Saudi Arabian-owned oil giant Aramco books a USD 161.11bn net profit in 2022, the company informed on Sunday. 

The enormous figure marks Aramco best-ever result since the company went public in 2019.

The profitable year was underpinned by increased crude oil prices, which partially owes to the war in Ukraine. War broke out in February last year.

Net income rises 46% against the previous year, where the company made USD 110bn.

Aramco is the world’s second most valuable company – only surpassed by Apple.

Oil climbs on Chinese demand and weakened dollar

The company’s 2022 results follows the same trajectory as several other of the world’s oil giants. Aramco by far exceeds the others in net profit. Combined, the five majors Shell, Chevron, Exxonmobil, BP and TotalEnergies made a little over USD 150bn in 2022.

”Aramco rode the wave of high energy prices in 2022,” says Robert Mogielnicki of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. 

”It would have been difficult for Aramco not to perform strongly in 2022,” he adds.

Aramco’s soaring profit has not, however, been welcomed by human rights organization Amnesty International.

”It is shocking for a company to make a profit of more than USD 161bn in a single year through the sale of fossil fuel - the single largest driver of the climate crisis,” says Amnesty International’s secretary general, Agnès Callamard.

”It is all the more shocking because this surplus was amassed during a global cost-of-living crisis and aided by the increase in energy prices resulting from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” she says.

According to the BBC, Aramco issues a USD 19.5bn dividend to be paid in the first quarter of 2023. The lion’s share will go straight to the Saudi government, which owns nearly 95% of the shares in the company.