The problem is that if oil companies make multi-year investments to increase production, what happens if the Ukraine conflict ends in a few months and Russian oil is tolerated again, or OPEC ramps up production? Companies and investors are tired of repeatedly having the rug pulled out from under them, investing during high price periods and then eating losses when the price of oil falls. If the government wants more domestic oil supply, they will need to craft policy to encourage that, not just complain in press releases.

Gas prices aren't high because of Ukraine, they are high because of oil company profits https://twitter.com/IAmPoliticsGirl/status/15180483663194808...

I pulled up one example, Exxon Mobile. Their net profit margin is 8.21%. BP is at 4.8%. Meanwhile the average for the S&P 500 is at 12.4%. So if these companies decided to operate as non-profits, we'd see maybe a drop from $5.00 gas to $4.80 or $4.70 (assuming the whole discount gets passed on to consumers). Prices were already up before Ukraine thanks to the resurgence of demand post-covid, but it certainly didn't help.

Also, please don't argue via linking obnoxious TikTok-style videos. If you have a point, make it yourself.

Exxon net profit is at an all time high, they don't need to increase supply and reduce prices. I never said they have to operate as a non-profit, what a ridiculous thing to bring into the discussion.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/XOM/exxon/profit-m...

My point was that major oil companies already operate with low profits relative the the S&P 500, and that even an extreme reduction to 0% profit would not significantly reduce prices at the pump. An 8% profit does not explain gas prices doubling since 2020. Also the "all time" high profits are something like 0.05% above 2018, that language seems like headline clickbait. It might be technically true, but it's rather misleading.

The smart move would be to nationalize oil and procure oil services by bidding process.

That will never happen of course.

I was skeptical that this was some conspiracy theory, but according to the article there is/was a temporary tax incentive for them to lose money during the pandemic.