War Profits Surge as Europe Pays for Fuel and Arms

BP reported $8.46bn in third-quarter profit on October 30, while the European Union has paid an additional €100bn for fossil fuels since the war began without receiving an extra barrel. The profits and the bill sit on opposite sides of the same war economy: energy and weapons companies are collecting gains as households and governments absorb the costs.

The war economy's winners

The five Western oil majors—ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, TotalEnergies and BP—reported combined third-quarter earnings of about $54bn, compared with roughly $23bn in 3Q25. BP's result was almost four times its $2.2bn profit a year earlier. Global Witness called it “obscene,” The Guardian reported on October 30.

Oil and gas companies made more than $130bn in the six months to late October, almost three times their earnings a year earlier, the New York Times reported. Brent crude closed at $72.48 a barrel on February 27, before US and Israeli strikes on Iran, then reached a closing high of $118.35 on March 31 as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz collapsed. Producers outside the strait and refiners processing scarce crude into diesel captured much of the gains.

The costs landed elsewhere. Brown University's Iran War Energy Cost Tracker put extra US household spending on gasoline and diesel at more than $100bn by September 7, or more than $750 per household, since the war began on February 28. UK diesel cost 198.79 pence ($2.66) a litre, according to motoring group RAC. Seven EU member states support a windfall tax on energy companies, and Poland's president signed a fuel windfall tax into law.

Refining delivered a particularly neat windfall. ExxonMobil's refineries earned about $7.2bn in the third quarter, more than its oil and gas fields, as the US Gulf Coast crack spread reached an all-time high of $72.64 on September 22, CNBC reported. “It really was a banner quarter for the refining business,” BP chief executive Meg O'Neill told Bloomberg TV. ExxonMobil and Chevron shares both closed at all-time highs on October 30.

Arms makers cash in

European defence companies' profits grew faster than those of major US contractors from 2020 to 2025, according to an analyst comparison published by Ukraine Business News on October 29. Sweden's Saab and Italy's Leonardo each increased profit more than fivefold. Saab's profit rose from $0.12bn to $0.64bn, while Leonardo's climbed from $0.27bn to $1.38bn. Lockheed Martin, described as the world's largest defence company, earned less in 2025 than in 2020.

Share prices tell a similarly lopsided story. Since February 23, 2022, Saab shares rose 1,175%, Rheinmetall 972% and Leonardo 709%. BAE Systems shares more than tripled. Lockheed Martin rose 64% and Northrop Grumman 44%. The comparison does not establish how much of the European companies' growth came from the war in Ukraine rather than the broader rearmament drive governments across the continent considered.

Rheinmetall, the Duesseldorf-based maker of tanks, guns and ammunition, reported record 2025 sales of €9.9bn and an operating result of €1.84bn. Its order backlog rose to €80.5bn at the end of June. The company bought Romania's Mangalia shipyard for €138mn in October as part of an eastward expansion. After its shares peaked at €1,988.50 on September 29, 2025, they closed at €1,037.60 on October 30. A shareholder who bought before Russia's invasion was still up 972%.

The bill beyond Europe

Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whose oil and gas shipments were hit by the closure of Hormuz, saw surpluses shrink or turn into deficits. Saudi Arabia's current-account surplus of $145.3bn in 2022 had turned into deficits; the IMF forecast a $46.6bn shortfall in 2026. Qatar's 2022 surplus reached 26.8% of GDP, while the IMF expected a surplus of 7.1% in 2026. QatarEnergy extended force majeure on LNG deliveries to the end of December, covering 38 cargoes since April for one European buyer alone.

The gains moved unevenly even among energy exporters. Norway's current-account surplus was forecast to rise to $134.7bn, while the US current-account deficit was forecast to widen to $1.26 trillion as US LNG shifted towards Europe to replace lost Qatari supply. The gains from those exports went to US companies rather than the federal budget. The accounting is clear: wars rearrange who collects, while the people paying for fuel and the states buying weapons are left with the bill.