---
title: "U.S. Oil Profits Nearly Triple in the Iran War, and Refiners Top Their 2022 Peaks"
description: "Americans have paid about $150 billion extra for fuel since Feb. 28, and much of what the companies kept went to buybacks, dividends and debt reduction."
author: "rews special report"
published: 2026-11-02T14:27:50Z
modified: 2026-11-03T06:22:47Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/u-s-oil-companies-earn-more-than-130-billion-as-iran-war-lif-598da6
language: en
type: special report
tags: ["oil", "economy", "inflation", "trump", "iran", "us", "business"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# U.S. Oil Profits Nearly Triple in the Iran War, and Refiners Top Their 2022 Peaks

*Americans have paid about $150 billion extra for fuel since Feb. 28, and much of what the companies kept went to buybacks, dividends and debt reduction.*

Special report · By rews special report · November 2, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/u-s-oil-companies-earn-more-than-130-billion-as-iran-war-lif-598da6

## In brief

- Fifty-one large U.S. oil and gas companies earned more than $130 billion from April through September, up from under $47 billion
- Brown University researchers estimate Americans paid about $150 billion extra for gasoline and diesel since Feb. 28
- Valero and Phillips 66 topped their 2022 peaks, while Exxon and Chevron mostly stayed below 2022 levels
- Exxon, Chevron, Valero and Phillips 66 returned about $22 billion to shareholders in the third quarter
- The 1980s U.S. windfall tax raised about $80 billion of a projected $393 billion, and three new bills are pending

Fifty-one large American oil and gas companies earned more than $130 billion in profit from April through September as the war with Iran pushed up fuel prices, according to an estimate The New York Times published on Oct. 30. Over the same six months of 2025, the same companies made less than $47 billion.

Drivers and truckers covered much of the difference. Americans have spent about $150 billion more on gasoline and diesel since the first strikes on Feb. 28 than they would have without the war, or more than $1,150 per household, according to Brown University’s Climate Solutions Lab, [Al Jazeera reported](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/2/how-us-oil-firms-profit-130bn-from-iran-war-as-household-bills-surge) on Monday. A few days earlier the Times, citing the same tracker, put the figure at $147 billion. The lab’s director, Jeff Colgan, built the tracker to compare AAA pump prices with an estimate of what they would have been without the conflict, using [federal energy and census data](https://home.watson.brown.edu/news/2026-05-08/iran-war-energy-cost-tracker). The per-household number is an average across the economy, not what any one family paid.

![A piggy bank receives gold coins beneath a blank display, with a fuel hose and yellow nozzle pointing toward an open book.](https://rews.cc/img/0273b7b30245132d8fa48e3dceda36f1f77dda4d.webp)

The two totals invite a subtraction that doesn’t work. The $130 billion is all profit, earned at home and abroad, and the gain over last year is about $83 billion. The $150 billion covers only American fuel buyers, over eight months instead of six. What the companies’ filings, industry data and the record of earlier oil shocks do show is narrower. Refiners, not drillers, did best, and the two largest independent refiners beat their 2022 peaks. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Valero Energy and Phillips 66 together earned nearly $38 billion in the third quarter and handed about $22 billion back to shareholders. Most of the rest went to cash and debt reduction. Investment barely moved.

Voters go to the polls today in midterm elections in which Democrats have [blamed the war for pump prices](https://rews.cc/a/in-michigan-democrats-price-the-iran-war-at-the-petrol-pump-de9f22). The obvious remedy, taking some of the profit back, has been tried once. Congress taxed oil windfalls from 1980 to 1988 and collected about a fifth of what it projected.

![A stylized yellow industrial complex with tall towers, cream pipes, and dark blue railings stands on an oval platform against a vivid blue background.](https://rews.cc/img/ebf488c96a2897f9d52256eeb1a79546a468ddd3.webp)

## How a gallon splits

In August, the latest month the Energy Information Administration has broken down, regular gasoline averaged $4.06 a gallon. Crude oil accounted for 50 percent of that, refining for 24 percent, and distribution and marketing and taxes for 13 percent each, [according to the agency](https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/). Diesel, at $5.46, split the other way: refining took 40 percent and crude 37 percent. Normally, the agency says, crude makes up about half the price of gasoline and a bit less of diesel.

Prices kept rising after that. The agency’s weekly survey put diesel at $6.352 a gallon on Oct. 26, $2.634 above a year earlier, and regular gasoline at $4.269.

