Oil majors garner $200b revenue, lack of capacity and theft hamper Nigeria
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Five global oil majors – ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies – are set to declare $200 billion revenue from high barrel prices, with Nigeria looking on, hampered by inadequate capacity to meet OPEC quota combined with oil theft.
Africa’s biggest economy has made little or no gain since oil prices rebounded post pandemic, as the country is ram-raided by low oil production, depleted excess crude account, and high fuel subsidy spending.
The five biggest oil majors in the world are expected to report record profits for 2022 in the coming days, from about $200 billion in combined yearly earnings, Oilprice reports, as quoted by The Guardian.
The profit would be around a quarter lower than the combined earnings for 2022, but they will still be a whopping $150 billion for 2023, analysts say.
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Washington criticises Big Oil
Record quarterly earnings the majors reported for the second and third quarters of 2022, have already drawn intense criticism from Washington which has scrambled to have gasoline prices down from the record levels seen in June.
The Biden Administration has accused Big Oil of “war profiteering” and called on companies to invest in more supply or “face higher taxes.”
In Europe, the record earnings are already subject to windfall taxes, which ExxonMobil has challenged in court.
The five oil and gas supermajors are expected to report at the end of January and early February combined 2022 earnings of $200 billion, according to early estimates compiled by S&P Capital IQ and cited by the Financial Times.
Fourth-quarter earnings will still be well above year-ago levels, although lower than the record quarterly profits for Q2 and Q3.
The majors’ earnings for 2023 are set to drop from the 2022 record to around $150 billion, which – despite the decline – would be the second-highest profit haul for Big Oil, per projections by S&P Capital IQ.