Higher crude prices have produced another record earnings report for an oil giant, this time Saudi Arabia’s state-run Saudi Aramco. In 2022 the company’s profits surged to $161 billion, a 46% increase over 2021’s $110 billion.

The world’s second most valuable company, Aramco said that the report highlighted its, “highest annual profits as a listed company.” The earnings of Aramco were nearly more than the combined earnings for the so-called oil majors Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and TotalEnergies. Although all of those oil majors enjoyed their own record profits, their combined total only bested Aramco’s by about $30 billion.

The record profits were, according to Aramco, “underpinned by stronger crude oil prices, higher volumes sold and improved margins for refined products.”

Oil prices surged last year, as the market was driven by fears that Western sanctions levied against Russia would remove Russian supplies from the markets. After an initial period of chaos, as Russian supplies created new supply flows to buyers in Asia, who were not bound by the sanctions, and other sources of oil which previously flowed to Asia formed new flows to Europe and America, the market stabilized, and prices began to decline.

In 2022, Aramco said daily production was about 11.5 million barrels per day. The company plans to gradually amp up production to 13 million barrels per day by 2027. As part of achieving that objective, the company will spend $55 billion this year on capital projects investments.

Amin H. Nasser, the CEO of Aramco said, “Given that we anticipate oil and gas will remain essential for the foreseeable future, the risks of underinvestment in our industry are real – including contributing to higher energy prices. To leverage our unique advantages at scale and be part of the global solution, Aramco has embarked on the largest capital spending program in its history.”