BUSINESS: Saudi Oil major Aramco breaks personal record with quarterly profit of $48.4 billion

Sau­di Ara­bi­an oil giant Aram­co broke its own record with a prof­it of $48.4 bil­lion in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2022.

That was a 90% year-on-year increase and the biggest prof­it for the world’s largest ener­gy exporter since going pub­lic three years ago.

Oil and gas prices are soar­ing after Rus­si­a’s inva­sion of Ukraine.

Rus­sia is one of the world’s largest exporters, but the West has pledged to reduce its depen­dence on Rus­sia for its ener­gy needs.

Accord­ing to Bloomberg, the Sau­di oil com­pa­ny’s fig­ure equates to “the largest adjust­ed quar­ter­ly prof­it among pub­licly trad­ed companies.”

In addi­tion to record prof­its, the Sau­di state-owned ener­gy giant said it would keep its third-quar­ter div­i­dend unchanged at $18.8 billion.

The com­pa­ny says it will con­tin­ue to expand to meet demand.

Aram­co Chair­man and CEO Amin Nass­er said: “In the midst of con­tin­ued glob­al mar­ket volatil­i­ty and eco­nom­ic uncer­tain­ty, the events of the first half of this year are crit­i­cal to ensur­ing mar­ket secu­ri­ty and pro­mot­ing an order­ly ener­gy transition.

It con­firms our belief that con­tin­ued invest­ment in our indus­try is essential.”

“In fact, we expect oil demand to con­tin­ue grow­ing over the next decade, despite the down­ward pres­sure on the near-term glob­al eco­nom­ic outlook.

Even before the Ukrain­ian war, oil prices were already ris­ing as the econ­o­my began to recov­er from the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic and demand out­stripped supply.

The world’s biggest oil pro­duc­ers, includ­ing Exxon­Mo­bil, Chevron and BP, have post­ed huge prof­its this year, and with the cost of liv­ing sky­rock­et­ing, gov­ern­ments are step­ping up to impose tax benefits.

In June, U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden said Exxon “made more mon­ey than God this year.”