, which is at its highest point in… four decadesand have led to sharp criticism of energy producers from President Biden, who in June said that “Exxon made more money than God this year,” while reprimanding the company for not investing enough in production.
In a letter to the top executives of major oil companies later that month, Mr. Biden accused them of profit-seeking at the expense of consumers.
“In times of war, refinery profit margins that are well above normal and passed directly to American families are not acceptable,” Biden said in the letter. More recently, the president prices of the falls in gas prices.
Exxon said Friday that its refining profits, revenues that come from processing crude oil into gasoline and other fuels, have risen to $5.3 billion, from a loss of $865 million a year ago. At Chevron, refining profits were $3.5 billion in the second quarter, up from $839 million a year earlier.
The profit bonanza for oil producers has not been lost to equity investors this year. The energy sector is one of two groups in the S&P 500, out of 11 in total, that posted gains in 2022. (The others are utilities.)
Collectively, the energy sector is up 32.5 percent through Thursday, while the broader S&P 500 is down 15.1 percent. Shares of Exxon and Chevron both rose in premarket trading Friday.