Oil Giant Saudi Aramco Reports 33% Profit Surge, Despite Iran War Disruptions
Higher oil prices propelled a quarterly earnings jump for Saudi Arabia’s energy giant, which used pipelines to work around disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, on Tuesday reported a 33 percent increase in profit despite severe disruptions to its supply routes caused by the war in the Middle East.
The company said it earned $33.4 billion in adjusted net income in April through June, versus $25.2 billion in the same quarter last year.
Oil companies have reported multibillion-dollar windfalls for the second quarter because the war has driven energy prices higher. By some measures, Aramco’s quarterly profit was the biggest since 2022. The performance underscores the strength of Saudi Arabia’s state-owned energy giant, which has scrambled to find new export paths for its oil.
The United States and Israel launched military strikes against Iran on Feb. 28. Since then Tehran has effectively paralyzed vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for oil and gas shipments from the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia quickly redirected more than 70 percent of its oil through a pipeline from its eastern fields to western port terminals on the Red Sea.
That allowed Aramco to continue to export millions of barrels per day. The company produced the equivalent of 9.5 million barrels of oil per day in the second quarter, down sharply from 12.6 million barrels in the previous quarter. But it sold that oil for an average of $108 per barrel, a big jump from about $77 per barrel in the first quarter of the year.