Eight of the biggest oil companies amassed profits of more than $90bn (\u00a367bn) in just three months as the Iran conflict sent energy prices soaring and the emissions-fuelled climate crisis caused deadly heatwaves.<\/p>\n
The windfall war profits have reignited calls for oil and gas supermajors such as Saudi Aramco and BP to pay for the environmental damage caused by \u201ccashing in on human misery\u201d and fund a rapid transition to renewable energy.<\/p>\n
Guardian analysis found that the eight listed oil producers made almost $93bn (\u00a369bn) in the three months to the end of June \u2013 the first full financial quarter after the US-Israeli war on Iran triggered a surge in global oil prices to highs above $126 a barrel<\/a>.<\/p>\n Graph showing changing oil prices<\/a><\/p>\n The companies have used the biggest disruption of fossil fuel supplies in the market\u2019s history<\/a> to almost double their combined profits from just under $50bn in the same period last year, with campaigners warning that millions of households are left paying the price in higher bills and climate chaos.<\/p>\n The data suggests the eight oil companies \u2013 Aramco, BP, Shell, Equinor, TotalEnergies, Eni, Chevron and ExxonMobil \u2013 made more than $700,000 of profit every minute over the spring quarter.<\/p>\n While their market valuations were swelling by about $600bn to above $3tn, temperatures built towards a run of deadly heatwaves<\/a>, all made more likely and more severe by burning fossil fuels.<\/p>\n Carbon emissions from the world\u2019s biggest fossil fuel firms were directly linked to fatal spells of hot weather<\/a> for the first time by scientific analysis published last September. It found the emissions from any one of the 14 biggest companies were each enough to cause more than 50 heatwaves that would otherwise have been virtually impossible.<\/p>\n Blackheath in south London, a wide open common usually known for its sweeping green spaces and views, has been left looking scorched and barren by the severe drought that was officially declared across more than half of England in late July 2026. Photograph: Fraser Gray\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n The biggest oil profits in the spring quarter were raked in by Saudi Arabia\u2019s state-owned oil company, Aramco, which reported a 34% increase in its quarterly net income to more than $33bn, even as its infrastructure was damaged by drone and missile strikes<\/a> from Iranian and Houthi forces.<\/p>\n Quarterly profits for the eight oil companies<\/a><\/p>\n Saudi Aramco\u2019s fossil fuel production has made it responsible for more carbon emissions than any company in history<\/a>, according to the database Carbon Majors, followed by Chevron and ExxonMobil and with Shell and BP in the top 10. Saudi Arabia has for decades led successful efforts to block and delay international climate action<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, BP became one of the last big oil companies to publish its results for the April to June period, reporting quarterly profits of $5.73bn \u2013 the highest since the first year of Russia\u2019s full-scale war on Ukraine and more than double the $2.5bn of the previous three months.<\/p>\n Graph showing rising oil company profits<\/a><\/p>\n Patrick Galey, the lead on fossil fuels at Global Witness, said: \u201cBP\u2019s sky-high profits are a scandalous reminder of who\u2019s been cashing in on human misery this year. While wildfires threaten communities across the world, drought bites and energy costs spiral, ordinary families are paying the price for big oil\u2019s prioritisation of shareholder wealth over a livable planet.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cIt\u2019s time to make oil giants pay up to repair the climate breakdown they\u2019re driving. Think how many fire and flood defences we could build, or how many solar panels we could install, if big oil paid their fair share in taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosie Downes, the head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, said: \u201cWhile BP banks another round of enormous profits, millions of households are paying the price through sky-high energy bills and a climate crisis accelerating rapidly out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n BP\u2019s new chief executive, Meg O\u2019Neill, defended the company\u2019s profits by saying it was \u201cfocused on the things we can do to try to help address the situation\u201d such as reliably producing more of the oil products that were in short supply.<\/p>\n The company has been cutting the amount it spends on green energy since it dropped its environmental ambitions in a \u201cfundamental reset\u201d early last year<\/a>, reducing its annual energy transition budget from $5bn to $1.5bn-$2bn.