High oil prices help Saudi Aramco earn $88B in first half

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By AYA BATRAWY

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi energy company Aramco said Sunday its profits jumped 90% in the second quarter compared to the same time last year, helping its half-year earnings reach nearly $88 billion. The increase is a boon for the kingdom and the crown prince’s spending power as people around the world pay higher gas prices at the pump while energy companies rake in top earnings.

Major oil companies had a strong quarter with Exxon Mobil booking an unprecedented $17.85 billion profit while Chevron made a record $11.62 billion. The U.K.’s Shell shattered its own profit record.

Aramco’s net profits were helped by second-quarter earnings ending in June that hit $48.4 billion — a figure higher than all of the first six months of 2021, when profits reached just $47 billion. It sets a new quarterly earnings record for Aramco since it first floated around 5% of the company on the Saudi stock market in late 2019.

Its earnings for just this past quarter are almost what Aramco’s full-year profits were in 2020, when demand for oil crashed during pandemic lockdowns. Its half-year earnings of $87.9 billion put Aramco on track to far surpass the full-year earnings of 2019, prior to the pandemic, when profits hit $88 billion.



FILE - Saudi Aramco engineers and journalists look at the Hawiyah Natural Gas Liquids Recovery Plant in Hawiyah, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia on June 28, 2021. Saudi oil company Aramco’s half-year profits peaked just shy of $88 billion for the first half of the year as oil prices remain high globally. The oil and gas company, which is nearly entirely state-owned, said Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, it also saw a 90% surge in net profits for the second quarter of 2022 compared to the same time last year. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-dubai-united-arab-emirates-02d93f532e4de19d23789bb4c0ec5cd9

[Evolve Dammit]

1. The good that could be done with that kind of cash. Nah. Oppression and torture is the way they roll

[SergeStorms]

3. And stupid golf tours.

Spending over $1 billion already trying to lure big name golfers from the PGA to their modified Bone-saw Tour.

And no one cares. No one wants to televise it, no one wants to attend the tournaments, and they're going to spend twice as much next year!

Yeah, the good they could do with that money, but instead they'll throw it away on something no one wants.

[NullTuples]

2. That $2-4 billion they gave Jared Kushner was just a drop in the bucket.