Oil Giants Face Backlash for Handing Record Profits to Investors
- Dividends, buybacks exceed capital spending by $20 billion
- President Biden calls for profits to be used to cut prices
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Big Oil’s record profits are a huge hit on Wall Street but increasingly provocative in the corridors of power from Washington to London as politicians lash out against executives for funneling windfall profits to investors.
The controversy this week was not so much about the gargantuan dollar amounts earned but what the world’s largest energy companies chose to do with them. Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Shell Plc and TotalEnergies SE are handing almost $100 billion to shareholders annually in the form of buybacks and dividends while reinvesting just $80 billion in their core businesses this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.