On Monday, Shell said the margin earned for processing crude sank by 29% in the period. Its chemicals division — also a bellwether for the strength of the wider economy — expects to report a “marginal loss.” Strong gas production was one of a few bright spots.
BP followed on Friday with another warning flag: an increase in its net debt. This core metric has fallen in recent years — from $40 billion in 2020 to about $23 billion at the end of the second quarter — as high energy prices boosted profits.
Now, feeble refining income has halted the downward trend, while a change in the timing of asset-sale payments was also a factor.
These aren’t just issues for the European majors. On Oct. 3, Exxon Mobil Corp. said lower crude prices and poor refining margins would reduce earnings by $1.6 billion quarter-on-quarter.
Profits from processing are closely tied to demand for road fuels, so the decline indicates broad weakness in the global economy — notably in China, but also in the US and Europe.
Sunny ways, sunny ways!
Well … Brian Zinchuk has a simple answer for this … RAISE OIL PRICES NOW!! And for the love of God … do NOT elect anyone like Donald Trump who stupidly shouts “drill baby drill”. No, Brian insists we need $100/bbl oil prices again!! It’s for your (his) own good.
Meh
BP and Shell are two of the most progressive DEI “Must Address Climate Change” companies out there.
The economy is weak, but not because of oil prices. Electricity is another matter. Companies are getting strangled.
And that lowers government revenue, so maybe not a bad thing?
95%of Iran’s oil is shipped via Kharg Island. The IDF could bomb the crap out of it, cutting off Iran’s cash flow and hamstringing its ability to fund global islamofascist terrorism, while simultaneously boosting oil prices. That should make Shell Oil happier. I recall during the opec oil crises in the 70s, that the big oil companies all decide that “we’re in the energy business, not the oil business, “ and then pissed away billions on coal mines and uranium and electric motors and batteries. I once toyed an Exxon coal mine in West Virginia, which they’d opened in anticipation of the US government building a synthetic oil plant nearby. As we were passing a loader bucket big enough to park a couple of pickup trucks, I asked the mine boss what it cost them to produce a ton of coal, and what they sold it for. He told me that it cost them $35 a ton and they sold it for $30 a ton. I managed not to blurt out that “I guess you plan to make it up on volume, then”, but their plan seemed to be that they could sell their coal to the gubmint synfuel plant for more than market rates. The mine shut down a year later and the synfuel plant was never built. Exxon also blew a bundle on Exide Batteries and on mining uranium in New Mexico ( two industries they knew nothing about. Shell and BP’s adventures in renewables have followed much the same course.
So why is superstore gas now Mobil?