Exxon Mobil posted a $56 billion profit for 2022, the company said on Tuesday, taking home about $6.3 m an hour last year, and setting a new company record for the western oil industry.
Oil majors are expected to break their own annual records due to high prices and soaring demand, pushing their combined take to close to $200 billion. The scale has provoked criticism of the oil industry and prompted calls for more countries to levy windfall profit taxes on the companies.
Exxon's results far exceeded the $45.2 billion net profit it reported in 2008 when oil hit $142 a barrel, a 30% increase over last year s average price. The earnings of the pandemic were supercharged last year by deep cost cuts.
Exxon's chief financial officer, Kathryn Mikells, told Reuters that earnings and cashflow were up a lot year on year. It came from a combination of strong markets, strong throughput, strong production and good cost control. Exxon incurred a $1.3 billion loss to its fourth-quarter earnings because of a EU windfall tax that began in the final quarter and asset impairments. The company is suing the EU, arguing that the levy exceeds its legal authority.
The profit for the full year was $59.1 bn, excluding charges. Production went up by about 100,000 barrels of oil and gas a day over a year ago, to 3.8 million barrels a day.