A worker collects engine oil as he works at a degassing station in Zubair oil field near Basra, Iraq
ENERGY firms raked in an excess of £6 billion in Iran war windfall profits this year, it was revealed today as households brace for yet another bill rise at the end of the month.
Campaigners said profits generated in Britain by these companies equate to over £200 for every household in the country, while a further increase in gas prices is expected in the next Ofgem price cap announcement on August 26.
Financial results posted by the world’s top energy firms revealed their British profits are only one part of their global profits, totalling £95bn in 2026.
Analysis from the End Fuel Poverty Coalition (EFPC) revealed the excess profits linked to global energy market disruptions as a result of the US war on Iran, which has increased cost pressures on households in Britain, as well as other countries.
Researchers looked at financial results posted by BP, Centrica, Chevron, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Iberdrola, Shell and Total.
EFPC co-ordinator Simon Francis said windfall profits must be considered alongside previous findings saying a third of households are “on the brink of, or are in energy debt.”
“These price shock profiteers are doing very well out of the Iran conflict, but they are doing little to solve the underlying problems,” Mr Francis said.
“As people brace for the next price cap announcement on August 26 and a third of households are on the brink of or in energy debt, the energy industry watches the profits climb.”
Article by republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
The rubble of a burned out residential home smolders in the Balboa neighborhood of Spokane, Washington, on August 2, 2026. (Photo by Erick Doxey/AFP via Getty Images)
“The fossil fuel industry may not have struck the match, but the climate crisis they drove has loaded our landscapes with tinder,” said an environmental activist.
Over 60,000 people were ordered to evacuate the Spokane area over the weekend as it was devastated by what Democratic Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell called the “top fire” in a nation currently being scorched by climate-fueled blazes.
Illustrating how the climate crisis is already impacting lives and communities across the country and the globe, three raging fires reportedly consumed over 600 structures as of Sunday, including homes and businesses, and reduced entire streets to their foundations.
At a briefing on Sunday afternoon, officials said more than 250,000 acres were burning across Washington, but reported no deaths or injuries.
Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown called it “the worst natural disaster our region has faced.”
Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson has requested assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is under the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) wrote on social media that she had spoken with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and that he “made clear the federal government will do everything it can to support response and recovery,” though President Donald Trump has previously intervened to block disaster aid to Democrat-led states.
While the fires moderated over the weekend, on Monday they remained largely uncontained and continued to spread due to dry conditions from recent severe droughts in the region, exacerbated by rising global temperatures.
This is Spokane, Washington. Right now. First weekend of August.
“This is climate change playing out live in real time,” said meteorologist and Climate Central journalist Shel Winkley in a video about the Spokane fires.
Warmer temperatures, he explained, have caused a vicious cycle of “weather whiplash” in which greater winter rainfall facilitates plant growth before harsher summer heat domes suck moisture from these plants, turning them into a tinderbox.
“Northeastern Washington and central Oregon now see at least three more weeks of fire weather days each year than they did just back in the 1970s,” Winkley said. “More fire weather days means more chances for a spark, any spark, to turn into this.”
The blazes are part of a nationwide trend, with wildfires this year more severe on average than in previous years. Over the past decade, the average annual acreage burned in the US was more than double the average of the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to data from the National Interagency Fire Center.
Last week, an Oxfamanalysis of data published in the journal Nature found that emissions from just five oil companies—BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies—were sufficient to cause around 1 in 4 heatwaves reported globally between 2000 and 2023—“heatwaves that would have been virtually impossible without human-made climate change.”
Using S&P Capital Trucost data, the group estimated that Big Oil was responsible for more than $60 billion in environmental damage last year.
But as costs fall on the public, oil companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil have reported record profits of $12.1 billion and $14.5 billion over the past quarter, in part due to global oil price spikes driven by Trump’s war with Iran.
