By Athena Papakosta

The world’s largest energy company, the Saudi-controlled Saudi Aramco, announced yesterday, Sunday, that its profits for the year 2022 amounted to 161 billion dollars. This is the highest annual profit for a publicly traded oil and gas company with earnings up 46% from 2021.

Saudi Aramco is the latest energy company to post record profits this year. They were preceded by the American ExxonMobil with a record net profit of $55.7 billion and the British Shell with a net profit – also a record – of $39.9 billion.

Big oil profits are soaring after energy prices soared due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Just look at former Shell boss Ben van Burden’s total pay, which has skyrocketed to £9.7m, representing 294 times last year’s UK salary. While with regard to the profits of the American oil giant ExxonMobil for 2022, the White House itself entered into the process of commenting on them and indeed in a scathing manner, characterizing them as “outrageous” since, as he explained, at the same time, “American citizens are forced to pay high prices at the pump’.

Right now, Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest energy company, is hoping to boost output by taking advantage of China’s return to the global market as Beijing reopens its economy after lifting its strict coronavirus restrictions.

It has already put its crude output at about 11.5 million barrels per day and now aims to reach 13 million barrels by 2027. In particular, to boost production it plans to spend up to $55 billion in capital this year alone projects.

In its record earnings announcement on Sunday, it explained that these results were “supported by stronger crude oil prices, higher sales volumes and improved margins for refined products.”

For his part, CEO Amin X. Nasser said that “as we predict that oil and natural gas will remain essential for the foreseeable future, the risks of underinvestment in our industry are real – including contributing to higher energy prices.” , and added that, “to face these challenges the company will not only focus on expanding oil, gas and chemicals production – but will also invest in new low-carbon technologies.”

However, Amnesty International Secretary Agnes Callamard criticized the oil giant’s announcement saying it was “appalling for a company to make more than $161 million in a single year through the sale of fossil fuels – the biggest driver of climate change”. crisis”. While he added that “it is even more appalling that this surplus was built up during a global cost of living crisis and was aided by the increase in energy prices due to Russia’s war against Ukraine”.

At the same time, Aramco in the last quarter has increased its dividend to $19.5 billion, most of which will go to the Saudi government, which owns 95% of the company’s shares. As far as Riyadh is concerned, however, it is worth mentioning that it has criticized the West and Western energy companies for attempting an immediate and quick transition to clean energy.

At the same time, relations between Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest producer, and the United States were strained when OPEC+ (which includes Russia) last fall dramatically cut oil production by two million barrels per day. .

It was preceded by the efforts of the Biden administration to convince Riyadh to do the exact opposite, i.e. to increase production to reduce energy costs but also to prevent Russia from balancing its oil revenues that finance its war in Ukraine.

Washington still insists on this position. However, OPEC+ has not modified the production level to date and continues to act in its own interests.