8th March 2024, London – BP’s announcement that new CEO Murray Auchincloss netted £8 million ($10 million) in pay in 2023, including £6.5 ($8 million) in bonuses, highlights the sickening reality of our broken energy system.
His pay is 230 times higher than the UK average annual salary and equal to the average energy bills of over 4,700 British households.
Global Witness has revealed that BP has made an immense £28 billion ($35 billion) in profit since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since the invasion, high energy prices have pushed people in the UK and across the world into poverty.
Auchincloss served as BP’s interim CEO from September to December 2023, taking over from the disgraced Bernard Looney. Previously, Auchincloss was BP’s CFO.
He became the permanent CEO in January 2024. Auchincloss’s increase relative to his 2022 salary asCFO was over 50%.
Like other oil majors, in 2023 BP paid huge sums to its shareholders rather than investing in the renewable energies needed to mitigate the climate emergency. The £10.2 billion ($12.7 billion) shareholder payouts by BP could cover the projected cost of natural disasters for the next 7 years in the UK, 6 years in Australia, or 4 years in Germany.
Alice Harrison, Fossil Fuels Campaign Leader at Global Witness, said:
"The millions paid out to BP's CEO contrast with the millions of Brits in energy poverty, showing the sickening reality of our broken energy system. People everywhere, struggling to feed their families or heat their homes, have every right to be angry at BP’s huge profits and payouts.
"BP and its CEO count among the biggest winners of Russia's war in Ukraine. BP, which still owns a big chunk of the Russian oil company Rosneft, profiteered massively from the resulting turbulence in energy markets, and now the firm has decided to give its CEO a multi-million, fat cat pat on the back whilst most people are living paycheck to paycheck.
"The government is missing the opportunity to introduce a serious windfall tax and CEO bonus tax".
NOTES TO EDITOR
- Average UK energy bills drawn from Cornwall Insight estimates for the year staring April 2. 2024, as reported by the BBC.
- Average UK salaries drawn from Office of National Statistics.
- Auchincloss’ compensation can be found in BP’s 2023 Annual Report, page 113.