Big Oil = Big Profits in Q1

[dan_s]

Big Oil back to raking in billions. Houston Chronicle.
Big Oil is back to doing what it does best: raking in billions of dollars in profit. The world’s largest oil companies this week posted some of their best earnings in years as they control costs and ride rising oil prices that are nearing $70 a barrel. Chevron on Friday said its first quarter profit surged by 36 percent from a year ago to $3.6 billion, its best report since the peak of the last oil boom in the summer of 2014. Royal Dutch Shell, which has its North American headquarters in Houston, did even better, reporting that its profit surged a stunning 67 percent to more than $5 billion, its best quarter since 2013. “The state of the oil industry is pretty good right now,” said Guy Baber, an energy analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. in Houston “That could persist for a while because global oil demand looks strong.”