Amsterdam - The world's biggest fossil fuel corporations continue to report staggering profits, running into tens of billions every quarter, while households and businesses face soaring energy costs, exposing how fossilflation makes ordinary people pay for a system that destroys the climate and rewards oil and gas giants when crises hit.
BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil today reported third-quarter profits of US$8.5 billion, US$ 10.4 billion and US$ 17.5 billion, respectively. Together with results reported earlier this month by Shell, TotalEnergies, Eni and Equinor the seven corporations' combined third-quarter profits amount to almost US$63 billion.
Rebecca Newsom, Global Political Lead at Greenpeace International, said: "Every time a crisis pushes up the prices, the same oil and gas giants are there to cash in. This is fossilflation. The rest of us pay, at the pump, at the checkout, and again through the climate disasters driven by the fuels the industry intends to extract down to the last barrel. This is where decades of fossil fuel dependence have led us, and governments that keep letting these corporations off the hook are leaving households to foot the bill.
"It doesn't have to be this way. If governments permanently increase taxes on oil and gas profits and clamp down on corporate profit shifting, hundreds of billions of dollars could be raised, while supercharging a shift in investment towards cleaner, more secure renewable energy. That revenue should protect communities from price shocks and extreme weather, and accelerate a just transition away from fossil fuels."
Across the seven corporations, third-quarter profits were around US$38 billion higher than in the same period last year. The combined total for the first three quarters of 2026 now stands at US$150 billion.
The profits come as inflation puts renewed pressure on already stretched household budgets. Euro area annual inflation rose to 3.8% in September, up from 3.2% in August, with energy prices rising 18.8% year on year.[1] Disruptions to global fuel supplies following the war on Iran have pushed up fuel costs, with the effects reaching transport, agriculture and freight, and threatening to feed through to food and other essentials.
With COP31 opening in Türkiye on 9 November, the next round of Global Tax Treaty negotiations beginning in Kenya on 30 November, and two major EU Council Summits in November and December where this issue is likely to be discussed, governments face a clear choice: continue an energy system that leaves people vulnerable to fossil fuel price shocks, or speed up and properly fund a just transition away from coal, oil and gas.
Greenpeace International is calling for an end to new fossil fuel expansion and science-based timelines for phasing out production and consumption, faster deployment of decentralised renewable energy, and permanently higher taxes on fossil fuel profits at the national, regional and global level.[2]
