You may not be too pleased about paying higher and higher gas prices, but rest assured that your money is going to a good cause — the continued enrichment of big oil. In the first quarter of 2011, the five largest oil companies all upped their massive profits from a year ago.

Climate Progress, an environmental advocacy site that presumably isn’t too fond of big oil, reports that ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and Shell posted a combined $18.2 billion in first quarter profits — a 40 percent increase over their profits in the first quarter of 2010. BP, hampered by financial responsibilities due to last year’s oil spill, settled for a mere $5.5 billion profit, a measly 17 percent increase over 2010’s first quarter numbers. The story says big oil receives $4 billion in annual tax subsidies for domestic drilling and prediction, just to sweeten the pot.

There are other sides to this story — the rising price of oil is driven up by speculators, and it’s tough to knock companies for being efficient and profitable — but with current gas prices 30 percent higher than they were in April 2010, forgive customers for being less than thrilled with colossal oil company profits and subsidies.

Oil giants post massive Q1 profits, demand huge subsidies [Climate Progress via Newsvine]

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