Cash rich ‘Big Five’ majors mull what to do with their oil price bounty

With nearly $220bn in 2022 profits, the oil industry’s so-called Big Five supermajors – BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies – are sitting on a cash pile as rarely before seen. With significantly expanded capital spending, there will be some eye-catching African upstream deals, but the expectation is that shareholders, rather than resource holders, will be the main beneficiaries of this boom, writes James Gavin with African Energy staff.