BP’s annual profit more than doubles

BP’s annual revenue greater than doubled final yr to an all-time excessive of almost $40.5 billion ($US28 billion), extending a file run of earnings for the world’s oil majors that’s fueling requires greater taxes on the windfall beneficial properties.

The metric is a key indicator of oil firms’ profitability.

BP additionally introduced on Tuesday an additional $3.9 billion ($US2.75 billion) in share buybacks and hiked its dividend for the fourth quarter by round 10 per cent to six.61 cents per share.

The income prime the corporate’s earlier annual file of $30 billion ($US26.3 billion), achieved in 2008.

BP’s shares rose 5.2 per cent in morning buying and selling following the news.

Over the previous 12 months, its shares have soared 23 per cent.

The earnings are the most recent in a string of record-setting outcomes by the world’s largest vitality firms, which have loved bumper income off the again of skyrocketing oil and gasoline costs.

The battle’s impact on UK households has been a surge in vitality prices, with the common gasoline and electrical energy invoice because of enhance once more from the beginning of April.

The beautiful company outcomes have amplified requires the UK authorities to impose greater windfall taxes on vitality firms.

Last yr, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak — then finance minister — launched a 25 p.c tax on income created from extracting oil and gasoline within the North Sea.

Last month, the federal government elevated that tax, referred to as the vitality income levy, to 35 per cent and prolonged it to March 2028.

BP informed CNN that it anticipated to pay $3.1 billion ($US2.2 billion) in UK taxes for 2022, with $1 billion ($700 million) of that associated to the UK vitality income levy.

Nick Butler, a former BP government, informed BBC Radio on Tuesday that the corporate made most of its income exterior of the United Kingdom.

“I’m sure there will be more pressure for windfall taxes… I think people should be aware that this is a temporary situation. Oil and gas prices are going down,” he mentioned.

Butler added that the agency was “rebalancing their strategy a bit to invest in oil and gas for a bit longer, and at a higher level, as well as renewables.”