10th March 2023, London – BP’s announcement that CEO Bernard Looney netted £10 million in pay during 2022, including £8.4 million alone in bonuses, is a “kick in the teeth” for the millions struggling with high energy bills, according to Global Witness.
This £10 million in pay is 300 times the UK average worker pay and alone equal to the energy bills of 4,000 British households. Meanwhile it is an increase of 125% on Looney’s 2021 pay.
It follows last month’s announcement that BP made record profits in 2022 of £22.9 billion, whilst average annual household energy bills are currently estimated at £2,500, driving people across the UK into poverty.
BP has invested heavily in Russia, whose invasion of Ukraine has caused oil and gas prices to spike. After Putin invaded Ukraine, Looney announced BP would sell its 20 percent stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft, but unlike rivals Shell and Exxon the company still has not pulled out.
Jonathan Noronha-Gant, Senior Fossil Fuels Campaigner at Global Witness, said:
“People everywhere struggling to feed their families or warm their homes in the harsh winter months, have every right to be angry that the CEO of a huge energy firm is netting millions of pounds in pay. This enormous pay package is a kick in the teeth to all hardworking people being faced with a cost-of-living crisis.”
“Nothing could be a starker example of the gross inequality that sits at the very heart of our broken energy system. For a rich few to be seeing their already extraordinary wealth bolstered, precisely because bills have been so unaffordable for the majority, is a twisted irony. At the very least governments should be implementing a proper windfall tax on both profits and CEO pay.”
“If the climate crisis isn’t reason enough to move off fossil fuels, surely governments cannot ignore that poverty is on the rise because of our oil and gas reliance. There is a better way of doing things that can protect both people and planet, and it starts with boosting renewable energy and breaking the power of big energy firms who get richer from crises.”
Today’s news follows Shell’s announcement yesterday that former CEO Ben van Beurden took home £9.7 million last year and is set to continue earning throughout 2022, despite having left the role in December.