Not all of the crude share stays in the country. American refineries imported 6.17 million barrels of crude a day last year, and 63 percent of it came from Canada, [according to E.I.A. data](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67904). Some of the war premium on those barrels went to Canadian producers rather than to any company in the Times tally.

The shock showed most clearly in the refining slice. Refining margins averaged about $62 a barrel in October, against less than $20 during parts of last year, according to Argus Media figures the Times used, [International Business Times reported](https://www.ibtimes.com/us-oil-companies-profits-iran-war-fuel-prices-3809189). Naser al-Tamimi, an analyst at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies in Milan, tied the gap to damaged refineries in the Middle East and Russia, disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and friction from sanctions.

> Crude producers gain from higher oil prices, while refiners capture exceptional margins as diesel and other fuel supplies tighten
>
> — Naser al-Tamimi, analyst at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, [aljazeera.com](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/2/how-us-oil-firms-profit-130bn-from-iran-war-as-household-bills-surge)

## The refiners’ quarter

Valero, the largest independent refiner, reported third-quarter net income of $6.83 billion on Oct. 22, up from $1.1 billion a year earlier, according to its [earnings release](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001035002/000162828026066795/a9302026exh9901earningsrel.htm). It made $39.24 in refining margin on each barrel it ran, three times last year’s $13.14. Its best quarter of 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, brought in [$4.7 billion](https://investorvalero.com/news/news-details/2022/Valero-Energy-Reports-Second-Quarter-2022-Results/default.aspx).

Phillips 66 earned $5.62 billion, up from $133 million, a 2025 figure dragged down by a $948 million impairment, [the company reported](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001534701/000153470126000035/psx-2026930_ex991.htm). Its refining unit made $6.03 billion before tax, more than double the $2.9 billion it made in the third quarter of 2022, according to the company’s [release that year](https://investor.phillips66.com/financial-information/news-releases/news-release-details/2022/Phillips-66-Reports-Third-Quarter-2022-Financial-Results/default.aspx). Fortune called both companies’ results record quarters.

Their executives gave the same explanation. Darren Woods, Exxon’s chief executive, told CNBC that about half of Russia’s refining capacity had been knocked out by Ukrainian attacks and that “diesel is the key crunch point here because it is so critical to economic growth,” [NBC News reported](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/exxonmobil-chevron-profits-trump-high-oil-prices-rcna606524). Mike Wirth, Chevron’s chief executive, said, “The world has 10% of its refining capacity offline today,” and that tankers Chevron had locked in at prewar rates were “a material contributor to the results,” [Fortune reported](https://fortune.com/2026/10/30/exxon-chevron-massive-profits-trump-brags-energy-companies-making-freaking-fortune-midterms/). American plants, far from the Gulf and out of drone range, ran flat out. Chevron’s U.S. refineries used 98 percent of their crude capacity, and so did those of Phillips 66.

Geoffrey Miller of Gulf States Insights called the war “the largest supply-side shock to global oil and refined products markets in years.” Gulf producers face higher costs and physical damage, Mr. Miller said, while American operators collect the risk premium. The conflict monitor ACLED has counted at least 172 attacks by Iran and groups it backs on nonmilitary infrastructure, energy sites among them, in the six Gulf Cooperation Council states. Iran has largely closed Hormuz, and the United States has answered with a naval blockade of Iranian oil and gas.

![A red bench vise squeezes a narrow teal waterway with a small ship between its jaws against a yellow background.](https://rews.cc/img/84f2f3a3aab64ed2ee247e7327e5944f676b7117.webp)

## Producers and the 2022 peak

The drillers gained less. Exxon earned $15.4 billion in the third quarter, [more than double](https://investor.exxonmobil.com/company-information/press-releases/detail/1213/exxonmobil-announces-third-quarter-2026-results) its profit a year earlier, and $14.53 billion in the second, [The Associated Press reported](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/major-oil-companies-reap-massive-profits-as-u-s-and-iran-fighting-drives-energy-prices-higher). In the same two quarters of 2022 it earned $17.9 billion and $19.7 billion, and the second figure is still [its record](https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/news/news-releases/2022/1028_exxonmobil-announces-third-quarter-2022-results).

Chevron’s $9.9 billion for the third quarter compared with $11.2 billion in the same quarter of 2022, according to its [filing that year](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/93410/000009341022000072/a09302022ex9918-k.htm). Its second quarter this year, $12.07 billion, did top the $11.6 billion of the second quarter of 2022. That is an exception to the pattern the Times described, in which the biggest producers mostly stayed under their 2022 levels. U.S. crude averaged about $90 a barrel from April through September, against about $100 in those months of 2022.

