• Big oil companies including Exxon Mobil (XOM, $110.70), Chevron (CVX, $179.98), Shell (SHEL, $56.18), and TotalEnergies (TTE, $54.77) are paying around $100B to shareholders annually in the form of buybacks and dividends. Meanwhile, they’re reinvesting $80B in their core businesses. Not everyone has been happy about investors taking big profits home, and politicians and consumers are calling for higher taxes on these companies.
• As Exxon made the highest earnings in its 152-year history, Biden tweeted that these excess profits should have been used to lower prices and give relief to Americans. At the same time, the European Union has also approved windfall taxes on oil exports. Chevron CFO Pierre Breber has reacted by warning that taxing oil will reduce investment and as a result, production.