March 6, 2023: In 2022, Oil firms pulled in record profits as oil prices skyrocketed.

Revenues for the significant integrated European and American oil firms nearly doubled in 2021. Profits increased.

But that has also started backlash from consumer advocates and political leaders.

“Oil firms’ record profits are not because they’re doing something innovative or innovative,” President Joe Biden said on October 31.

“Their gains are a windfall of war, the windfall from the brutal conflict ravaging Ukraine and hurting tens of millions of people near the globe.”

The industry has said that depicting oil firms as greedy war profiteers is false.

“You continue to hear this administration discussion about the need for more supply, but they invite windfall profits, taxes or cost gouging, or they isolated federal lands for oil and gas growth,” said Frank Macchiarola, the current senior vice president of policy, regulatory affairs and economy at the American Petroleum Institute.

“They discuss the need for permitting reform and more infrastructure, but then they cancel pipeline projects.”

And while oil firms raked in cash in the previous 2022, their fates are closely tied to the oil price; when it falls, they lose. They are bracing for a world where the oil demand is expected to decline. They are predicting that decrease themselves.