Big Oil Sees Downtick in 2023

While the world’s major oil and gas companies have seen a fall from last year’s highs, they are still raking in major profits. The following chart shows how in the first six months of 2023, Saudi Aramco made $62 billion in net income, which is down 30 percent compared to the same time period one year before, but is still dwarfing its international competitors.

U.S. owned ExxonMobil saw earnings of $19.3 billion in the first half year of 2023, down 17 percent from the first six months of 2022, while Chevron recorded a 30 percent drop from $18 billion to $12.6 billion. Meanwhile, British company Shell saw its profits fall by more than a half in H1 (-54 percent), from $25 billion to $11.9 billion.

British owned BP, is the only company on the chart to see a better first six months this year than 2022. Last year, BP had exited its stake in Rosneft, a state-controlled Russian oil and gas company, in response to the invasion of Ukraine, in what was reported to be a financial hit of as much as $25 billion.