Oil Giants Earn $93 Billion in Three Months of War with Iran
As heatwaves and rising energy prices hit the world, the eight largest oil companies doubled their profits, a Global Witness report reveals.
As heatwaves and rising energy prices hit the world, the eight largest oil companies doubled their profits, a Global Witness report reveals.
The world's eight largest oil companies made nearly $93 billion (€85.5 billion) in profits in the three months to the end of June, nearly double their combined earnings in the same period a year earlier. This period, from April to June 2026, marked the first full financial quarter since the start of the war against Iran, which sent shockwaves through the market unprecedented in its history.
According to a report published by The Guardian on August 4, Aramco, BP, Shell, Equinor, TotalEnergies, Eni, Chevron, and ExxonMobil earned more than $700,000 (€644,000) for every minute of the war during the three months. Their combined market value rose by approximately $600 billion, surpassing the $3 trillion threshold.
The largest single profit was made by Saudi Arabia's Aramco, with over $33 billion, despite the fact that Iranian and Yemeni forces attacked its facilities with drones and missiles during the quarter. It was followed by ExxonMobil with $14.5 billion, while Chevron earned $12.2 billion, five times more than a year earlier. Shell recorded its second-strongest quarter in history with $9.84 billion, despite billions of dollars in war damage that reduced gas production at its plant in Qatar. BP reported $5.73 billion, and Equinor $3.2 billion in profits.
Patrick Galey, a leading fossil fuel expert at Global Witness, sharply condemned these results. "BP's massive profit is a scandalous reminder of who has profited from human misery this year," Galey told The Guardian.
Criticism also came from an unexpected direction. US President Donald Trump accused Chevron and ExxonMobil of "making too much money" from his war against Iran, saying the public would get that money back. Galey responded ironically: "You know big oil is leading us by the nose when one of their biggest allies, Donald Trump, tells them to curb their profiteering."
While oil giants were piling up record revenues, Europe was experiencing its worst heatwave ever recorded. In the UK alone, nearly 3,000 heat-related deaths were recorded during May and June, and across Europe that number rises to around 20,000.
Scientists warn that the worst is yet to come. Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, estimates there is a 35% chance that 2026 will surpass 2024 as the hottest year on record. He has revised this figure upward almost every month, from just 7% in March. "The world is now once again in flames with climate change in a way that is increasingly hard to ignore. It will only get worse," Hausfather said.
Galey linked the two phenomena, noting that profits are rising "while wildfires threaten communities around the world, drought bites, and energy costs rise," and that "ordinary families are paying the price because shareholder wealth is prioritized over life on the planet."
According to the Carbon Majors database, no corporation in history has emitted more carbon than Aramco. Research published in September 2025 calculated that each of the 14 leading fossil fuel producers individually emitted enough greenhouse gases to generate more than 50 heat events that would otherwise have been "impossible" without human contribution.
