Exxon posts record $56bn profit for 2022 in historic high for western oil industry

Exxon Mobil made a whopping $56 billion in profit for 2022, Reuters reports.

The eye-watering amount set not only a company record but a historic high for the western oil industry.

Oil majors are expected to break their own annual records on high prices and soaring demand, pushing their combined take to nearly $200bn. 

The scale has renewed widespread criticism of the oil industry and sparked calls for more countries to levy windfall profit taxes on the companies.

The White House was among those to blast the enormous earnings. 

The Biden administration said that Exxon’s profit margin was particularly galling as Americans paid record-high prices at the pump. It criticized attempts by Republicans in the House of Representatives to push policies aimed at supporting the oil industry.

The Exxon profits mean the massive company took home about $6.3 million an hour last year. 

Exxon’s results far exceeded the then-record $45.2 billion net profit it reported in 2008, when oil hit $142 a barrel, making it 30% percent more than last year’s average price. 

But last year the company raked in over $10 billion more. 

Deep cost cuts during the pandemic helped supercharge last year’s earnings.

The total was more than double 2021’s figure. 

A White House statement on Tuesday said it was “outrageous that Exxon has posted a new record for Western oil company profits after the American people were forced to pay such high prices at the pump amidst Putin’s invasion.

“The latest earnings reports make clear that oil companies have everything they need, including record profits and thousands of unused but approved permits, to increase production, but they’re instead choosing to plow those profits into padding the pockets of executives and shareholders,” said White House spokesman Abdullah Hasan.

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