US oil profits in the Iran war have reached more than $130 billion in just six months, a New York Times analysis published on Friday, October 30, 2026, has found, even as American drivers paid an extra $147 billion for gasoline and diesel since the war began. The figures lay bare the split at the heart of the eight-month-old conflict: a windfall for the companies that produce and refine fuel, and a heavy bill for the households that buy it.
The estimate covers more than 50 large US oil and gas companies, mostly producers and refiners, between April and September 2026. It is, the Times says, a conservative figure: it excludes March, the first month of the war, and October, when crude prices climbed again. In the same six months of 2025, those companies earned less than $47 billion combined. The war, in other words, has nearly tripled their profits.
The Times analysis, based on company results and, where results were not yet published, analyst estimates compiled by FactSet, lands on the same morning that the two biggest US oil companies reported their own third-quarter results. Exxon Mobil and Chevron, buoyed by their refining businesses, reported their highest third-quarter earnings in years on Friday, October 30. Exxon's third-quarter profit more than doubled to $15.41 billion; Chevron's nearly tripled to $9.92 billion.
The pattern is not confined to the giants. Valero Energy, one of the largest US refiners, saw its third-quarter profit soar more than sixfold, its chief financial officer Homer Bhullar told Wall Street analysts last week. In Europe, Shell earned $12.06 billion in the third quarter, more than double a year earlier, partly because refining was so lucrative, while France's TotalEnergies saw profit more than double to $8.26 billion. Dozens of other US oil companies will report third-quarter results in the coming weeks, and the Times analysis suggests the total will only grow.
On the other side of the ledger, Brown University's Climate Solutions Lab calculates that Americans had spent an extra $147 billion on gasoline and diesel by this week since the strikes on Iran began on February 28 — $81.5 billion extra for gasoline and $66.2 billion extra for diesel, or about $1,127.65 per household compared with the same period in 2025. The national average gasoline price stood at $4.22 a gallon on October 29, according to AAA, $1.19 above a year earlier, even after easing five cents in a week. In California, the average was $5.94.
The timing is politically charged. The midterm elections are on Tuesday, November 3, just four days away, and affordability — above all the price at the pump — has become the central issue of the closing campaign. President Donald Trump has argued that his deal to import Russian diesel, and his push to end the Iran war, will bring prices down. The new profit figures give his opponents a simpler line: while voters pay more, oil companies earn more than ever.
The war began on February 28, 2026, when the United States and Israel began striking Iran. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which carries about a fifth of the world's oil supply, came close to a standstill, and the global fuel system — built on the assumption that crude flows freely and refineries run constantly — seized up.
Refiners have benefited most because the war has damaged the plants that turn crude into usable fuel. Hostilities in the Middle East and Russia have hit fuel-making capacity, so with fewer refineries available to meet global demand, margins soared for those still online. US refiners have an extra advantage: much of the oil they process arrives by pipeline, insulating them from the sky-high shipping costs that now apply to seaborne cargoes. They are, as the Times puts it, a vital link between producers and consumers — and that link has become a bottleneck, and a very profitable one.
Producers have also gained, mostly without the danger or cost of operating in a conflict zone. US oil prices averaged around $90 a barrel from April through September 2026, against roughly $100 in the same period of 2022, when Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent prices soaring. Their profits therefore remain below 2022 levels, but the direction is the same: higher prices, earned at home, while the fighting happens elsewhere.
The context matters for the comparison with 2025. That year was, the Times notes, a challenging stretch for the industry: oil was cheaper, and companies were navigating the early fallout from President Trump's trade war. The $47 billion they earned then makes the $130 billion now look larger still — but even against a normal year, the wartime jump is extraordinary. Brent crude, which closed at $115.32 on October 28, rose above $117 on Friday, October 30, after Houthi attacks on Saudi refineries and a tanker blast in the Strait of Hormuz, putting oil on track for a fourth straight monthly gain.
