After rebounding from the massive demand shock triggered by Covid-19, the revenues of the world's top 10 publicly traded, oil-producing companies increased by nearly 46% in the first half of 2021, according to data compiled by Anadolu Agency from their financial results on Monday.
Collective revenues of the big oil companies have exceeded $825 billion during the January-June period of 2021, having only recorded $566 billion in the same period of last year.
Soon after the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down global mobility and hit global economies last year, both benchmarks set historic record lows and oil demand also dropped to a level never seen before. Companies operating in the oil sector had to navigate through many difficulties as low oil prices negatively impacted their balance sheets.
As a result, major oil companies, including American ExxonMobil, Chevron, French Total, Royal Dutch Shell, British bp, Italian ENI, Norwegian Equinor, Russian Lukoil, Rosneft, and Saudi Arabian oil company Aramco declared huge year-on-year losses in 2020.
Developments following the ongoing pandemic, with either new or continued lockdowns and other measures implemented by various countries, new outbreaks, and the success of ongoing vaccination efforts still continue to impact energy demand and prices in a more volatile market. However, markets are currently showing signs of recovery as oil demand rebounds and prices rise to pre-pandemic levels.
Accordingly, the revenues of the 10 major oil firms saw a rise of $259 billion to $825 billion during the first half of the year, calculations from the financial results data showed.
Saudi Aramco, Chevron, Equinor and Lukoil were the companies whose revenues increased the most during this period. Aramco increased its revenue by 66.8%, Chevron by 54.7%, Equinor by 54.2% and Lukoil by 53.8% during the first six months of the year.
Shell, however, recorded the lowest year-over-year revenue growth at 29.4%.
-Aramco remains in the lead
When all companies incurred huge losses last year due to the pandemic, Aramco was the only one that announced a profit in the first half of the year. The company declared a $45 billion year-over-year gain, increasing its profit by $21 billion, or 90.7% in the first half of 2021.
While bp was the company with the biggest loss of $21.2 billion in the first half of last year, the company recorded a $7.9 billion profit in the same period of this year.
Shell also confirmed it made a profit of $9.1 billion in the same period of 2021, after a loss of $18.2 billion in the first half of 2020.
According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the average barrel price of Brent crude oil was $61.12 in the first quarter, $68.91 in the second quarter, is set to be $72.67 in the third quarter, and $71.29 in the fourth quarter, with a forecast for $68.61 in 2021 and $66.04 next year.
By Firdevs Yuksel and Sibel Morrow
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr