TotalEnergies reaped more than $1B profit from Iran war: What to know
Non-Middle Eastern energy firms have been particularly benefiting as energy flows have been choked off from the Gulf.
French energy major TotalEnergies reportedly made more than $1 billion in profit after buying up large amounts of Middle Eastern oil in March amid the US-Israel-Iran war that has upended the whole region.
TotalEnergies’ traders bought every available May-loading cargo of crude from the United Arab Emirates and Oman that was offered in March, the Financial Times reported Monday, citing a person close to the company. In total, the purchases amounted to 70 cargoes that underpin the Middle East’s Dubai benchmark — more than double February levels.
Traders described the scale of buying as unprecedented. By comparison, just 347 Dubai cargoes were traded over the whole of last year, according to Bloomberg.
Why it matters: Since the US and Israel bombed Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran has been firing missiles at Israel, American assets in the region and neighboring Arab Gulf countries' energy infrastructure and ports. Iran has also responded by choking maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway that in peacetime saw around a fifth of all oil and liquefied natural gas cargos pass through it.
As a result, oil prices have been soaring. On Monday, Brent crude futures were $114.93 at 9:30 a.m. EST. The average price in 2025 was around $70 a barrel. Prices have risen again after US President Donald Trump renewed his threat to attack Iran's energy facilities in a Truth Social post shortly before markets opened on Monday.
Although many energy companies have benefited from the rise in prices to some degree, the TotalEnergies move is potentially “the biggest position-taking ever made in the history of oil markets,” Adi Imsirovic, a lecturer in energy systems at the University of Oxford, told the Financial Times.
After the Strait of Hormuz’s near-total closure, demand surged for UAE Murban and Omani crude, both sour grades exported via the Gulf of Oman, driving prices higher. The Dubai benchmark rose from around $70 a barrel just before the war to a record high of about $170 last week. TotalEnergies continued buying throughout the rally, building a dominant position as prices climbed and locking in outsized profits.
Know more: Non-Middle Eastern oil majors and traders such as TotalEnergies have been among the biggest beneficiaries of the war, as flows from the Gulf have been largely choked off via the Strait of Hormuz. US major ExxonMobil offers another example: Its market value hit a record in March after the conflict began, reaching $712.47 billion as of Monday, up from around $630 billion before the war.
Gulf producers, by contrast, have been losing out amid damaged infrastructure and widespread force majeure declarations. Many have been forced to reroute exports over land. The disruption has come at a steep cost, with Gulf energy producers losing more than $15 billion in revenue in the first weeks of the war, according to estimates by commodities data firm Kpler on March 15.
