From Reuters:
Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) posted a $56 billion net profit for 2022, the company said on Tuesday, taking home about $6.3 million per hour last year, and setting not only a company record but a historic high for the Western oil industry.
[…]
Exxon's results far exceeded the then-record $45.2 billion net profit it reported in 2008, when oil hit $142 per barrel, 30% above last year's average price. Deep cost cuts during the pandemic helped supercharge last year's earnings.
So yeah, all you trolls who thought you were being so clever putting Dark Brandon stickers on the gas pumps claiming "I did that!"? You got duped. Exxon just screwed your over and made you watch Biden while they did it.
It's not just Exxon, either. Shell had a banner year as well. From NBC News:
Shell reported adjusted earnings of $39.9 billion for the full-year 2022.
This comfortably surpasses the $28.4 billion in 2008 which Shell said was the firm's previous annual record and is more than double the firm's full-year 2021 profit of $19.29 billion.
Shell announced a $4 billion share buyback program, which is expected to be completed by its first-quarter 2023 results, and a 15% dividend per share increase for the fourth quarter.
But I'm more interested in Exxon right now, because of this other news that came out in mid January. See, in case you hadn't heard, Exxon's own company research from the 70s clearly showed that an increase in the burning of fossil fuels over the subsequent decades would warm the Earth's average temperature and lead to catastrophic climate change. After learning this, the company continued funding the research, and then spent billions of dollars covering up their own research and smearing climate change as a scam in order to secure the aforementioned record-breaking profits.
We already knew all that though. According to a new study, however, it turns out that Exxon's research was shockingly accurate, too — they had an even better grasp on the situation that the non-corporate climate scientists sounding the alarm! From Axios:
Exxon scientists have been at the forefront of climate change research using computer models, the study published in the journal Science shows. According to the study, between 63% and 83% of the climate projections reported by Exxon scientists were accurate in predicting subsequent global warming.
The Exxon scientists' projections showed the world would warm at a rate of about 0.20°C per decade, which was in line with independent academic and government studies in the 1970s through the early 2000s.
According to the study, Exxon's research also led to an accurate estimate of how much carbon dioxide could be emitted before the world would warm by more than 2°C.
This implied that some of the company's oil and gas holdings could become stranded assets, but such risks were not communicated to the company's investors or the public, the study notes.
But hey, they broke historic highs for profits in the Western world, so clearly it was worth it, right?
Exxon smashes Western oil majors' profits with $56 billion in 2022 [Sabrina Valle / Reuters]
Exxon's climate research accurately projected global warming, study finds [Andrew Freedman / Axios]
