In 2022, global oil companies faced substantial balance sheet write-downs due to assets undervalued in Russia, totaling roughly 58 billion dollars. This figure comes from Interfax, summarized to reflect the scale of impairment across the sector.
Leadership in losses was commanded by the British energy major BP, which wrote down about 25.52 billion dollars. Close behind was France’s TotalEnergies with impairment pegged at 14.8 billion dollars, while the German group Wintershall Dea came in third with losses around 7 billion euros for the year. These figures illustrate how geopolitical risk and market recalibration can translate into material accounting impacts on major integrated oil companies.
Rounding out the top five, Austrian energy firm OMV registered approximately 2.67 billion dollars in write-downs, and Shell, the Anglo-Dutch giant, reported losses near 4.186 billion dollars. United States peers were not immune, with Exxon Mobil posting roughly 2.3 billion dollars in impairments and Norway’s Equinor reporting about 1.08 billion dollars in losses for the year. The pattern underscores how widespread asset revaluations can be across large, diversified oil and gas portfolios amid shifting energy dynamics and sanctions-related effects.
Earlier in March, Chevron chairman Mike Wirth commented that price ceilings on Russian oil products appear to create certain frictions in energy markets, highlighting how policy tools can influence market functioning and price formation. This observation points to the broader, ongoing discussion about how global policy responses shape energy supply chains, pricing signals, and investment decisions in the sector.
Looking back to mid-February, Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, indicated that sales of oil and gas by exporting nations generated substantial revenues in 2022, around four trillion dollars. He also warned that while current energy earnings are high, the long-term trend could see a decline in revenues from energy sources as the market evolves and diversification continues to take hold. This outlook frames a conversation on how energy markets may rebalance as energy transition policies, technology costs, and demand patterns shift across regions including North America and Europe.