LONDON: The world’s five largest listed oil companies are expected to reward their investors with record payouts of more than $100 million for 2023 against a backdrop of growing public outrage at fossil fuel profits, a media report said.
The five 'super-majors' – BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies – had showered shareholders with dividend payments and share buybacks worth $104 billion in the 2022 calendar year, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), The Guardian reported.
The bumper payouts followed a year of record profits for big oil and gas companies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upended global energy markets, triggering a rise in the international price of Brent crude and record gas prices across Europe.
Financial analysts at IEEFA said the companies are likely to pay even greater shareholder distributions this year despite weaker commodity market prices leading to lower profits.
The payouts will also follow a year that is expected to have been hotter than any other on record, with the climate emergency leading to a series of extreme weather events.
Trey Cowan, an analyst at the IEEFA, said: “At the current pace of distributions via share buybacks and dividends, these five super-majors could set a record for distributions to shareholders in 2023, topping the $104 billion spent during the 2022 calendar year," The Guardian reported.