[Global Times Comprehensive Report] "The revenue of the four oil and gas giants in the United States and Europe almost doubled year-on-year in the latest quarter." Reuters combed the latest quarterly report data of several international energy companies on July 29 and found that Exxon Mobil and Chevron and Europe's Shell and Total Energy have combined profits of more than $50 billion.

Among them, Exxon Mobil's quarterly profit was as high as 17.9 billion US dollars, setting a record for the highest quarterly profit of an international oil company.

The company's profits are high, and shareholders have also made a lot of money. Data shows that these four companies distributed a total of 23 billion US dollars in dividends to shareholders in the second quarter.

　　Analysts believe that when the skyrocketing international energy prices drive up inflation in Western countries and a large number of ordinary people cannot bear the pressure of living costs, the huge profits and generous dividends of oil and gas giants will naturally become the target of politicians and social activists.

U.S. President Joe Biden named and criticized Exxon Mobil in June for profiting from high oil prices, and there are endless calls to impose windfall profits tax on oil and gas giants.

　　Although the oil and gas giants in the United States and Europe are living well, in fact, many Western countries are facing the hidden worry of the energy crisis.

The US "Wall Street Journal" cited Chevron's performance data as an example, saying that the output of energy companies is actually declining, and it is the increase in international commodity prices that has boosted the historically high performance.

The company's global oil and gas production fell about 7.4% year over year last quarter to 2.9 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.

While U.S. production rose about 3.2 percent, its international production fell about 13.4 percent.

The company's record profit was helped by a sharp rise in earnings from its oil and gas production business, which posted $8.6 billion, up from $3.2 billion a year earlier; its refined products business also rose more than 300%, to $3.5 billion.

Other revenue totaled $65 billion, up from $36 billion a year earlier.

　　The Wall Street Journal commented on the 30th that the United States is facing the most serious energy crisis in half a century, and the current energy crisis is very different from the oil crisis in the 1970s.

The analysis believes that the era of large and cheap energy supply has come to an end. While the United States is hesitant to transform to clean energy, it has also encountered the superimposed impact of emergencies such as the new crown pneumonia epidemic and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, resulting in a serious imbalance between supply and demand in the international energy market.

　　The article also stated that there are serious deficiencies in the energy transformation of the United States, that is, the continuous withdrawal of thermal power, and the development of clean energy has not been able to fully keep up with the demand for electricity, including the difficulty in integrating clean energy power generation into the grid, and the serious fragmentation of the power grid. The chaos of high temperature and continuous power outages in summer.

(Zhen Xiang)