To The Moon

Amnesty slams Aramco for ‘surplus amassed’ by crisis, including Ukraine war

Amnesty International has criticised Saudi Aramco’s “record” profits, which the company said totalled $161.1bn last year.

“It is shocking for a company to make a profit of more than $161 billion in a single year through the sale of fossil fuel – the single largest driver of the climate crisis,” Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, said in a statement.

“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.”

Global energy prices surged after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Saudi Aramco – a mostly state-owned energy giant, and the world’s second most valuable company behind Apple – said in a filing with the Saudi stock market that net income for 2022 was up 46 percent from $110bn in 2021.

The results, the strongest since Aramco became a listed company in 2019, were “predominantly due to the impact of higher crude oil prices and volumes sold, and stronger refining margins,” it said.