Repsol triples profits and the debate shifts to Montero

Repsol triples its profits and the political spotlight returns to Montero

A headline in El Correo opens the issue: Repsol triples its half-year earnings amid soaring crude prices. Whoever brings up the figure stresses that the outlet is critical of the Government, so there is no room to dismiss it as a suspect source. The figure itself is not in dispute. The motive is. Because whoever triples their earnings in six months does not need to declare a war: it is enough for one to exist.

The profit everyone accepts and the cause that is contested

The central accusation is straightforward: oil companies sell reserves that have nothing to do with the conflict at the price the conflict dictates. If crude rises because there is a war in the Persian Gulf, the barrel extracted far from there also costs more. That is where the disagreement begins.

One forum user's objection has a certain charm: they argue that Repsol posted virtually the same earnings the previous year, with no Iran war involved. The tailwind may be a military one, but according to this objection the business was already running on its own. A number is left hanging, 2,568, along with a question nobody answers: how much has the State taken in from the rising cost of oil and from the tax hikes of recent years.

Why are wars linked to the price of oil?

Because whoever sells weapons for a conflict and crude made expensive by that same conflict gets paid twice. The thesis circulating, without evidence, holds that the Persian Gulf and Ukraine wars are artificial and that the big beneficiaries are the same ones who later charge exceptional prices for the barrel. In that reading, the ordinary citizen is not on the side that gets rich, but on the side that pays. Cannon fodder, to use the blunt expression being thrown around.

The wealth argument: 6 billion versus 15

The counterargument, according to another forum user, comes from plain business sense: a person with a fortune of more than 6 billion does not start a war to make 15. The figure ridicules the textbook conspiracy, the magnate who moves armies for pocket change. On the other side, the response is that the one who gets rich is never the one who dies. And that among the world's highest-revenue companies are the oil companies, not those pointing out the problem.

From flat earth to crude: all in the same bag

The opening post mixes matters of a very different nature — flat earth, vaccines, the circular economy, energy sovereignty — within the same paragraph, with no evidence for what is claimed. The underlying thesis is that it is easier to laugh at the protester than to regulate the company raking in the money. It is crude, deliberate rhetoric. It is also the tone in which the discussion unfolds.

Irene Montero and the electoral arithmetic of the decrees

The leap into politics comes with the negotiation of the decrees. Montero arrives at that meeting with her electoral base in retreat, according to the reading of the moment, and with a move interpreted as shrewd: not getting into the details and deferring the decision to the tenants' union, "we will vote for whatever the union wants." With the decrees on the table and the possibility that Sánchez may have no option left but to call elections, the calculation, according to this analysis, does not look bad. If there are ballots, she would come out of it well positioned.

In the end, the elephant in the room was neither the war nor the barrel. It was the unanswered question: how much has the State collected from more expensive oil. It is still there.