Oil companies report sky-high profits thanks to wartime crude prices
npr.org50 points by speckx 2 hours ago
50 points by speckx 2 hours ago
Worst administration ever. Worst business leaders ever. I hope something can change.
Depends on the political perspective. Has the US bet all on AI tech to retain its power? Yes. AI tech currently is very energy intensive. So energy infrastructure too needs money to expand. The "colonisation" of Venezuela has already secured the US one relatively cheap and secure source of energy. The Ukraine-Russia war, and now the Iranian war, allows the US to price gauge Europe on the gas it sells them ( https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-war-europe-uk... ). The Iran war is also enriching the oil companies. If Iran can be colonised, another source can be secured for the US too. Or so the thinking goes ... (there are of course other political factors that these kind of energy politics helps the US).
Most corrupt administration. Hope all these guys do hard time.
Yeah what’s the chance we get the pardon power changed and can charge these losers?
Trump can pardon everyone on the way out, that is if democrats can even win another election due to election interference they're going to do. Based on the amount of corruption and crime they're doing they're don't expect to lose power.
America is not on the path for greatness? Consider me surprised.
Worked better when that was Clinton's slogan
Clinton's path to greatness got the US into the mess that it is in right now, the whole neoliberal agenda is to blame for this.
They're doing great if you're on the beneficiary side: oil companies, defense contractors, the Trump family, Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, etc.
All that is at the expense of the rest of the economy. The sectors that are hit the hardest tend to be, with the exception of those above, the ones who voted (disproportionately) for these people.
... which is what you get with a narcissist. The people hurt the most by a narcissist tend to be those closest or those that support them.
I'm pretty sure that Qatar and the Saudis are not exactly pleased with having their stuff blown up.
True but I’ve heard they are in support of Iran getting decimated so they can fill the power vacuum.
So many Americans don't understand that these two "branches" of the Muslim world are at odds as much if not more than Israel and the Muslim world.
That whole region is a mess of deep long-standing divisions.
Qatar is pretty much screwed as they can't get the gas out of the Gulf. The Saudis will have to eventually do something about Yemen, because Bab Al-Mandab tanker traffic is also under threat and Asia id paying good money for fossil fuels right now.
>defense contractors They are happy about missing out on the largest rearmament or Europe since the ww2?
US voters chose to reduce their taxes by a margin they won't notice in exchange for increasing their energy prices by an amount they will absolutely notice.
The wild thing is that this is an extremely predictable thing that has happened every time this political party is given control of the military. The chutzpah of claiming to be anti-war is breathtaking, and it's stunning that voters fell for it.
They didn't fall for it, this is what they want. They don't want low prices, they don't want cheap gas, they want war. They don't care how much they have to pay to get it. They want death and blood.
Engaging with their false narrative doesn't do anything but reinforce it.
I mean we can't ignore the other side running garbage candidates either. DNC leadership doesn't care as much about their opposition party winning as they care about not losing leadership of their own party. That would mean all the established party politicians would be at risk of losing their job, where as republicans winning means they only lose a handful of positions while bolstering their next campaign season so they can push in more party toadies. Plus they are completely out of touch with the average American which makes their campaign messages and stated policies weak.
I think politicians across the board are completely out of touch with the average US citizen. Some more than others, but in general they're from old money, Harvard educated, go golfing with CEOs, etc. It's always been this way, right down to the founding fathers.
Which isn't entirely a bad thing. The issues facing the world and the country are so much bigger than they used to be 200 years ago and aren't getting smaller. They require an entire team of educated people to fix. If only they weren't so corrupt. But since power corrupts, I'm not sure that's something that's even fixable at longer timescales.
There is one economic class that controls essentially all mass media, and even if their chosen candidates are 'out of touch' they can just blast every channel with propaganda until voters have the slogans burned into their memory.
There was a moment where a single channel, Tiktok, wasn't under their control, and they managed to force congress to force a takeover of that platform as well.
Why don't I hear anyone mentioning "Windfall profits tax" Are oil companies immune from legislation under the current administration?
The whole point of this war is to make money on oil.
In the past, yes.
Because this admin has only one person who calls the shots, it was started because he wanted it. Reports indicate that Bibi played on his ego, and recent "success" in Venezuela gave the illusion that "regime change" was easy, as well as an apparent long time hatred for Iran were the drivers here.
It is mind boggling that tens of millions of people continue to say "This is fine."
In Trump's past:
> In 1987, when Donald Trump was first flirting with running for president, he told an audience in New Hampshire that the United States should attack the "horrible, horrible country" of Iran, "and take over some of their oil." In the years since, Trump talked about grabbing control of the natural resources of Venezuela, Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, and Libya, too.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-energy-dominance-oil-i...
In his recent past:
> “To be honest with you, my favourite thing is to take the oil in Iran, but some stupid people back in the US say: ‘Why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people,” Trump told the British newspaper.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/30/trump-wants-to-inva...
Sure oil is always an intention for anything in the Middle East (except for Israel feeding the desire for the Apocalypse).
I just did a search to confirm my assessment and it points to Bibi playing Trump, along with America's best friend, Saudi Arabia wanting to smite their enemies.
