US Oil and Gas Giants’ Profits Skyrocket

Several European and US oil and gas Giants (producers), including France’s TotalEnergies, Norway’s Equinor, and Aker BP along with the UK’s Shell, released their quarterly reports this week. Thanks to the energy crisis, all four players delivered strong financial results. However, we can now see how the U.S. oil majors have performed in comparison with their European counterparts and themselves in these turbulent times, marked by price volatility and high demand.

Chevron reported on Friday that its earnings in the third quarter of 2022 were $11.2 billion, compared with $6.1 billion in the third quarter of 2021. The U.S. giant outlined that pension settlement costs of $177 million were included in this quarter while foreign currency effects increased earnings by $624 million.

The company posted adjusted earnings of $10.8 billion for the third quarter of 2022, compared to adjusted earnings of $5.7 billion in the third quarter of last year. Chevron’s sales and other operating revenues in 3Q of 2022 were $64 billion, compared to $43 billion in the year-ago period.

Commenting on this, Mike Wirth, Chevron’s chairman and chief executive officer, remarked: “We delivered another quarter of strong financial performance with a return on capital employed of 25 percent. At the same time, we’re increasing investments and growing energy supplies, with our Permian production reaching another quarterly record.”