Eight of the world's largest oil producers combined for nearly $93 billion in profit in the second quarter of 2026 — almost double their combined result of roughly $50 billion in the same period a year earlier, according to OilPrice.com. The five supermajors alone generated nearly $90 billion in cash, described as an all-time high. Their combined cash reserves rose by just over $17 billion on a quarterly basis. The bulk went into stockpiles, not new wells.
The source of the windfall is the US-Israeli war on Iran, which began on February 28, 2026. The conflict brought tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to a near-halt. That narrow waterway connects the Persian Gulf to world markets, and roughly one-fifth of the world's oil and natural gas supply passes through it. The International Energy Agency (IEA) described the disruption as the largest in the history of the global oil market.
The price effect was immediate and severe. Brent crude, the global benchmark, averaged around $97 per barrel in March 2026 — up 33% from the $69 average in February, and well above the $65 recorded in January, according to Reuters. Prices spiked as high as $120 per barrel in the weeks that followed. The average ICE crude price stood at $96.68 per barrel in the second half of 2026, compared with $66.71 in Q2 2025, according to Al Jazeera.
The gains landed unevenly but widely across the eight named companies — Saudi Aramco, BP, Shell, Equinor, TotalEnergies, Eni, Chevron, and ExxonMobil. Saudi Aramco reported Q2 2026 earnings rising 44% year-on-year to $32.69 billion. Chevron posted $12 billion — a $9.6 billion jump year-on-year, its highest quarterly profit in six years, with upstream earnings surging 200% to $8.2 billion. TotalEnergies' earnings rose 67%, its best quarter in nearly three years, according to Al Jazeera.
Shell's Q2 2026 profits reached $9.84 billion, more than double the $4.26 billion earned in the same quarter a year earlier, with first-half 2026 earnings up 70% versus the prior year, according to the BBC. BP reported Q2 profit of $5.73 billion against $2.35 billion in Q2 2025. ExxonMobil posted $14.5 billion in earnings — more than double its Q2 2025 result — though the figure fell short of Wall Street expectations. The shortfall was attributed to production disruptions in Qatar, where the conflict's effects complicated operations, according to Al Jazeera.
The scale of the windfall extends well beyond the majors. Analysis cited by The Guardian found the world's top 100 oil and gas companies earned more than $30 million every hour in excess profits in the first month of the war, with estimated windfall profits of $23 billion for March alone. If oil averages $100 per barrel through end of 2026, those 100 firms could earn $234 billion in windfall profits for the year. Wood MacKenzie puts the broader industry's potential annual windfall at $425 billion if crude averages $90 per barrel, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
What the majors are doing with the cash is where the story complicates. Analysis from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) indicates the companies have largely been stockpiling cash and paying down debt rather than channelling funds into new production projects, according to CNBC. Wood MacKenzie research points to a similar pattern of sitting on cash rather than investing it, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The precise breakdown across dividends, share buybacks, acquisitions, and debt reduction for each company has not been fully disclosed.
The political reaction has been unusually broad. President Trump publicly accused ExxonMobil and Chevron of making 'too much money.' Legislators including Senator Whitehouse have proposed windfall tax legislation that would split excess profits evenly between oil companies and a fund redistributing tax rebates to lower-income Americans, according to NPR. Whether any such measure advances in Congress, or receives the president's signature, remains unknown.
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