The Saudi oil giant made a record £134B profit last year after the crisis in Ukraine sent energy prices skyrocketing
- Oil giant Saudi Aramco made a record profit of £134 billion last year
- The gain follows the rise in energy prices after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022
- Skyrocketing prices are the main cause of a global cost of living crisis
Oil giant Saudi Aramco reported a profit of £134 billion yesterday last year – a record for any publicly traded company in history.
The massive profits of the state-owned company formally known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Company follow soaring energy prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Sanctions then restricted the sale of Moscow’s oil and natural gas to Western markets, leaving them at the mercy of supplies from the Middle East.
The skyrocketing oil prices paid last year have been the biggest contributor to the cost of living crisis, not just in Britain but around the world.
Higher transportation and general energy costs mean consumers are paying more for everything from food to clothing.
Skyrocketing oil prices paid last year have been the main contributor to the cost of living crisis, not just in Britain but around the world
In addition to driving up global inflation, high oil prices have strained relations between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which owns 95 percent of Aramco’s shares.
President Joe Biden has already warned the capital Riyadh that “there will be some consequences for what they have done” in terms of oil prices. Earnings rose 46.5 percent last year compared to 2021 results, which were already close to a global corporate record. Aramco’s colossal earnings follow record profits declared by other oil giants in 2022.
Britain’s Shell and BP reported profits of £32bn and £23bn respectively, while the figure for US company ExxonMobil was £46bn.
But Saudi Aramco’s earnings put it in a completely different sphere, beyond any amount of money earned in a single year by companies like Apple or Vodafone. It comfortably beats the previous record for a publicly traded company – the £100bn profit also achieved by Aramco in 2018.
The huge profits across the sector have renewed calls in Britain for a new windfall tax on energy giants to ease the burden on struggling households.