Reason and logic have long left the chat. Everything happening now are based on Trump's whims and whoever can successfully flatter him into doing their bidding.
Not just Bibi, kushner and Saudi Royals as well. Kushner received billions of Saudi money for his fund. Bibi literally slept in Jared's childhood bed when visiting the states.
Obviously not, and a little part of me dies every time someone boils a complex issue down to an obviously wrong statement like this.
The war with Iran right now is the culmination of the war in Gaza. These are two battlefields in a larger conflict - the belligerents are Iran and its proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis) versus everyone else in the region.
Iran escalated the conflict (which previously was only simmering and involved occasional missile attacks on Israel) with the 10/7 attacks in response to Saudi Arabia and other regional powers normalizing relations with Israel. They did not properly account for Israel being led by warmongering right-wingers, nor did they account for the US being led by a geriatric man who seems like he might have dementia. They assumed, incorrectly, that the US would continue to be led by reasonable people who weighed the risks of closing the Strait of Hormuz (earthshattering) against the risks of continued Iranian-funded terrorism in the region (Israel gets more bad press and has to keep spending money on missile defense).
The goals of this war, in a geopolitical sense, are to force Iran to abandon its proxies and to lead to regime change in Iran. The fact that the current US administration is made up of morons who should never been placed in power doesn't change that. The goals of any war are best explained by geopolitical factors and not whoever is in charge, because geopolitical factors are real and enduring while presidents and kings change often.
If anything, Trump's only pressing need at the moment is to get oil prices down so that the GOP isn't completely blown out in the midterms by $6/gal gas prices. Oil companies making money is not the cornerstone of US foreign policy, no matter how often people like citing it.
This isn't going to happen because Hormuz is likely to be closed for years to come. Eventually domestic economic pressure will force Iran to the negotiating table; the regime needs to sell oil almost as bad as Trump needs low gas prices. God willing all of the parties involved will have better leadership by then.
would you buy chevron stock now ?
If you buy now, you are buying high. The time to buy was before the war was announced publicly. That's what insider trading is for.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CVX/chevron/gross-...
doesnt seem like a very profitable company
They can go even higher if we make more war
Hopefully oil prices stay high or go higher, helps clean tech and electrification accelerate. We are too lazy otherwise to transition off of fossil fuels faster.
> Combined, the three companies raked in, on average, some $404 million in profits every day for the last three months.
Just for perspective, Nvidia's daily profits for the past quarter are $641 million. For Apple it's $327 million.
If you constrained the inputs of Apple or Nvidia then their sales and profits would tumble (just look at what happened to Apples stock price in the last week because of the memory chip shortage).
Off the top of my head I can’t think of another company or industry that would profit from a supply side shock the way the oil industry does.
It'll trickle down any day now, can't wait to win!
And it would be worse if China didn't take extraordinary actions to cut its oil consumption by 40% yoy - back to the level of consumption from 19 years ago:
https://www.axios.com/2026/07/30/china-oil-price-iran-power
If they can't sustain that level, or decide to stop taking action, the level of pain is going to be immense.
Hooray for their investors, I guess.
Grotesque, but unsurprising
Someone I know bought two electric cars earlier this year and is very, very happy.
Hilariously, Trump will go down as the most significant POTUS in history for the transition away from oil.
Everyone in the world (except our very own kakistocracy) is scrambling to decouple from this energy source.
Yeah I drive about 40 miles a day and pay about $20 per month. I would have had to pay $350/month or so with an equivalent gas vehicle.
Ignoring that your math doesn't add up at all, whenever someone tells me how much money they are saving per month by switching to EV, they always conveniently leave out the $35k-$80k cost of the car plus new tires every $often miles, while my fuel-efficient ICE car is paid off. Oil changes twice a year, buy oil in bulk at Costco.
350 how? my subaru gives me 30 mpg in the city.
SUV and California gas prices?
suv? crostrek is an suv and all suvs in that class seeem to have even better milage than my old crostrk.
And most SUVs aren’t a crosstrek. There are valid point of comparison that aren’t your car.
Equivalent gas Ford F-150, I have a lightning
> I have a lightning
...which are going for $50k-$75k USED.
Did you forget to amortize that number or is it included in the $20? Will you pay off the loan in the year 2326?
A new gas F150 isn’t that far off they cost roughly 50,000 as well which is what my truck cost, new.
WTF do you drive, a RAM 2500? If the gallon is $4, the $350 is 90 gallons.
A RAM 2500 gets 12 city. 40 miles city per day over a month would be 100 gallons, which at today’s average price in California is $565.20/mo
They’re doing a bit better than that.
Before 2008 oil was above 100$ per barrel, and dollar was worth a lot more back then.
Is your point that such historical prices only occur when the shit is hitting the fan? Because the first time oil ever went above $100 was at the start of the 2008 financial crisis...
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oil-prices-top-100-for-first-ti...
I often wonder how people so quickly forget this. That said, the inflation we have seen since could be such that $100/barrel today is equally or more burdonsome.
*shocked pikachu*