Donald Trump has criticised oil companies for “making too much money” from the global energy market disruption caused by his war on Iran.
Brent crude had been trading at about $70 (£52) a barrel before the first US-Israeli strikes at the end of February, but by the end of April it had soared as high as $126 and is now trading at about $85 a barrel.
The US president took aim at the windfall profits revealed last week by ExxonMobil and Chevron, and said the companies would “give some of that back to the public”.
“They’re making too much money based on a shortage,” he told reporters at the White House on Monday evening. “I don’t like it.”
Trump was speaking just hours before BP reported its profits had doubled in the last quarter, to $5.7bn.
The US oil companies made profits totalling more than $26bn for the three months to the end of June by taking advantage of the energy market disruption triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Chevron reported its highest ever quarterly profit of $12.2bn, a fivefold increase on the same period last year. ExxonMobil reported a profit of $14.5bn in the second quarter, double what it made in the same period a year ago and its highest quarterly profit since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“Chevron: too much money. ExxonMobil: too much money,” Trump said. “They’re going to give some of that back to the public and they better cut the retail price, the consumer price.”
Asked about Trump’s comments, the BP chief executive, Meg O’Neill, told CNBC that she understood the pressures on households. “The reality is, we produce a global commodity, and the product we sell hangs off that global commodity price,” she added.
Climate campaigners have also attacked big oil’s bumper quarterly earnings, condemning them as “obscene”.
Clémence Dubois, a campaigns director at 350.org, an international environmental group, said: “Chevron and Exxon are profiteering from a model of distraction, leaving ordinary people to pay the price with higher bills and devastating impacts such as these fires. These profits feel almost criminal.”
Trump criticised oil company profits weeks after warning energy retailers to cut their prices as he nears the November midterm elections with flagging approval ratings. He also ordered the US justice department to investigate potential price gouging in the retail energy sector.
“Gasoline Retailers must get their Prices down, IMMEDIATELY,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform in late June. “If Retailers don’t do this, big problems lie ahead!”
The president told journalists that the fall in oil and gas prices during the administration’s June peace talks with Iran should have caused petrol prices to fall to $2.25 a gallon.
“Oil prices have come down so much and we are not seeing anything at the pump by comparison the way they should be,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
US gasoline prices currently average $4.11 a gallon, according to data from the AAA motoring group.
The Trump administration has repeatedly said it has no plans to introduce an export ban on oil or petroleum products, but some analysts say this could be revisited if prices at the pump continue to rise.
