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Exxon made US$6.3M an hour in 2022, US$56B in profits
– Guyana earned US$1.27B in profits
Kaieteur News – American oil giant, ExxonMobil made US$6.3 million an hour in 2022 resulting in its highest profit ever of a whopping US$56 billion.
On Thursday, the Guardian reported that ExxonMobil made US$56 billion in profits, or US$6.3 million an hour, last year after the war in Ukraine ignited a surge in global oil and gas prices. It was stated too that the company’s record profit was also the highest reported by any western oil company.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ExxonMobil, Darren Woods
The news agency also said that the oil industry’s outsized profits were criticised as “outrageous” by the United States President, Joe Biden, during his State of the Union address in February. Biden has previously accused Exxon of making “more money than God”.
ExxonMobil main US rival, Chevron, had a record US$36.5 billion profit, while the European oil company Shell announced the biggest profits in its 115-year history, at US$39.9 billion, and BP reported a US$27.7 billion profit.
In the United Kingdom (UK), oil industry profits stoked public anger, leading to calls for a windfall tax on companies that had profited from the surge in global energy market prices as a result of the war in Ukraine. In May 2022, the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced an “energy profits levy” against oil company profits to help support households struggling with their energy bills. The current chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, later toughened the windfall tax as part of his autumn statement in November but faced renewed calls to adapt it after the announcement of bumper earnings from BP and Shell earlier this year.
Additionally, the Guardian also reported that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ExxonMobil was handed a 52 percent pay increase to US$35.9 million for 2022, after the oil company reported its highest profits ever.
The media entity reported that Darren Woods’ salary rose by 10 percent to US$1.9 million last year while his bonus and share awards surged by 80 percent compared with the year before. The company said the bumper payday was “reflective of record company earnings and stock price performance”.
In an official company filing, Exxon’s remuneration committee said that under Wood’s leadership the company had “delivered exceptional business results”. Meanwhile, the company’s share price outpaced its industry rivals last year after climbing by 160 percent.
In December 2022, Kaieteur News had reported that the US-oil major announced that Woods and other executives will be benefitting from an increase on their annual base salaries. This announcement came after it was reported in the media that the company’s British employees had taken to the streets protesting more than the ‘pitiful’ 2.5 percent increase.
On the local front, ExxonMobil Guyana is the operator of Guyana’s Stabroek Block which is estimated to hold 11 billion barrels of oil. The 2016 deal the country signed onto allows the oil major and its partners to enjoy tax-free profits in Guyana and the deal has been heavily criticised as one that benefits the company more than it does the country.
On this backdrop, at the end of 2022, petroleum revenues for Guyana paid into the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) stood at US$1.27 billion.
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