The two largest U.S. oil companies, ExxonMobil and Chevron reported blowout profits as oil prices remain sharply elevated due to the U.S. war with Iran.
Page F131From§Eachthe afternoon edition — 30 October 2026
RECORD PROFIT, RECORD PUMP
Trump calls record diesel prices proof of a fortune; Exxon and Chevron just made exactly that.
As it ran on the front
In August, the average gallon of diesel in the United States had not yet reached its most expensive hour, but the average gallon of gasoline had: four dollars and eight cents, every day of the month, the first time that had happened in the nation's history, and ninety cents more than the same gallon cost a year before. The war the United States was running against Iran was the reason given for the record.
The diesel gallon caught up fast. On September 4th it reached five dollars and eighty-five cents, an all-time high, and the economist Dean Baker wrote on social media that "Trump did it," putting a byline on the record. The gallon broke that record again the next day, to five dollars and eighty-eight cents — two records in two days, both of them set before Labor Day had even arrived. Axios reported that incumbent Republicans were fretting over what the number would do to them in November; their own internal polling showed that when voters were asked whom to blame for it, they answered with the president's name.…
…(cont) Six weeks later, at a rally in Arizona, hours after new federal data showed inflation running at its highest level in months, the president offered his own reading of that same gallon to the crowd: "Because of the price of oil, Texas and Oklahoma and North Dakota and all these places, we're making a fortune." He named the states. He did not name the companies.
On October 30th he did not have to. ExxonMobil and Chevron reported third-quarter profits built by running their refineries at full tilt into the identical high diesel prices the president had just finished calling a fortune — the war with Iran, and the conflict with Russia, doing for refining margins what no lobbyist needs to ask Congress for directly. The fortune was real. It was also specific: it belonged to two companies, collected a gallon at a time, at pumps used by households that did not report a blowout quarter of their own.
Four days remain before the election that will tell Republicans whether their own pollsters had it right about who gets blamed for the number.
“They're not lying when they say somebody's making a fortune off this war, they just leave the pronoun out. Every dime you watched land on that pump sign in September landed in a quarterly report in October, and the report didn't have your name on it. Diesel's what hauls your groceries to the shelf, so when the refineries run flat out into a record price, you're not watching a market, you're watching the margin.”
“Look, this is just energy markets functioning correctly — high prices signal investment, investment means more supply down the road, that's basic — did I say the refineries are running at full tilt right now, into the high prices, instead of expanding anything? That's not — okay, that one's not great for me either.”
The receipts
Chevron and Exxon Mobil earned significant profits during the third quarter of this year as the companies ran their refineries at full tilt, taking advantage of higher diesel prices. Oil and gas majors have benefited from President Donald Trump’s war in Iran throughout this year, as oil and gas prices have soared due to supply […]
· 'We're Making a Fortune,' Trump Says of High Oil Prices as Working Class Pays from the morgue, 15 Oct 2026
· 'Trump Did It!': At $5.85 a Gallon, Diesel Price Hits All-Time High in US Thanks to War on Iran from the morgue, 4 Sep 2026
· Trump Hammered Over Iran War That Drove Gas Prices Above $4 Per Gallon Every Day in August for First Time Ever from the morgue, 31 Aug 2026
· 'Can't Message That Away': GOP Frets as Trump Administration Desperately Spins Record-High Diesel Prices from the morgue, 5 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.