Drea Knufken
The oil market, like its product, is vast, slippery and opaque. Nobody’s even sure what the market size is. According to one estimate, it’s worth a whopping $2.5 trillion.
Underhanded deals and collusion play no small part in this (read this article for more), but even the legitimate numbers are impressive. Crude oil production profits increased 16.2% in 2007-8 alone.
The 6 most profitable oil companies in the world—Exxon Mobil, Gazprom, Shell, Chevron, BP, and Brazil’s Petrobras—netted a total profit of $156 billion in 2008. Add to that peak oil’s potential supply shortages, OPEC’s ongoing legal collusion, a $12.5 billion oil smuggling black market, and shady commodities deals, and you have oil barons swimming in profits for the foreseeable future.
