In an effort to bolster prices, Saudi Arabia and Russia, as leaders of the OPEC Plus cartel, recently announced a cut in oil production amounting to about 2 percent of global output. The move angered the Biden administration, which is pushing oil producers, including those operating in the United States, to ramp up output to lower gasoline prices for consumers.
With U.S. midterm elections nearing, President Biden threatened on Monday to seek a new windfall tax on major oil and gas companies unless they increased production.
Britain recently enacted a windfall tax on petroleum producers, and BP said it would pay about $800 million under the levy this year, part of $2.5 billion in tax on its British North Sea oil and gas business.
“We understand it is a very difficult time for society right now,” said Murray Auchincloss, the company’s chief financial officer, on a call with analysts on Tuesday. Mr. Auchincloss estimated that 15 percent of BP’s global profits came from Britain. Shell, BP’s crosstown rival, stirred controversy last week when it said it had not yet paid the new British tax because of heavy capital expenditure.
For Aramco, the earnings reported on Tuesday were nearly 40 percent above profits from a year earlier. But they were down from the second quarter this year, when Aramco earned a record $48 billion.