This is not the first time war has reshaped oil profits, and the industry knows the political risk that comes with it. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, record profits prompted calls in Washington and Europe for windfall taxes. No such tax is on the table now, but the new figures arrive in a campaign in which both parties are competing to be seen as the party of lower prices — and in which the president himself has made fuel costs a personal promise.
The clearest winners are the refiners. When a refinery in Saudi Arabia or Russia is damaged, the world's supply of gasoline and diesel shrinks, but demand does not. The refineries that keep running can therefore charge more for every gallon they produce, and their margins — the difference between the cost of crude and the price of finished fuel — widen sharply. That is why Valero's profit rose sixfold, why Shell's refining business drove its profit above $12 billion, and why Exxon and Chevron both credited refining for their best third quarters in years.
The producers' story is simpler and, in its way, more comfortable. They pump oil in Texas, New Mexico and North Dakota, far from the fighting, and sell it into a world market where prices have been lifted by war. They face no bombs, no blockades and no shipping insurance spikes — just higher realisations. The Times analysis did not extend to pipeline companies or service providers, whose performance has been less directly affected by the global oil shock, but for producers and refiners alike, the war has been, in the paper's word, lucrative.
The losers are easier to name: every household that drives, heats a home or buys goods moved by truck. Brown's $147 billion figure is the extra amount Americans have paid over what they would have paid at pre-war prices, and it is not evenly spread. Rural drivers, truckers and low-income families, who spend a larger share of income on fuel, feel it most. Diesel, which powers freight, accounts for $66.2 billion of the extra spending — a cost that eventually reaches supermarket shelves and delivery charges.
There is a further twist. The companies are not, by and large, using the windfall to produce more fuel. "We're not going to change our approach to capital investments just because we have a lot of cash," Valero's Bhullar told analysts. "Over time, all the excess cash we're accumulating will ultimately be directed toward our owners," he added — which usually means higher dividends or share buybacks. Chevron's chief financial officer, Eimear Bonner, put it similarly: "The cash is going on the balance sheet. That's an asset that obviously we lean on in hard times and we strengthen in times when we see higher prices."
That playbook frustrates policymakers who want more supply to bring prices down, and it is why the profit figures matter beyond the energy pages. If the windfall is returned to shareholders rather than invested in new capacity, the supply crunch that created it will last longer — and so will the high prices that created it.
Exxon's chief financial officer, Neil Hansen, acknowledged the pressure on households in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. "We certainly acknowledge that the higher fuel prices put pressure on families and businesses," he said. "But this is one of those situations and type of business where you can't invest your way out of these conditions overnight. The decisions that matter today were made years ago."
Chevron's Bonner was blunter about where the money is going. "The cash is going on the balance sheet," she said. "That's an asset that obviously we lean on in hard times and we strengthen in times when we see higher prices."
Valero's Bhullar, speaking to analysts last week, ruled out a change of investment strategy. "We're not going to change our approach to capital investments just because we have a lot of cash," he said, adding: "Over time, all the excess cash we're accumulating will ultimately be directed toward our owners."
Not every executive is parking the money quietly. John Catsimatidis, chief executive of United Refining, a privately held fuel maker in western Pennsylvania and a longtime Trump ally, said he plans to use this year's windfall to pay down debt — or, perhaps, to buy a new corporate plane. "I am serious," he told the Times. "You know why? I'm 78 years old. If I don't buy a new airplane now, when am I going to buy it? When I'm dead?"
The political reaction was swift in outline, if not yet in detail. Democrats, who have spent the closing week of the campaign arguing that the war's costs fall on working families, seized on the $130 billion figure as evidence that the boom is not shared. Republicans, for their part, have pointed to the president's efforts to end the war and to import cheaper diesel, and to the fact that gasoline prices have eased slightly in the past week. Neither side, so far, has proposed a windfall tax — but with four days to the election, the argument over who profits from war is now part of the campaign itself.
