Big oil companies are sitting on a mountain of money like never before in their history. According to the latest data published by Bloomberg, the five largest international energy firms generated nearly $70 billion in cash flow in the second quarter of 2026, the highest figure ever recorded.
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The list includes giants such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, TotalEnergies, and BP. By comparison, the previous peak of about $60 billion was reached in the second quarter of 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The sector recalls that it has had to invest a lot and has worked hard to guarantee supplies
In addition, the combined net profit of this galaxy of companies increased by 160% in the last quarter compared to the same period the previous year, reaching $47 billion. This is the third highest figure recorded, more than doubling previous results.
The boom is explained by the supply crisis caused by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which before the conflict nearly a fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas and oil passed. This shortage has driven up commodity prices: Brent has gained more than 30% in the last year, with fluctuations around $100 a barrel, which has inflated these companies’ margins.
Some consider these profits excessive and call for an extraordinary tax
Another study released Monday by the NGO Transport & Environment (T&E) focuses on the location of the profits and highlights Europe, with similar conclusions. Six companies — BP, Shell, Eni, Orlen, Repsol, and OMV — more than doubled their profits in the European Union in the second quarter of this year compared to the same period last year.
Here the question arises: what are these energy giants doing with all this money? “Mostly, they are saving it,” Clark Williams Derry of the IEEFA institute told this newspaper. “They are not using this cash to increase production, which would help lower prices, nor to return it to their shareholders.” In fact, a Wood Mackenzie study confirms this picture and forecasts that share buybacks by major energy companies will fall by about 5% year-on-year in 2026.
“The cynical way to describe the financial strategy is: ‘pray for war.’ Big oil companies need periodic price spikes — like the crises in Ukraine and Iran — simply to sustain their finances. For them, the intense suffering of consumers and the global fuel shortage act as a financial antidote against long periods of low and stable prices that erode their accounts,” Williams Derry asserts.
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For their part, sources from these companies recall that in previous years the sector already had to invest heavily to remain competitive — after the multimillion-dollar losses suffered during the pandemic — with the aim of securing supply when markets tightened, as happened months ago when kerosene for airplanes had to be guaranteed.
“The price surge reflects a geopolitical conflict, not underlying demand, and companies know this very well,” says Fraser McKay of Wood Mackenzie. “Their balance sheets are stronger than years ago, but the instinct is to preserve that resilience and position for the future rather than spend now. However, if prices hold in the second half of the year, pressure to deploy capital through share buybacks, mergers and acquisitions, or new investments will intensify.”
Even Donald Trump said that “oil companies make too much money”
On August 3, President Trump criticized the big US oil companies ExxonMobil and Chevron for taking advantage of high crude prices. “They are making too much money based on a shortage,” he told reporters at the White House. “I don’t like it, and I should be the last to say it because I’m a big supporter of free enterprise; no one more than me.”
Thus, after the publication of these results, the debate returns on whether it would be appropriate to introduce an extraordinary tax on the profits of these companies. The concept of “windfall profits” — highly controversial — refers to those not linked to innovation or efficiency, but to geopolitical and external market factors beyond the companies’ control. “Profits of this magnitude, generated in a few weeks from a supply shock that European consumers had to bear, fit any reasonable definition of excessive,” explains Daniel Quiggin of T&E. According to him, companies should accelerate the green transition. An extraordinary tax would serve to fill this gap and protect the very consumers who financed these profits.
The fact
Spain, a profitable market
After Poland, Spain is the second place in Europe where the most profits have been generated in the first half of the year, according to T&E, reflected in the good results obtained by Repsol and Moeve. Both control everything from refining to direct distribution at gas stations, allowing them to capture margin at every stage of the value chain in the Spanish market. Additionally, Spain has one of the most powerful and modern refining capacities in the EU (with large plants in Cartagena, Bilbao, Tarragona, Castellón, Huelva, and Algeciras), which means much of the fuel processing consumed or exported in the region generates its accounting entry and profit within the state. And with the energy crisis, refining margins multiplied.
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