Oil industry to blame for rising Gas prices?

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90.5 billion was Exxon Mobile’s revenue in the first three months of 2022.
5.5 billion was the profit.

Revenue is up 53% from 59.1 billion in quarter one of 2021.
And profit is up 104% from 2.7 billion.

54.4 billion was what Chevron made in quarter one of 2022.
6.3 billion was the profit.

Revenue is up 70% from 32 billion in 2021.
And profit is up 350% from 1.4 billion.

83.4 billion was what Shell made in quarter one of 2022.
7.1 billion was the profit.

Revenue is up 41% from 59 billion in 2021.
And profit is up 24.6%. from 5.7 billion.

Right now, everyone is complaining about gas prices and pointing out issues with profits in the oil industry as one of the big problems.

Looked at the numbers of three of the largest oil companies in the US and while they are all up, none of them are up enough to justify the price increases.

Exxon had a profit margin of 6% in quarter one of 2022.
Up from 4.5% in 2021.

Chevron had a profit margin of 11.1%.
Up from 4.3% in 2021.

Shell had a margin 8.5%.
Down from 10%.

All the oil companies hold higher profits and most of them have better margins, but nothing that’d justify the increase in oil prices.

Which these margins are all noticeably higher than 2020, but that was a massive loss year due to COVID.

  • Exxon lost 22.4 billion.
  • Chevron lost 5.5 billion.
  • Shell lost 21.6 billion.

Margins are up massively in a chart the last 24 months, because the oil companies were nearly at bankruptcy in 2020.

Which just a comparison to pro COVID with cheaper oil, lets look at 2019.

Exxon made 14.3 billion in profit in 2019.
Revenue was 264.9 billion, putting the margin at 5.3%.

Chevron made 2.9 billion in profit in 2019.
Revenue was 146.5 billion, putting the margin at 2%.

Shell made 15.8 billion in profit in 2019.
Revenue was 352.1 billion, putting the margin at 4.5%.

Margins today are higher, but not that much, over other years.

With the complaint over profit with oil companies, it could be an issue, but a really small one.

So what’s the actual problem?

11.9 million barrels a day is the current US oil production.
Down from 12.3 million in 2019.

Demand has also normalized to 2019 levels.

The other issue is Russia, which was 8% of US imports and over 30% of European imports.

That reduced supply was the biggest cause of issues in the US.

The good news though.

The US is projecting 12.8 million barrels a day to be in production for 2022 and will restart exporting oil at a surplus, back to 2019 levels.

This should be away to lower profits down again and is partially a factor in increased profits creating a new incentive to drill.

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