© Andrew Kelly/Reuters
Company took home about $6.3m an hour last year as oil majors expected to break their own annual records
Company took home about $6.3m an hour last year as oil majors expected to break their own annual records
Oil majors are expected to break their own annual records on high prices and soaring demand, pushing their combined take to near $200bn. The scale has renewed criticism of the oil industry and sparked calls for more countries to levy windfall profit taxes on the companies.
Exxon's results far exceeded the then record $45.2bn net profit it reported in 2008, when oil hit $142 a barrel, 30% above last year's average price. Deep cost cuts during the pandemic helped supercharge last year's earnings.
Comment: 2008 the year of the global financial crash..
"Overall earnings and cashflow were up pretty significantly year on year," Exxon's chief financial officer, Kathryn Mikells, told Reuters. "So that came really from a combination of strong markets, strong throughput, strong production and really good cost control."
Exxon said it incurred a $1.3bn hit to its fourth-quarter earnings from a EU windfall tax that began in the final quarter and from asset impairments. The company is suing the EU, arguing that the levy exceeds its legal authority.
Excluding charges, profit for the full year was $59.1bn. Production was up by about 100,000 barrels of oil and gas a day over a year ago to 3.8m barrels a day.
Comment: Meanwhile citizens of the West suffer worsening fuel poverty, are threatened with blackouts in the depths of winter, and their leadership proclaim all the supposed benefits of green energy: Britain to PAY homes to cut energy usage in bid to prevent blackouts amidst record cold weather