KATHMANDU, March 12: This represents an increase of 46.5% for the state-owned company, compared to last year.
It is the latest energy company to report record profits, after energy prices soared following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The American Exxon Mobil earned 55.7 billion dollars and the British Shell reported 39.9 billion dollars.
Aramco also declared a $19.5 billion dividend for the October-December 2022 quarter, to be paid in the first quarter of this year.
Most of that dividend amount will go to the government of Saudi Arabia, which owns nearly 95% of the company’s shares.
Brent crude oil, the benchmark oil price, is now trading around $82 a barrel, though prices topped $120 a barrel in March, after the Russian invasion, and June.
“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 have a strong performance in 2022.”
In a statement Sunday, Aramco said the company’s results were “supported by stronger crude oil prices, higher volumes sold and better margins for refined products.”
Aramco Chairman and CEO Amin Nasser said: “As we anticipate that oil and gas will remain essential for the foreseeable future, the risks of underinvestment in our industry are real, including contributing to energy prices. Taller”.
To address those challenges, he said, the company will not only focus on expanding production of oil, gas and chemicals, but will also invest in new low-carbon technologies.
Aramco, the world’s second most valuable company behind only America’s Apple, is a major emitter of greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.
Responding to Aramco’s announcement, Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard said: “It is shocking that a company makes a profit of more than $161 billion in a single year through the sale of fossil fuels, the largest driver of the climate crisis.
He added: “It is all the more shocking because this surplus was accumulated during a global cost-of-living crisis and aided by rising energy prices as a result of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Saudi Arabia is the largest producer of the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil cartel.
But the Gulf kingdom has been condemned for a range of human rights abuses: its involvement in the conflict in neighboring Yemen, the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, its jailing of dissidents and its widespread use of the death penalty.
