Western oil companies profiting the most from the Ukrainian conflict have been named

The world’s largest oil companies have made profits of $281 billion since the outbreak of armed conflict in Ukraine in February of the year before last. A Global Witness study says five Western “supergiants” have become the main beneficiaries of the Ukraine conflict, while many Westerners struggle to heat their homes.

The world’s five largest listed oil companies have made profits of more than a quarter of a trillion dollars since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine sent energy prices and household bills soaring, The Guardian writes.

According to Global Witness, the “supermajors” – BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies – have earned $281 billion since the start of the Ukrainian crisis in February 2022.

UK-based BP and Shell have made a combined profit of $94.2 billion since the conflict in Ukraine began. Global Witness estimates that this is enough to pay all UK households’ energy bills for 17 months straight.

Shell, which has made a profit of $58.9 billion since the second quarter of 2022, is also in the process of cutting up to 330 staff from its low-carbon solutions division, refocusing this year on high-margin oil projects.

BP, which also decided to cut its climate targets last year, has made profits of $35 billion since the conflict began.

The largest European and American companies – Chevron, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies – received a combined profit of more than $187 billion.

Patrick Gailey, senior fossil fuel researcher at Global Witness, said the analysis shows that, regardless of what happens on the front lines, major fossil fuel producers are the main beneficiaries of the conflict in Ukraine.

Profits at international shipping companies and food suppliers have also risen sharply over the past two years, leading some economists to call for targeted price controls during the emergency, The Guardian notes.

Shell made a U-turn last summer, pledging to cut oil production every year until the end of the decade as part of a strategic transition away from fossil fuels and to “reward our shareholders now and into the distant future.”

The five biggest companies are forecast to reward investors with record payouts of more than $100 billion in 2023 when full-year data is released in the coming weeks, despite growing public outrage and criticism of the fossil fuel profit mechanism.

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said companies are likely to pay shareholders even more this year despite lower prices in commodity markets, leading to lower profits.

Oil majors enriched shareholders with dividends and share buybacks worth $104 billion in 2022, according to IEEFA.

“Now they are spending their income on handouts to investors and more and more oil and gas production, which Europe does not even need, and the climate cannot withstand,” says Patrick Gailey. “This is yet another way the fossil fuel industry is failing consumers and the planet.”

Last year was the hottest year on record by a wide margin, causing heat waves, floods and wildfires that claimed lives and livelihoods around the world.

The analysis found that some extreme weather events, such as heat waves in Europe and the United States, would be virtually impossible without human-caused global warming.

Isabella Weber, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, charted the growth of corporate profits in the food, shipping and oil and gas sectors.

Earlier this month she told members of the European Parliament that targeted price controls were needed to prevent firms from exploiting the crisis to increase profits and shareholder dividends at the expense of customers: “The energy crisis was the worst time for most Europeans, but the best time for energy companies. When emergencies mean record profits in critical sectors, government and corporate interests are at odds. We need a new emergency economics textbook. This raises the question of whether we can entrust systemically important sectors solely to these private corporations who found out about this… in the midst of a huge shock… Europe has experienced in recent history that they have made the largest profits in their entire history.”