Aramco Posts Highest Profits For Any Firm, Ever

19 Aug 2022 Issue: 65 / 33 By: James Cockayne

Saudi Aramco’s $48bn Q2 profits were the highest ever for a listed firm. Both upstream and downstream figures were by far the best since Aramco’s late-2019 IPO on the back of $113/B crude, rising output and bumper refining margins. With the firm ramping up its own capex, CEO Amin Nasser also repeated his calls for more global investment to meet demand for hydrocarbons "for decades to come."

Saudi Aramco has posted the highest quarterly profit by any listed firm ever with the Q2 figure of $48.4bn almost twice the year ago level (see chart 1). The record profits were driven by “higher crude oil prices and volumes sold, as well as strong refining margins,” the firm said in its Q2 results on 14 August.

Aramco’s average Q2 realized crude price of $113.2/B was by some distance the highest figure since the firm’s 2019 flotation, whilst crude output and exports have ramped up as Opec+ output restrictions have eased – Aramco’s Q2 output figure of 13.6mn boe/d is up 2mn boe/d on a year earlier for the highest quarterly figure since 2018 (MEES, 19 August). (CONTINUED - 1465 WORDS)