Chevron reported its largest quarterly net profit ever—$12.1 billion—on Friday as the Big Oil giants demonstrate how they’re reaping the rewards of the Iran war’s oil and gas supply disruptions worldwide.
ExxonMobil’s $14.5 billion second-quarter income and Shell’s $10.8 billion in net earnings represented their most profitable quarters since 2022, when they previously benefited from Russia’s still-ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Not only are the oil and gas producers profiting from much higher crude oil prices, they’re also gaining from record oil-refining margins and sky-high petrochemical gains in North America—all of which are up because of the effective closure of the now-infamous Strait of Hormuz. The combined windfalls triggered rare net profits in the 11 figures.
Citing further bullishness, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said he doesn’t expect the conflict to result in much reduction of global fossil fuel demand beyond the short term.
“Demand destruction is not obvious to me at any significant scale,” Wirth said in the earnings call. “I would say it’s hard to find evidence of that at this point.”