Inside Exxon, refining caught up with production. Its energy products business earned about $7.2 billion in the third quarter, against about $7.1 billion from oil and gas, and American refineries contributed nearly $4.8 billion.

The 2008 spike paid the other way. Exxon’s third-quarter profit that year, $14.83 billion, was then the largest any American company had reported, and $9.35 billion of it came from exploration and production, [CNN reported](https://money.cnn.com/2008/10/30/news/companies/exxon_earnings/) on Oct. 30, 2008. Crude had peaked near $150 in July. Exxon finished the year with [$45.2 billion](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna28931011), a record that held until 2022. Before adjusting for inflation, its latest quarter edges past that 2008 one.

[![Oil giants see profits surge as Iran war drives energy prices higher](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/q1nXY9LQtaY/hqdefault.jpg)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1nXY9LQtaY)

CBS News reports on America’s biggest oil companies posting large profits as the Iran war disrupts global energy supplies. Video: CBS News · YouTube

## Where the cash went

Exxon returned $9.4 billion to shareholders in the third quarter, $4.3 billion in dividends and $5.1 billion in buybacks, and said it planned $20 billion of repurchases in 2027. Chevron paid $3.48 billion in dividends and bought back $2.5 billion of stock, according to its [results](https://chevroncorp.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/chevron-reports-third-quarter-2026-results). Phillips 66 bought back $2.273 billion and paid $504 million. Valero said it returned 52 percent of its adjusted operating cash flow of $7.253 billion, or roughly $3.8 billion.

Added up, the four earned nearly $38 billion in the quarter and returned about $22 billion, or close to 58 percent, with Valero’s share estimated from its stated payout ratio. Exxon alone paid out 61 percent of its quarterly profit.

Most of the rest stayed on the books. Chevron’s cash rose to $12.8 billion from $6.3 billion at the end of 2025, and Exxon has cut net debt by nearly $11 billion this year. Phillips 66 reduced total debt by $2.0 billion in the quarter. Valero repaid $526 million of maturing notes and held $9.8 billion in cash. It spent $432 million on capital projects in the quarter, $371 million of that to keep existing plants running. Homer Bhullar, Valero’s chief financial officer, said the company would not change its investment approach just because it had more cash, the Times reported.

Wood Mackenzie, the energy consultancy, saw the pattern by midsummer. Its [midyear outlook](https://www.woodmac.com/press-releases/wood-mackenzie-mid-year-outlook-oil-and-gas-industry-cash-rich-but-capital-cautious-as-nearly-half-a-trillion-dollar-windfall-fails-to-trigger-a-spending-surge/) on July 28 estimated that the world’s upstream oil and gas business could collect a $495 billion windfall this year if Brent averaged $90, with the 49 largest companies taking $272 billion. It forecast that their buybacks would fall about 5 percent. Tom Ellacott, its senior vice president for corporate research, said most companies preferred to accumulate cash.

> Capital discipline has proved more durable than either the bears or bulls expected.
>
> — Tom Ellacott, senior vice president for corporate research, Wood Mackenzie, [woodmac.com](https://www.woodmac.com/press-releases/wood-mackenzie-mid-year-outlook-oil-and-gas-industry-cash-rich-but-capital-cautious-as-nearly-half-a-trillion-dollar-windfall-fails-to-trigger-a-spending-surge/)

The last shock left a record of who collects. A study published last year in *Energy Research & Social Science*, led by Gregor Semieniuk of the University of Massachusetts Amherst with the economist Isabella Weber, found that 50 percent of the 2022 profits of U.S. fossil fuel companies went to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, mostly through shares and private ownership. The bottom half of households, 66 million of them, got 1 percent. Exxon paid out $30 billion of its $56 billion profit that year, a 54 percent ratio, [the authors wrote](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629625003020).

Ms. Weber, who argued with Mr. Semieniuk in The Guardian in March for “a permanent excess profit tax on oil and gas,” posted the 2022 finding on X.

