The Week in Numbers: big oil strikes gold
STORY: From a blowout quarter for big oil, to a big move by the Bank of England, this is the Week in Numbers….
$59 billion is the total quarterly profit posted by oil majors. This week saw BP earnings hit a 14-year high, after record figures from Shell and others the week before. The numbers may prove awkward as countries around the world grapple with soaring energy costs.
27 years is how long it’s been since the Bank of England did such a big rate hike. On Thursday it did a half percentage point increase, taking the benchmark to 1.75%.
Governor Andrew Bailey said policymakers had little choice.
"Returning inflation to the 2% target remains our absolute priority. There are no ifs or buts about that.”
$10 billion is how much Facebook-parent Meta raised in its first-ever bond offering, according to Reuters sources. The social network wants to fund expensive initiatives including its move into the metaverse.
Precisely 0% was the year-on-year revenue growth at Alibaba. That’s the first flat quarter ever reported by the e-commerce titan. Boss Daniel Zhang says the coming months are about “cost-cutting and efficiency”.
And 100,000 barrels per day is how much OPEC plans to increase oil output. Analysts say that’s trivial, equivalent to 86 seconds of daily global use. Some saw a snub to U.S. President Joe Biden, who had urged Saudi Arabia to pump more.