<\/p>\n In recent years BP has spun off its UK offshore windfarms into a joint venture and sold its US onshore wind business, and on Tuesday it announced it would sell its $4bn US biogas business, which captures methane from landfill sites and is the largest renewable gas producer in the US.<\/p>\n It is in advanced talks to sell its solar power business, Lightsource, to a consortium backed by Kuwait\u2019s sovereign wealth fund, according to the Financial Times.<\/p>\n On Friday, BP put its North Sea oil and gas business up for sale<\/a> after more than 60 years operating it, reigniting calls for the UK government to rule out the development of two controversial North Sea fields in the ageing basin.<\/p>\n Shell last week reported its second highest quarterly profits ever<\/a> as its net income jumped to $9.84bn, despite producing less gas from its Qatar gas plant due to billions of dollars\u2019 worth of damage caused by the war. Equinor\u2019s profits climbed to $3.2bn in the same period, up from $1.8bn in the spring quarter last year.<\/p>\n In the US, the profits reported by Chevron and ExxonMobil provoked criticism from Donald Trump<\/a>. The US president accused the pair of \u201cmaking too much money\u201d from his war on Iran and warned that they would be made to return profits to the public, as he nears the November midterm elections with flagging approval ratings.<\/p>\n Chevron reported net income of $12.2bn for the second quarter, a more than fivefold increase on the same period last year. ExxonMobil reported a profit of $14.5bn, double what it made in the same period a year ago and its highest quarterly profit since Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n Graph showing rising global temperatures<\/a><\/p>\n Galey said: \u201cYou know big oil is taking us for a ride when one of their biggest allies, Donald Trump, is telling them to rein their profiteering in.\u201d<\/p>\n The impacts this summer include Europe\u2019s worst ever heatwave<\/a>, another categorised by scientists as \u201cimpossible\u201d without human-caused global heating. About 20,000 people are estimated to have died due to the extreme temperatures, including close to 3,000 in the UK<\/a> in May and June alone.<\/p>\n South Korea and Japan<\/a> have also experienced record-breaking heat of up to 42.5C, with the Korean weather agency instructing people to \u201cimmediately stop all outdoor activities<\/a>\u201d, while the climate crisis pushed up temperatures across much of Africa<\/a> in July. Global heating makes every heatwave more intense and more likely, and rising global temperatures kill one person a minute<\/a> around the world, a report in the Lancet estimated in October.<\/p>\n The UN climate chief, Simon Stiell, said: \u201cAround the world, climate-driven disasters are reaching nightmare proportions. What needs to be done is clear: leave coal, oil and gas behind faster, scale up renewables, and protect people where the impacts are already hitting hardest.\u201d<\/p>\n A firefighter works to extinguish an advancing wildfire near Formariz in Zamora province, Spain, on 29 July Photograph: \u00dcmit Bekta\u015f\/Reuters<\/p>\n Europe\u2019s succession of heatwaves has sucked soils dry<\/a> and led to extreme drought, damaging food supplies from maize to sunflowers to salad<\/a>. At least 9m tonnes of grain<\/a> are expected to be lost, with the UK, for example, facing its worst harvest on record.<\/p>\n The arid conditions have also enabled huge wildfires in France, Spain,<\/a> Portugal and Greece, causing billions of euros of damage<\/a>. The blazes send toxic air pollution soaring and in the US and Canada the fires from 15-23 July are estimated to have caused about 4,000 deaths<\/a> within a week of exposure. The climate crisis is making fire weather worse and about 1.5 million people a year<\/a> have their lives shortened by wildfire smoke.<\/p>\n In south Asia, the climate crisis is supercharging extreme rainfall \u2013 air that is 1C warmer holds 7% more water. More than 40cm of rain fell in 24 hours<\/a> in Chattogram in Bangladesh in early July, for example, leading to flash flooding. Floods and landslides have taken lives and livelihoods in Pakistan<\/a> and India<\/a>. There have also been dozens of fatalities in north-west China<\/a>, where many thousands of people have been evacuated due to heavy storms.<\/p>\n The eight oil companies were contacted for comment.<\/p>\n The Guardian\u2019s climate forum 2026<\/a>: on Tuesday 20 October, join Damian Carrington and our panel of experts \u2013 including Prof Andy Haines, Katie White MP, Asad Rehman, Shruti Suresh, Gareth Thomas and Amy Fairman \u2013 for a hopeful and solutions-focused evening. Book tickets here<\/a> or at guardian.live<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eight of the biggest oil companies amassed profits of more than $90bn (\u00a367bn) in just three months as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-575134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}