“The fossil fuel industry may not have struck the match, but the climate crisis they drove has loaded our landscapes with tinder,” said Clémence Dubois, the campaigns director for the environmental group 350.org. “Chevron and Exxon are profiteering from a model of distraction, leaving ordinary people to pay the price with higher bills and devastating impacts such as these fires. These profits feel almost criminal.”
Jay Inslee, Washington’s former Democratic governor and a longtime advocate for policies to combat the climate crisis, said on Sunday that his friend, a legislator from Spokane, had been forced to flee his home due to the fires.
“Climate change isn’t some faraway threat,” Inslee said. “It’s happening right now, to our neighbors and friends. We have to fight for them.”
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Power-mad orange gasbag Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
A view of the Chamber of the House of Lords ahead of the State Opening of Parliament at the Palace of Westminster in London, May 13, 2026
PEERS have seen their shares in oil and gas firms soar by tens of thousands since the start of the US war on Iran as the energy price cap jumped today, the Morning Star can reveal.
At least seven lords and one baroness have seen their stock holdings in companies such as Equinor, Chevron and Shell, increase since the war-driven energy shock.
New research from the End Fuel Poverty Coalition (EFPC) shared exclusively with the Star revealed the estimated gains made by peers as households “dread” the next energy bill.
EFPC co-ordinator Simon Francis slammed the lords who “may be leaping at the prospect of increased dividends and share prices” on the backs of “suffering households.”
Among the lords who saw the highest rise in their holdings was former Treasury and Cabinet Office minister Lord Agnew of Oulton.
A Tory peer and board member on GB News’ holding company, Lord Agnew saw his shares in Britain’s largest gas supplier Equinor grow by around £28,000 since the February 28 US-Israeli strikes on Iran which kicked off the war.
Former Tory Treasury minister Lord Sassoon saw shares in Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum and Shell grow by a combined value of just under £28,000.
EFPC highlighted other sitting peers holding shares in Shell, including former Hong Kong governor Lord Patten, former Tory home secretary and chancellor Lord Clarke and crossbencher Lord Rees.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
In an aerial view, the ExxonMobil Baytown Refinery is seen on January 13, 2026, in Baytown, Texas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Since 2021, top Wall Street banks have committed more than $124 billion in investments to the nine companies set to profit most from the toppling of Venezuela’s government.
As oil industry giants are being set up to profit from President Donald Trump’s invasion of Venezuela, a new analysis shows the ample backing those companies have received from Wall Street’s top financial institutions.
Last week, Bloombergreported that stock traders and tycoons were “pouncing” after Trump’s kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month, after having pressured the Trump administration to “create a more favorable business environment in Venezuela.”
A dataset compiled by the international environmental advocacy group Stand.earth shows the extent to which these interests are intertwined.
Stand.earth found that since 2021, banks—including JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, TD, RBC, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America—have committed more than $124 billion in investments to the nine companies set to profit most from the toppling of Venezuela’s government.
More than a third of that financing, $42 billion, came in 2025 alone, when Trump launched his aggressive campaign against Venezuela.
Among the companies expected to profit most immediately are refiners like Valero, PBF Energy, Citgo, and Phillips 66, which have large operations on the Gulf Coast that can process the heavy crude Venezuela is known to produce. These four companies have received $41 billion from major banks over the past five years.
Chevron, which also operates many heavy-crude facilities, benefits from being the only US company that operated in Venezuela under the Maduro regime, where it exported more than 140,000 barrels of oil per day last quarter.
At a White House gathering with top oil executives on Friday, the company’s vice chair, Mark Nelson, told Trump the company could double its exports “effective immediately.”
According to Jason Gabelman, an analyst at TD Cowen, the company could increase its annual cash flow by $400 million to $700 million as a result of Trump’s takeover of Venezuelan oil resources.
Chevron was also by far the number-one recipient of investments in 2025, with more than $11 billion in total coming from the banks listed in the report—including $1.78 billion from Barclays, another $1.78 billion from Bank of America, and $1.32 billion from Citigroup.
According to Bloomberg, just weeks before Maduro’s removal, analysts at Citigroup predicted 60% gains on the nation’s more than $60 billion in bonds if he were replaced.