> With the world’s eyes on US oil interests, let’s not forget who benefits from fossil fuel profits: The richest of the rich.
>
> Our research shows: 50% of the record fossil fuel profits in 2022 went to the wealthiest 1% of US Americans, the bottom 50% only received 1%.
>
> — **Isabella M Weber** @IsabellaMWeber on X · [January 6, 2026](https://x.com/IsabellaMWeber/status/2008639601079128458)

President Trump has described the profits as a national gain. “I don’t give a damn: I’m going to say it. We’re making a freaking fortune,” he said at an Oct. 24 rally. He has blamed high fuel prices on Ukraine, pressing President Volodymyr Zelensky to stop striking Russian refineries, and has suggested that a deal lifting sanctions on Russia would bring diesel down, though the [Russian diesel deal on the table](https://rews.cc/a/trump-calls-for-new-ukrainian-president-days-after-a-1-8m-to-2a34b7) is small next to the market.

Representative Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, answered the rally line: “We’re not making a ‘freaking fortune,’ we’re PAYING a ‘freaking fortune’.” He later turned to the president’s own portfolio, writing that Mr. Trump had made more than $35 million trading oil and gas stocks.

> Your pain is his paycheck. While soaring gas prices drain family budgets, Trump has made over $35 MILLION off trading oil & gas stocks. He profits. You pay.
>
> This corrupt cabal of crooks has got to go.
>
> — **Rep. Jim McGovern** @RepMcGovern on X · [October 28, 2026](https://x.com/RepMcGovern/status/2115514172817686663)

On Hacker News, where readers discussed the Times analysis, one asked about an earlier meeting between Mr. Trump and the industry.

> Who picked up the dinner tab for “gathering of the petrogarchs” at Mar A Lago in 2023 though?
>
> — anjel on [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50310042)

The reader seems to have the year wrong. The dinner on record took place at Mar-a-Lago on April 11, 2024, organized by the oilman Harold Hamm. The Washington Post reported that Mr. Trump asked the executives there to raise $1 billion for his campaign, and House Democrats opened an [inquiry](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/05/14/trump-oil-executives-investigation-democrats/) the next month. A person who spoke with [The Hill](https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4654557-trump-big-oil-1b-campaign-cash-request/) said the talk was not framed as a quid pro quo.

## The traders

The 51-company tally leaves out the merchants who move the barrels. Trafigura reported net profit of $4.1 billion for the six months from October through March, more than double a year earlier, [Reuters reported](https://www.kitco.com/news/off-the-wire/2026-06-04/trafigura-profit-volumes-surge-first-results-hormuz-closure). Vitol, which does not publish full results, made an estimated $2 billion in the first quarter, and Gunvor’s first-quarter earnings reportedly beat its profit for all of the previous year, [Hedgeweek reported](https://www.hedgeweek.com/commodity-traders-post-windfall-gains-amid-iran-conflict-driven-market-turmoil/), citing Bloomberg. Some traders made $20 to $30 a barrel, far above their usual margins.

A Hacker News reader who said they were speaking from experience argued that the reported numbers were the smaller part.

> I want to point out from experience that these are all official profits. In the coming years you’ll find out from books, reporting, and documentaries all the shadow black money billions that were made that no even realizes now.
>
> — karakoram on [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50306863)

The claim can’t be tested against the public record, and that record is thin. Vitol’s figure is itself an estimate, and privately held trading houses disclose far less than listed oil companies. The disclosed numbers already run to billions, and they did not come free of risk: some firms took derivatives losses early in the crisis, Hedgeweek reported.

## The 1980 tax

President Jimmy Carter proposed the tax on April 5, 1979, as the political price of lifting controls on domestic crude prices, and signed it on April 2, 1980. It taxed barrels, not profits, with lower rates for independent producers, according to a 2006 [Congressional Research Service report](https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL33305.html) by Salvatore Lazzari. Washington projected $393 billion in gross revenue from 1980 through 1990. It collected about $80 billion, or $38 billion net of the income tax it displaced, most of it from 1981 to 1983.

The report estimated that the tax cut domestic output by 1.2 to 4.8 percent from 1980 to 1986 and raised imports by 3 to 13 percent. After oil prices collapsed in 1986 it brought in almost nothing, and Congress repealed it in 1988. A 1984 G.A.O. report called it “perhaps the largest and most complex tax ever levied on a U.S. industry.”

Tyler Priest, an oil historian at the University of Iowa, told [NPR in July](https://kvcr.org/news/npr-top-stories/2026-07-16/oil-prices-windfall-tax-iran-war) that companies could lower the “transfer price” of crude they sold to their own refineries to shrink the tax.