It matters first because fuel prices are the most visible price in American life. Voters may not follow the Federal Reserve or the trade deficit, but they see the pump price every time they fill up, and they remember it when they vote. A $1,127 extra bill per household, spread over eight months, is not an abstraction: it is the difference between a manageable month and a tight one for millions of families.
It matters second because it tests a central claim of the administration's energy policy. The president has argued that his handling of the war, and his Russian diesel deal, will lower prices. The data so far point the other way: diesel prices, measured by AAA, actually rose from $6.28 to $6.33 a gallon after the diesel deal was announced on October 9, and crude has climbed to its highest since April. If prices stay high through the election, that claim will be harder to sustain.
It matters third because of what the companies do next. If the $130 billion is largely returned to shareholders, the refining bottleneck that created it will persist, and the next supply shock — another Hormuz incident, another refinery attack — will produce another spike. If, instead, some of it is invested in capacity, the system becomes more resilient. The executives quoted so far suggest the first path is more likely, at least in the short term.
Finally, it matters for the war itself. A war that is lucrative for one side's domestic industry, and costly for its own consumers, creates a complicated politics: the same voters who pay at the pump are the ones whose pensions and retirement accounts may hold oil shares. That tension — between the household budget and the stock portfolio — is one reason the profit figures have become a campaign issue rather than just a business story.
Dozens of other US oil companies will report third-quarter results in the coming weeks, and the $130 billion total, which already excludes March and October, is likely to rise as those results arrive. Watch in particular for the pure refiners, whose margins have been the widest, and for any company that breaks with the pack by announcing new capacity.
Watch also for the election. If Democrats win control of either chamber on November 3, expect renewed calls for hearings on oil profits and, possibly, for a windfall tax — a proposal that has been raised after every oil shock since 2022 but never enacted. If Republicans hold Congress, expect the focus to stay on ending the war and expanding supply, including through the Russian diesel arrangement, whose first tankers are already sailing toward US ports.
On prices, the near term depends on Hormuz. A tanker was hit by explosive devices attached by a small boat on Friday, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, and Houthi attacks on Saudi refineries at Ras Tanura, Rabigh and Abqaiq have already pushed Brent above $117. Any further incident could send prices higher again; any diplomatic breakthrough — Qatari mediators returned to Tehran on Friday with a draft plan — could bring them down. For now, the market, in the words of one analyst quoted on Friday, is "getting increasingly spooked as we approach the midterms."
For drivers, the practical question is simpler: whether the $4.22 national average falls back toward pre-war levels, or whether $100-plus crude becomes the new normal. The oil companies' profits suggest they are prepared for either outcome. Households, with $147 billion already spent, are less well cushioned.
More than $130 billion from April to September 2026, according to a New York Times analysis of more than 50 large US oil and gas companies. The figure excludes March, the first month of the war, and October, so the true total is higher.
An extra $147 billion for gasoline and diesel since February 28, 2026, according to Brown University's Climate Solutions Lab — $81.5 billion for gasoline and $66.2 billion for diesel, or more than $1,100 per household.
Exxon Mobil earned $15.41 billion in the third quarter, more than double a year earlier, and Chevron earned $9.92 billion, nearly triple. Valero's third-quarter profit rose more than sixfold, and Shell earned $12.06 billion.
Damage to refineries in the Middle East and Russia cut global fuel-making capacity, so the refineries still running could charge much higher margins. US refiners were further shielded because much of their crude arrives by pipeline, avoiding high shipping costs.
Mostly not, so far. Executives said they are paying down debt and holding cash for dividends and buybacks, and that they will not change capital investment plans just because they have more cash.
Related coverage: Exxon and Chevron earnings Friday: Big Oil profits set to surge on $100 crude; Oil prices surge past $117 as Houthi attacks and Hormuz tanker blast stoke fears; Trump says Iran war will be 'wrapped up soon' as mediators return to Tehran.
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