How much?! Over the past three months Exxon, Shell and BP sold around $300billion of oil between them. That is a very, very large number so for everyone who likes to swear and grumble at these oily fat cats - your moment has come.

Big oil is certainly worried. First out of the blocks with its results, BP sought to play down the size of its profits, and moaned about how badly it had been hit by the hurricanes in the Gulf, even though Shell was far worse affected. So lacking in enthusiasm was BP about its results that its share price fell on the day.

And from America a real sign of the times: Lee Raymond, Exxon's chief executive and the toughest man in the business, making soothing noises while declaring profit of $9.92billion and revenues of $100.7billion. We did all we could to improve supply of oil, said Raymond, and "acted responsibly in pricing at our company-operated service stations".

Raymond has many skills, but public relations is not in his top 10. A better strategy for Exxon, BP and Shell to calm bumptious politicians and an outraged public would be to suggest that they follow the money and start talking about where the $300billion goes.

The largest chunk of it is used to pay for extracting oil, and then selling it. With almost all of the world's oil found in unstable and testing places, only the likes of BP and Shell have the scale and political clout to operate in these territories. Shell has already ploughed $10billion this year into drilling for new supplies and without such expenditure, oil would be a genuinely scarce commodity.

If you think Big Oil is coining it in, how about Big Saudi, or Mexico, or Iran? The transfer of wealth to oil producers from countries without oil, such as France, has not been so great since 1970s. Luxury goods sales are booming, in London particularly.

Much of the money also flows into tax. Shell paid 40pc tax on its profits in the quarter, BP slightly less.

And then there are the dividends: Shell paid $2billion in the quarter and bought back 1pc of its shares. Out of the £39billion paid out in dividends by UK companies last year, BP and Shell accounted for £5billion of it.

What is left is a sizeable profit, but only at a slim margin. Shell's is 7.8pc and BP's is 4.6pc this quarter.

This sort of return would hardly please the heads of a hedge fund, especially given that oil is a messy business, fraught with political risk. No wonder the Rockefeller family moved out of it and into something relatively far more profitable - banking.