Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTJordan BlumFri, July 31, 2026 at 9:03 PM GMT+2 5 min readChevron reported its largest quarterly net profit ever—$12.1 billion—on Friday as the Big Oil giants demonstrate how they're reaping the rewards of the Iran war's oil and gas supply disruptions worldwide.ExxonMobil's $14.5 billion second-quarter income and Shell's $10.8 billion in net earnings represented their most profitable quarters since 2022, when they previously benefited from Russia's still-ongoing invasion of Ukraine.Not only are the oil and gas producers profiting from much higher crude oil prices, they're also gaining from record oil-refining margins and sky-high petrochemical gains in North America—all of which are up because of the effective closure of the now-infamous Strait of Hormuz. The combined windfalls triggered rare net profits in the 11 figures.Citing further bullishness, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said he doesn't expect the conflict to result in much reduction of global fossil fuel demand beyond the short term."Demand destruction is not obvious to me at any significant scale," Wirth said on the earnings call. "I would say it's hard to find evidence of that at this point."The caveat being that "China is a black box. That's the big question is, 'What's really going on in China?'" Wirth said. With the global benchmark for oil currently hovering near $90 per barrel, China's dramatic dip in oil exports—by close to 4 million barrels daily—is the biggest reason why prices aren't much higher. Even though China is transitioning more quickly toward electric vehicles, China has drawn substantially from its world-leading strategic reserves and cut back on fuel exports. So those don't necessarily portend long-term shifts.In fact, maintaining optimism in the Middle East, Chevron is even planning to invest more in Iraq, including plans to reopen and expand the defunct Kirkuk-to-Baniyas pipeline to the Mediterranean, creating another channel that limits dependence on Hormuz.For Exxon, which is more exposed to Middle Eastern disruptions than Chevron, the temporary loss of its production in Qatar is a key reason its profits fell shy of all-time highs. Excluding the Middle East, Exxon reported its highest oil and gas production volumes in over two decades—shortly after the initial combination of Exxon and Mobil.But Exxon CEO Darren Woods said he's confident the Middle East's energy sector will fully rebound—the only question is when—including repairs to its natural gas facilities in Qatar."Ultimately, the world has to resolve the conflict there and get to a stable situation where those critical resources in the region find a way to the market in a reliable way," Woods said. "I think there's a solution that the world will arrive at. I couldn't tell you when or exactly what it's going to look like. But those resources are just too critical to the overall economic health of the world for them to stay offline or for them to be unstable."Terms and Privacy PolicyEU DSA contactPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info