It is because they are selling other petrochemicals at higher prices. Oil doesn't just go for fuel. It goes for plastics, chemicals, road tar, and hundreds of other uses. Check out their annual reports and you can see exactly where the revenue is coming from. A majority is international downstream (selling wholesale oil to other countries), second is non-fuel petrochemical sales, and the lowest profit margin item is oil for fuel production.
ping 28 & 30
I read that and had to laugh. I work for an investment firm and some of the “staff assistants” go nuts about gas prices because they say... “the evil oil companies are sucking the blood out of us on gasoline just to get richer”. There is a heck of alot more to it than that.