Even ExxonMobil, whose CEO Darren Woods dumped cold water on Trump’s calls to set up operations in Venezuela on Friday, calling the nation “uninvestable,” potentially has something major to gain from Maduro’s overthrow.
Exxon and ConocoPhillips each have outstanding arbitration cases against Venezuela over the government’s 2007 nationalization of oil assets, which could award them $20 billion and $12 billion, respectively.
The report found that in 2025, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips received a combined total of more than $12.8 billion in investment from major financial institutions, which vastly exceeded that from previous years.
Data on these staggering investments comes as oil companies face increased scrutiny surrounding possible foreknowledge of Trump’s attack on Venezuela.
Last week, US Senate Democrats launched a formal investigation into “communications between major US oil and oilfield services companies and the Trump administration surrounding last week’s military action in Venezuela and efforts to exploit Venezuelan oil resources.”
Richard Brooks, Stand.earth’s climate finance director, said the role of the financial institutions underwriting those oil companies should not be overlooked either.
“Without financial support from big banks and investors, the likes of Chevron, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, and Valero would not have the power that they do to start wars, overthrow governments, or slow the pace of climate action,” he said. “Banks and investors need to choose if they are on the side of peace, or of warmongering oil companies.”
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Companies and individuals linked to the fossil fuel industry donated more than $19 million to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, new Global Witness analysis reveals. The analysis, based on itemised data published by the US Federal Election Commission, identified 47 individual donations from November 2024 to January 2025, accounting for around 7.8% of the total $245 million raised by the fund. Presidential inaugural funds are used to cover the costs of inauguration events, such as parades, galas and receptions.
Donald Trump used funds from his first inaugural fund in 2017 to organise a party at his own hotel, for which he was sued by the D.C. Attorney General. Of fossil fuel-linked donors, US oil giant Chevron made the largest contribution – $2 million – and was the joint fourth-largest donor overall. A string of other fossil fuel companies made donations of $1 million, including ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Occidental Petroleum. A Chevron spokesperson said that “Chevron has a long tradition of celebrating democracy by supporting the inaugural committees of both parties” and that they were “proud to have done so again this year.” None of the other companies mentioned above responded to our inquiries.
In his inaugural address, Donald Trump promised to “drill, baby, drill” and said that the US “will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it”. In the following months, the President signed a blitz of Executive Orders aimed at boosting the fossil fuel industry and kneecapping federal climate action. These include:
Opening up federal lands and waters to fossil fuel exploration as official US policy and revoking several climate action policies;
Establishing a new group to advise his office on how to accelerate the ‘permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, and transportation’ of oil and gas;
Removing regulations on coal production to revive the flagging industry; and,
Ordering the US Attorney General to quash state-level “polluters pay” laws that would push fossil fuel companies to pay their fair share of climate damages.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Global Witness Senior Data Investigator Nicu Calcea said: “It’s no surprise the oil and gas industry handed millions to Donald Trump for his inauguration, and they seem to have reaped a huge return on their investment.
“Every month that Donald Trump has been in power, we’ve seen a raft of anti-climate measures come out which are music to the fossil fuel industry’s ears. From plans to steamroll through dirty new coal plants, to the attempted quashing of ‘polluter pays’ laws that would hold oil giants accountable, it’s clear where his political priorities lie.
“While Trump sides with his friends in oil and gas, we must keep up the fight for a fair, green future – that means pushing for wind and solar where we live, backing polluters pay bills, and resisting the development of oil, gas and coal projects across the country.”
Many of the world’s worst environmental and human rights abuses are driven by the exploitation of natural resources and corruption in the global political and economic system. Global Witness is campaigning to end this. We carry out hard-hitting investigations, expose these abuses, and campaign for change. We are independent, not-for-profit, and work with partners around the world in our fight for justice.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
A worker collects engine oil as he works at a degassing station in Zubair oil field near Basra, Iraq
