The oil company profited from the skyrocketing gas prices brought on by the conflict in Ukraine, which helped BP’s revenues more than quadruple to £23 billion last year.
The outcomes, which come at a time when consumers are still having trouble paying their high gas and electricity bills, have renewed demands for a larger windfall tax on energy companies.
According to BP, it will produce far more oil and gas by the end of this decade than anticipated and has lowered its carbon reduction plans by a third.
Today’s political debate centers on the industry as Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary for the environment, calls for the introduction of a “real windfall tax.”
Only a few days before, Shell announced its greatest profit ever of about $40 billion (£33 billion).
Unions and other organizations immediately expressed their displeasure that BP is generating tremendous profits while regular people struggle to afford the energy it sells after BP announced their findings.
“As millions struggle to heat their homes and put food on the table, BP are laughing all the way to the bank,” said Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress.
Ministers allow major oil and gas firms to keep billions of dollars in surplus earnings. But they won’t increase the wages of nurses, teachers, and other important employees.
Ed Miliband, a former leader of the Labour Party, said: “What is so absurd is that Rishi Sunak still refuses to introduce a true windfall tax that would force them to pay their fair part while fossil fuel firms rake in these vast amounts.”
The government intends to enable the energy price ceiling to increase to £3,000 in only eight weeks. In order to prevent price increases in April, Labour would implement a genuine windfall tax.
‘Yet another oil company has been allowed to rake in vast profits from (Vladimir) Putin’s unlawful invasion of Ukraine, while households choose between food and heating,’ said Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey.
“Rishi Sunak has let down the citizens of this nation by disobeying requests for an appropriate windfall tax.”
Instead of allowing energy prices to increase once again in April, this Conservative government has to start prioritizing the needs of the people.
BP now lowered its environmental goals, which may be more relevant in the long run.
One of the first big oil and gas companies to declare a goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 was the firm.
This includes a prior commitment to reduce emissions by 35–40% by the end of this decade.
Today, the business announced a major revision to this aim. Instead, a 20–30% reduction is the goal.
Boss Bernard Looney promised an additional $8 billion (£6.6 billion) for oil and gas investment by 2030 and another $8 billion for transition projects, saying that it was about investing in both the transition and the energy that is required now.
He said, “With today’s news, we are leaning farther in.”
“We are increasing investment in both our transition and the current energy system at the same time.”
BP said that compared to 2019, it now only intends to reduce oil and gas output by 25% by the end of 2030. A 40% reduction had been the prior goal.
Kate Blagojevic, the head of climate justice for Greenpeace UK, stated: “BP’s new strategy will not only fail to provide the UK with much-needed energy security, but it will also ensure that people around the world already suffering from devastating droughts, floods, and heatwaves continue losing their lives and livelihoods.”
According to BP, its underlying replacement cost profit for the last three months of the year was $4.8 billion (£4 billion) rather than the prior quarters’ $4.9 billion (£4 billion).
After a stellar third quarter, BP’s gas marketing business reported below-average profits in the fourth quarter, which it said had a negative impact on the overall performance.
For the millions of people who have battled to find the money to remain warm and healthy this winter, Friends of the Earth noted that BP’s earnings “will be still more salt in the wound.”
The Friends of the Earth’s Connor Schwartz, a climate activist, said, “And with business thriving, BP has today disclosed it’s pulling back on its previous climate pledges.”
Heating our houses will inevitably continue to be expensive for the planet in many ways.
The organization encouraged the government to increase the generation of renewable energy while also implementing a countrywide insulation program to assist reduce costs and carbon emissions.
Mr. Schwartz said that “fairly taxing the huge profits of fossil fuel companies will assist to pay these essential reforms.”
The Irish Independent said that he had discussed how difficult it had been to be the first member of his family to attend college.
Only approximately eight of the 90 acres we owned were genuinely arable, he said. It was essentially subsistence farming, with 14 cows.
While his mother urged him to advance in life, Mr. Looney would also assist on the farm as “the gopher, bringing them whatever tool they needed.” She told me I could accomplish anything if I could read, he said.
He received his degree from University College Dublin, which has produced numerous Irish Prime Ministers, although his parents, Mary and Tom Looney, dropped out of school when they were 11 years old.
At the age of 20, he accepted his first job as a BP drilling engineer in the North Sea close to Aberdeen.
He then worked in Mexico as a member of the Deep Horizon crew, which will always be remembered for the 2010 world’s worst oil disaster, which spewed 210 million gallons into the ocean.
Before moving into more senior positions and becoming the helm of BP in February 2020, Mr. Looney also worked in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, and Vietnam.
When he was promoted to BP’s top executive, he declared a goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and a “new purpose of rethinking energy for people and our planet.”
Two of the strategy’s most notable elements, according to Mr. Looney, are our intentions to cut BP’s oil and gas output by 40% by 2030 and ten-fold our yearly investment on low-carbon endeavors.
However, this has also attracted his critics, who label him as the “awake” preacher of green policies.
A business insider told The Sunday Times that he was “playing to the woke bunch” and that BP’s “older generation” was “somewhat disenfranchised, as you’d expect.”
BP has criticized Mr. Looney for his pledge to decrease oil and gas output by 40% in order to satisfy environmental obligations.
That is a significant decrease in hydrocarbon emissions at a time when the world clearly needs them. Nobody else has projections like that, a former top source told The Sunday Times.
He said, “He was just a touch too ambitious.” It’s the appropriate course of action, but the speed has to be judged. My opinion, which is commonly held, is that they have been acting too aggressively.
Another ex-employee expressed skepticism about his promises. Will it come off, that is the question. Will he get the rate of return he anticipated? I wish he had allowed himself a little more wiggle space, the man said.
According to Mr. Looney, “Oil is quickly becoming socially challenging.” “I would speak about the individuals we have brought into BP in the last six months who we would have found difficult to acquire if we had not put out the [net zero] aim.”
Additionally, he has spoken out on diversity, notably the inclusion of LGBT+ people in the workplace, and mental health, which he thinks is his “huge duty.”
I look forward to sharing what I am up to, who I am meeting, and giving a window into the choices, difficulties, and possibilities that lie ahead,’ Mr. Looney writes in one of his many Instagram postings, where he addresses the public directly.
He said that he wanted people to be honest about their worries regarding the oil and gas business. I urge you all to be honest; I think open and honest dialogue is vital.
The Sunday Times knows that Ms. Hurst, his estranged wife, made reference to Mr. Looney in her self-published book How To Do You: The Life-Changing Art of Mastering Your Thoughts and Taking Control of Your Life. She asserts that her spouse married her just to advance at BP.
The twice-married Ms. Hurst wrote: “I was understandably saddened when my spouse abruptly and without warning dissolved our marriage through a WhatsApp message.
Later, I discovered that he had merely wed me in order to advance to the next level of seniority in the organization where he worked. He needed to seem to be married in order to get the promotion.
“I know it’s unbelievable, but that’s what happened. It took some time for me to process what had transpired in my head and in my thoughts.
Three months before he was appointed CEO, she wed Mr. Looney in October 2017; they were divorced the following year.
He had a short marriage at a time when he wasn’t promoted, a buddy of Mr. Looney told the Sunday Times. Therefore, if he married her to advance in his career, it didn’t appear to be a success. Maybe he separated from her so he could advance.
Due in part to the conflict in the Ukraine and the pressures brought on by inflation after COVID, BP has seen its earnings rise as a result of a worldwide price increase.
The energy behemoth further issued a warning that third-quarter energy prices will remain high due to the invasion of Ukraine’s continued disruption of Russian supply.
»As oil costs rose, BP profits reached £23billion last year«