> Companies were able to adapt in ways that shielded their profits.
>
> — Tyler Priest, oil historian, University of Iowa, [kvcr.org](https://kvcr.org/news/npr-top-stories/2026-07-16/oil-prices-windfall-tax-iran-war)

The idea came back with every spike. In August 2008, Barack Obama campaigned on [$1,000 rebates](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-proposes-1000-energy-rebates/) for families, paid for by a windfall tax, and his transition [dropped it](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/12/obamas-first-policy-retreat/) once crude fell below $80. On Oct. 31, 2022, eight days before that year’s midterms, President Joe Biden accused the industry of “war profiteering” and threatened a tax on excess profits, [Al Jazeera reported](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/1/biden-warns-of-windfall-tax-on-war-profiteering-oil-companies). Congress passed nothing. The five largest Western oil companies earned $196.3 billion that year, [CNBC reported](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/03/oil-companies-bring-in-200-billion-in-profits-in-2022.html).

Europe did act. The European Union’s one-time levy after the invasion of Ukraine raised €26.15 billion, and Britain’s levy, stacked on existing taxes, brings the combined rate on North Sea profits to 78 percent, Tibor Besedeš, an economist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, [wrote in The Conversation](https://theconversation.com/as-oil-profits-skyrocket-calls-for-windfall-taxes-rise-288990) in August. Five E.U. countries have asked for a second levy tied to the Iran war.

## The case against a new tax

Three Democratic bills are pending. The Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act, from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Representative Ro Khanna of California, would charge companies that produced or imported at least 300,000 barrels a day in 2025 half the difference between the Brent price and its 2025 average of $69, and send the money to households. It would leave out about 70 percent of U.S. output, NPR reported. Representative Brad Sherman’s [Iran War Oil Crisis Windfall Profits Tax Act](https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119hr8803ih), introduced May 13, would take 100 percent of the price above $75 until hostilities end, Hormuz reopens and oil falls below that line. Senators Ron Wyden, Chuck Schumer and Michael Bennet would raise the excise tax on large oil companies’ buybacks to 25 percent from 1 percent.

At Monday’s Brent settlement of $104.77, the first bill would come to about $17.89 a barrel and the second to $29.77.

Alex Muresianu, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, [wrote in July](https://taxfoundation.org/oped/oil-gas-tax-windfall-profits/) that “taxing producers is the opposite of a solution to a supply crisis.” Dustin Meyer, a senior vice president at the American Petroleum Institute, told NPR that investment in any industry needs certainty.

> Proposals like this only erode that certainty and send exactly the wrong message at exactly the wrong time.
>
> — Dustin Meyer, senior vice president, American Petroleum Institute, [kvcr.org](https://kvcr.org/news/npr-top-stories/2026-07-16/oil-prices-windfall-tax-iran-war)

The Tax Foundation also says oil companies already pay more tax in high-price years. That holds. The federal corporate rate is 21 percent, so the Treasury takes a share of every added dollar of profit, a point the CRS made in 2006, when the rate was 35 percent.

On Exxon’s July 31 call, Mr. Woods said that penalizing companies that kept supplying countries in a crisis was “very short-sighted,” and he gave an example, The A.P. reported.

> We canceled investments that we had planned for Europe based on the last time they passed a windfall profits tax
>
> — Darren Woods, chief executive, Exxon Mobil, [pbs.org](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/major-oil-companies-reap-massive-profits-as-u-s-and-iran-fighting-drives-energy-prices-higher)

Weighed against the record, the design objection is the strongest. The CRS found that a tax on barrels, like the 1980 one, raises costs at the margin and trims domestic supply, while a tax on income distorts less. Both price-triggered bills tax barrels, not profit, Mr. Besedeš wrote, and a tax that reaches imports, as Mr. Whitehouse’s does, could push pump prices up. The revenue case is shaky too. Projections built on 1980 prices overstated the take fivefold, and Brent lost 7.6 percent in a single session on Monday.

The investment objection is weaker this year. By their own filings and Wood Mackenzie’s count, the companies have not raised investment with the windfall, and Valero spent most of its quarter’s capital keeping existing plants running. Neither the institute nor the Tax Foundation has put a number on the investment a tax would cost, Mr. Besedeš wrote, and he said the argument “weakens by the day.” Mr. Woods’s European example is the most specific case on the record.

