The second quarter of 2026 closed the Strait of Hormuz, put crude oil on a wartime footing, and raised the price of nearly everything that moves. It also produced the most profitable stretch the oil majors have seen in years. ExxonMobil reported $14.5 billion in second-quarter profit, double what it earned a year earlier [1]. Chevron reported $12.1 billion, its highest quarterly earnings ever [1]. Shell reported $9.8 billion, its second-highest [1]. Three companies, one quarter, $36.4 billion.
NPR framed the combined haul as "some $404 million in profits every day for the last three months" [1]. The arithmetic runs slightly differently by our count. The second quarter covers April, May, and June, which is 91 days, and $36.4 billion divided by 91 days is $400 million a day. The $404 million figure is what the division produces if the quarter is treated as 90 days. The gap changes nothing about the story. We use $400 million because that is the number the calendar supports.
The other side of the ledger is at the pump. A gallon of regular now averages nearly $4.11 nationally, up from $3.85 a month ago, according to AAA [2]. Brent crude careened between $72 and $102 a barrel during July before settling Friday at $87.93 [2]. Every dollar of that war premium enters the economy twice, once as a cost to the person filling a tank and once as margin to the companies that pump, ship, and refine the barrel.
The mechanism is visible in the shipping data. Only five ships were confirmed to have transited the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, according to the trade intelligence group Kpler [1]. Scarcity at sea became margin onshore: Shell ran its refineries at "102% capacity" during the quarter [1]. When one of the world's critical oil arteries narrows to five hulls in a day, the price does the rest of the work on its own.
What the companies are doing with the money is the most instructive part of the quarter. They are not pouring it into new production, and they are not returning it through bigger dividends or stock buybacks. NPR reports the majors "seem more focused on paying down debt" [1]. The windfall is being banked as balance-sheet repair. Households absorb the war premium at $4.11 a gallon; the companies collecting it are using the proceeds to retire their own borrowing.
Exxon chief executive Darren Woods, asked about the closed strait, gave the industry's long view: "I think, ultimately, there's a solution that the world will arrive at. I couldn't tell you exactly when or what it's going to look like, but those resources are just too critical to the overall economic health of the world for them to stay offline" [1]. On the question of a windfall profits tax, his answer was just as direct: "We canceled investments that we had planned for Europe based on the last time they passed a windfall profits tax" [1]. Woods added that Exxon is suing over the European levy "because we don't think that's a legal taking for the industry" [1].
The strongest version of the industry's defense deserves a full airing. Exxon, Chevron, and Shell are global commodity businesses whose margins track a price they do not set. The Hormuz closure was not their doing, the war premium is not their invention, and a refiner that runs at "102% capacity" into a supply shock is doing exactly what refiners exist to do. All of that is true. None of it answers the question the quarter actually raises, which is about distribution rather than blame: when a war moves the price of crude, who collects the premium and who pays it. This quarter the answer is specific. The people paying are drivers at $4.11 a gallon, 26 cents more than a month ago. The entities collecting are three companies that booked $36.4 billion and are spending it on their own debt.
We have been following this pipeline since the strait closed, through the Strategic Petroleum Reserve drawdown and the crude spike that preceded these earnings. The war quarter is where those threads meet the income statement. The ledger is short. $400 million a day comes in. $4.11 a gallon goes out. The solution Woods expects the world to arrive at has no posted date, and until it arrives, the meter runs in one direction.
