Oil companies make obscene profits on top of people’s miseries

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This article is available in BisayaPilipino

The broad masses of the Filipino people and working people across the world must be informed about how multinational oil companies are making record-breaking profits. The broad masses of the people should be roused to take action to denounce the greed of the Big Oil executives and firmly demand them to roll back fuel prices substantially to levels at the start of the year.

They must protest the Philippine government for colluding with the oil companies and ignoring the people’s demand for an oil price rollback that has brought them widespread misery and sufferings.

Over the past days, monopoly oil companies reported record-high second quarter profits. Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest US oil company, reported record high profits of $17.9 billion, exceeding its 2008 record by $3 billion, and almost four times the $4.69 billion profit during the same period last year.

Chevron Corp, second biggest US oil company, also posted a record profit of $11.6 billion, twice its previous record in 2008, and nearly four times its $3.1 billion profit in the same period last year.

Shell reported making $11.59 billion in second quarter profits, twice its $5.5 billion profits during the same period in 2021. Total Energie also reported second quarter profits of $5.8 billion, more than twice as the same period last year.

Since they now import cheaper crude oil mainly from Russia, Chinese oil refiners are also expected to huge profits. These include the China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., the biggest oil refiner in Asia, and one of the main suppliers of diesel and other petroleum products to the Philippines.

Local subsidiaries of oil companies in the Philippines are also expected to report a rise in profits. They continue to fool the people by justifying almost weekly increases in fuel prices as being caused by rising prices of crude oil when, in fact, the majority of these companies merely import refined petroleum products from China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and other countries.

The record profits raked in by monopoly oil companies clearly reveal the lie that fuel prices have been going up because of claimed oil shortages or higher costs of crude. The truth is that fuel prices are going up mainly because of the insatiable capitalist greed for profits.

The monopoly oil companies are capitalist giants that control vast global resources and markets and trample on the well-being of billions of people around the world. Their profit greed is obscene. Over the past few months, they have pushed up retail fuel prices resulting in a sharp deterioration in the socioeconomic conditions of the working class and toiling people across the entire globe. Decades-high inflation rates are now threatening to push entire economies into recession.

The Filipino people must be told the truth about monopoly capitalist control of the international and domestic oil industry and the callousness of the Philippine government. They must raise their voices and demand a stop to the profit-driven oil price increases which have caused widespread immiseration of the Filipino people and the toiling masses around the world.

The fact that oil companies are raking profits amid crisis underscores the urgency of putting an end to the profit-driven oppressive and exploitative capitalist system. It impels the Filipino people to join the global movement that demands an end to unmitigated oppression and exploitation under the imperialist system. It shows the justness, necessity and urgency of waging national democratic and socialist revolutions to expropriate the monopoly capitalists and end capitalist greed and establish a system where the working class and people control the means of production and production is planned in accordance with their needs and welfare.

Oil companies make obscene profits on top of people's miseries