Facts give lie to claim record oil money is being poured into green projects
The chief financial officer of the oil and gas company BP, Murray Auchincloss, told investors this week: “It’s possible that we’re getting more cash than we know what to do with.”
Oil and gas companies have reported bumper profits, as the gas crisis raises the price at which they can sell their fossil fuels, without raising the cost of their extraction.
While they are being showered with cash, households in the UK are suffering the biggest fall in income in three decades, with one in 10 households not having enough money for food and food bank use soaring.
This week, BP reported a profit of $12.8bn (£9.4bn) for last year, following Shell’s announcement last week of $19.3bn in profits. Little of the money is going to taxpayers: Channel 4 revealed that BP has paid no tax on its North Sea oil and gas for five years.
Bernard Looney, the chief executive of BP, told analysts he was “not seeing increased pressure” for the company to pay more tax, despite calls in the UK for a windfall tax on fossil fuel profits, to ease the burden of energy bills on the vulnerable.
Instead, Looney and other senior managers in the fossil fuel industry have sought to justify their bonanza on the grounds that the billions of extra cash is needed to pour into their transition to low carbon companies.
The facts of oil and gas company investment do not bear out the claim that the massive returns are being poured into green projects and the race to net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Chris Venables, of the Green Alliance thinktank, said: “The time for oil and gas companies to have invested in the clean energy transition was two decades ago – when they were peddling climate change denialism. If they were serious about renewable energy, they would be doing it
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