Oil companies earn record-shattering profits as high prices squeeze consumers

Two of the world's biggest fossil fuel producers raked in staggering amounts of money amid soaring prices brought on by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

"Exxon outpaced its rivals with second-quarter net income of $17.9 billion, several billion dollars ahead of its previous record reached in 2012, which was aided by asset sales in Japan," according to an analysis by Reuters on Friday.

Chevron, meanwhile, "earned $11.4 billion excluding special items, up 74% from the first quarter and 247% from a year ago," CNN noted. "Oil prices have started to fall recently, and gas prices are falling along with them. AAA puts the average gas price Friday at $4.26 a gallon. That's down 76 cents a gallon, or 15%, from the record of $5.02 a gallon reached on June 14."

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CNN broke those numbers down for scale, explaining that "ExxonMobil's net income came to $2,245.62 every second of every day of the 92-day long quarter. On that basis, Chevron earned $1,462.11 per second."

Reuters also reported that Exxon and Chevron, along with European giants Shell and TotalEnergies, "combined to earn nearly $51 billion in the most recent quarter, almost double what the group brought in for the year-ago period. All four have ramped up share buybacks in recent months, capitalizing on high margins derived from selling oil and gas."

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