Mr. Whitehouse’s office says that pegging the tax to market prices and covering imports avoids the flaws of 1980. He has called the bill’s chances “an uphill struggle.” About a dozen senators have signed on, all Democrats plus Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent. In June, Mr. Whitehouse offered the bill to Mr. Trump on X after the president complained that oil companies were not cutting pump prices as crude fell.

> Mr. President: I have a windfall excess profits bill you could support.
>
> Big Oil already pocketed over $40 billion in excess profits from gouging U.S. consumers since Hormuz. (On top of their regular profits, which are plenty!)
>
> — **Sheldon Whitehouse** @SenWhitehouse on X · [June 24, 2026](https://x.com/SenWhitehouse/status/2069785085402874230)

## What comes next

Brent fell 7.6 percent on Monday to $104.77, and West Texas Intermediate fell 7.4 percent to $96.46, its steepest one-day drop since July 27, after Iran’s supreme leader approved talks to end the war and Mr. Trump said Iran wants to “make a deal and that could happen,” [CNBC reported](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/02/oil-prices-fall-as-iran-us-pursue-diplomacy.html). Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the president “hasn’t made a decision” on new strikes. Mr. Trump has said he would not attack Iran before the midterms. Qatar held [more than 12 hours of talks](https://rews.cc/a/qatar-ran-12-plus-hours-of-talks-in-tehran-to-restart-us-ira-3c279a) in Tehran last week to restart negotiations.

Oil has fallen on talk of a settlement before. Prices dipped after a memorandum of understanding in June and climbed again when talks broke down. Ryan McKay of TD Securities said, “we do not anticipate a complete erosion of the risk premium via diplomacy headlines alone.” Mr. al-Tamimi said a diplomatic deal could bring prices down, while new attacks on Iran could set off another regional war. Mr. Miller warned that prices staying high could slow growth, possibly into a recession, cutting demand for oil.

The costs have spread past the pump. The World Bank expects commodity prices to rise 23 percent this year, and the Food and Agriculture Organization said world food commodity prices rose another 1.5 percent in September, after reaching their highest level since late 2022 in August. Florence Schmit, an analyst at Rabobank, said she expected high prices to last into next year, with consumers feeling the squeeze “unless governments step in.”

Executives expect wide margins to outlast the vote. Mr. Wirth said he expected refining margins “to stay elevated in the short term,” and Mr. Woods said it would take “certainly well through next year before we see things getting back closer to normal.” The Energy Information Administration, which [forecast in October](https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/pdf/steo_full.pdf) that diesel would average about $4.50 a gallon next year and gasoline just under $3.60, publishes its [next outlook](https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/data/browser/) on Nov. 10.

## Join the discussion

- [U.S. Oil Industry Earned over $130B in Profit During Iran War](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50306581) — Hacker News · 42 points · 6 comments

## See also

- [Iran War Energy Cost Tracker, Brown University Climate Solutions Lab](https://iranwarcost.watson.brown.edu/) — iranwarcost.watson.brown.edu · The running estimate of extra U.S. spending on gasoline and diesel since Feb. 28
- [Oil Industry Financial Performance and the Windfall Profits Tax (CRS)](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RL34689) — congress.gov · Congressional Research Service on measuring oil profits and designing a windfall tax
- [Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act summary, Senator Whitehouse](https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Big-Oil-Windfall-Profits-Tax-Summary-3-17-26.v2.pdf) — whitehouse.senate.gov · The sponsors' own description of the 2026 bill's rate, threshold and rebates
- [ExxonMobil Q3 2026 earnings call transcript](https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2026/10/30/exxonmobil-xom-q3-2026-earnings-call-transcript/) — fool.com · Darren Woods on refining, Russian capacity and shareholder payouts
- [Chevron third quarter 2026 earnings call slides](https://chevroncorp.gcs-web.com/static-files/01bc23b1-43e8-4c09-9e47-6e24614391ce) — chevroncorp.gcs-web.com · Chevron's cash flow, dividends and buybacks for the quarter
- [Every Time Is Different: The 2026 Energy Shock (TD Economics)](https://economics.td.com/domains/economics.td.com/documents/reports/ah/Every_Time_is_Different_2026_Energy_Shock.pdf) — economics.td.com · A bank economics team's comparison of this shock with earlier ones
- [Semieniuk and Weber in The Guardian on who profits from an oil crisis](https://www.umass.edu/public-policy/news/gregor-semieniuk-and-isabella-weber-guardian-we-know-who-profits-oil-crisis-and-how-stop-them) — umass.edu · The UMass economists' case for a permanent excess-profits tax