The adjusted benefitswhich exclude book losses caused by withdrawals from Russia, are around 200,000 million.
The companies took full advantage of the price escalationwith a barrel of Brent -reference of black gold- touching the $140 in March 2022and with gas at 350 euros per megawatt hour last summer in Europe, 15 times more than the usual price.
Since then, prices have gone down but in 2023 “we may have other peaks, as the war in Ukraine is far from over,” he warned Adi ImsirovicResearch Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
Despite uncertainties in the global economy, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) does not expect demand to drop and, on the contrary, predicts a growth by 2023 (+2.2 million barrels per day (mbd) in 2023, after the increase of +2.5 mbd in 2022).
The cost of energy dilemma
The profits amassed by large groups pose a dilemma for the political class in the West, where life has become more expensive and in Europe and the United States the price of energy has added pressure on daily activities and the cost of living.
“I do my part to lower prices, the time has come for Big Oil to do its part,” he said. Joe Biden last week, alluding to the big oil companies. This Wednesday, the US president demanded that his proposal for increase taxes on estates of more than 1,000 million. “It can’t be that a billionaire pays the same taxes as a firefighter” in his State of the Union address. On Tuesday, called the benefits of these companies “scandalous”.
In Francethe announcement of the earnings of TotalEnergies (20.5 billion dollars) fueled the debate as to whether those “super benefits“They should be taxed more.
In it United Kingdomthe government approved in May 2022 a tax on exceptional energy profitssomething that the European Union also did in September, with a “temporary solidarity contribution” that exxons denounced in court.
“What we need right now is more supply. Instead, what has been put in place is a penalty to the energy sector as a whole“, lament Darren Woods, Chairman of Exxon.
The oil companies accumulate two years of profit recovery: in 2021 due to the post-pandemic and then for having opted for “assets with strong added value” such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, he pointed out. Moez Ajmifrom the EY cabinet.
Energy prices in 2023
And now? “In my opinion, prices will increase because of the Western oil embargo on Russia, so those companies could be as profitable in 2023 as they were in 2022,” Ajmi added.
According to him, the demand will continue to be high due to “the renunciation of the zero covid policy in China.”
A demand for oil and gas is also driven by tens of billions of dollars in consumer subsidies, measures that “prolong the crisis,” according to Adi Imsirovic.
By wanting to “subsidize fossil fuels […] demand continues to grow instead of falling,” he said, adding that EU governments should be content to help “the poorest” in the first place.
Source: Ambito
