Saudi state-owned oil giant Aramco sees record profit of $161bn

• Aramco announced a record profit of $161.1 billion in 2022.
• Aided by rising energy prices and higher volumes.
• Aramco made a profit of $161bn in 2022, but is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Aramco, the largest oil company in Saudi Arabia, has announced a record profit of $161.1 billion (£134 billion) for 2022, aided by rising energy prices and higher volumes.

In comparison to last year, it marks a 46.5% increase for the state-owned business.

With the surge in energy costs brought on by Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it is the most recent energy company to announce record earnings.

ExxonMobil in the US made $55.7 billion, and Shell in the UK made $39.9 billion.

Aramco also announced a $19.5 billion dividend for the October to December 2022 quarter, which will be paid in the first three months of this year.

The Saudi Arabian government, which holds about 95% of the company’s shares, will receive the lion’s share of that dividend sum.

Although prices topped $120 per barrel in March, following Russia’s invasion, and June, Brent crude oil, the benchmark oil price, currently trades at about $82 per barrel.

“Aramco rode the wave of high energy prices in 2022,” said Robert Mogielnicki of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “It would have been difficult for Aramco not to perform strongly in 2022.”

Aramco said in a statement on Sunday that greater margins for refined goods, larger sales volumes, and stronger crude oil prices had all contributed to the company’s success.

Aramco’s president and CEO Amin Nasser said: “Given that we anticipate oil and gas will remain essential for the foreseeable future, the risks of underinvestment in our industry are real – including contributing to higher energy prices.”

He said that in order to meet those difficulties, the firm would not only concentrate on raising the production of oil, gas, and chemicals, but it would also make investments in new low-carbon technologies.

Aramco, the second-most valuable business in the world only after Apple of the United States, is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

Responding to Aramco‘s announcement, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard said: “It is shocking for a company to make a profit of more than $161bn in a single year through the sale of fossil fuel – the single largest driver of the climate crisis”.

She added: “It is all the more shocking because this surplus was amassed during a global cost-of-living crisis and aided by the increase in energy prices resulting from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”

Within the Opec oil cartel, Saudi Arabia is the top producer (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries).

Nonetheless, the Gulf state has come under fire for a number of human rights violations, including its participation in the conflict in neighboring Yemen, the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, the imprisonment of dissidents, and the widespread use of the death penalty.

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