The war between the United States and Iran, now in its sixth month, has led to one of the starkest economic divides in recent history. As households and businesses across the world contend with soaring fuel bills, blackouts, and rationing, major oil companies are reporting some of the richest quarterly profits in their history. There are already questions as to whether such gains only reflect the realities of a disrupted market, or whether the companies are profiteering from a crisis.
With the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the growing tensions in the Bab-el-Mandeb, global markets have been starved of supply, pushing Brent crude from prewar levels of around $72 to $73 a barrel to a peak above $120, briefly touching $126.
For producers outside the immediate combat zone, that scarcity has translated directly into pricing power. Trading divisions have profited further still, capitalising on the sharp daily swings that volatile markets tend to produce.
The scale of the windfall is clear from second-quarter results. ExxonMobil reported a profit of $14.53 billion, more than double its total from the same period last year. Chevron's profits reached $12.07 billion, up 385 per cent from $2.49 billion 12 months earlier, on revenues of $70.06 billion. European producers have posted similarly historic numbers. Norway's Equinor saw adjusted profits nearly double to $11.5 billion, having moved early in the war to raise output and fill the gap left by restricted Gulf shipping. Shell's profits climbed to $9.84 billion, up from $4.26 billion a year earlier, while France's TotalEnergies also doubled its quarterly profit, to $5.44 billion.
Not every producer has come through unscathed. State-owned firms based in the Middle East have felt the conflict far more directly. Saudi Aramco's earnings rose by a comparatively modest 27 per cent, weighed down by higher security costs and its proximity to the fighting. Shell, too, suffered a setback of its own, after a missile strike badly damaged its Pearl gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar, a facility not expected to be fully repaired for around a year.
Refining has proved just as profitable as extraction. With processing capacity in the Gulf and Russia damaged by the fighting, plants still able to operate have run at close to full capacity, capturing exceptional margins in the process. By late July, the profit made from converting crude into usable fuel had reached $50 to $60 a barrel, well above the typical $20 to $25 range. For consumers, the effect has been that pump prices stayed high even during brief dips in crude prices, as refiners continued making money, as one industry observer put it, "hand over fist".
The disparity has drawn sharp criticism. Activist groups like Global Witness have accused oil producers of enjoying what they call "a very good crisis", even as hundreds of millions of people endure blackouts and energy rationing.
Governments have begun to respond, though unevenly. Portugal has introduced a 33 per cent windfall tax on the extraordinary profits earned by domestic oil and refining firms in 2026, with the proceeds directed towards vulnerable households and renewable investment. In the United States, Democratic lawmakers including Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Ro Khanna have proposed a 50 per cent excise tax on windfall profits, to be returned to consumers directly. With Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress, the measure has little realistic chance of passing.
For now, the major oil companies show little appetite for reinvesting their gains in new drilling, preferring instead to hold onto cash. That restraint suggests that supplies are likely to remain tight, and profits exceptionally high, for as long as the war continues.
