The British hydrocarbon giant BP announced on Tuesday an annual result for 2022 boosted by hydrocarbon prices, accompanied by significant distributions to its shareholders, but it slowed down its energy transition, to the chagrin of environmentalists.
BP sees its profit excluding exceptional items more than double over one year to reach 27.7 billion US dollars, a record, in the wake of the rise in oil and gas prices, driven in particular by the war in Ukraine. This result published shortly after that of Shell, which announced last week that it had made the highest profit in its history in 2022, or 42.3 billion dollars, and the spectacular figures of its American rivals ExxonMobil and Chevron, stirs up the calls for higher taxation in the midst of a cost of living crisis.
But the conflict in Ukraine has also weighed heavily on the group, which saw its net income fall into the red with a net loss group share of 2.5 billion dollars due to accounting costs of more than 24 billion dollars linked to the exit of the Russian Rosneft.
BP also announced on Tuesday that it intended to boost its profits by 2030 by investing more in renewable energies, but also in hydrocarbons, which will slow the pace of its energy transition. The group thus foresees an increase in investments until 2030 which could reach 8 billion dollars in low-carbon energies and as much in oil and gas. As a result, BP expects its oil and gas production to decline less quickly than expected: in 2030 it will be 25% lower than in 2019, compared to a 40% decrease previously targeted.
Despite record results, BP “is going back on its recent climate promises”, lamented the NGO Friends of the Earth.
Ambitious commitments
“We continue to believe that our ambition and our objectives, taken together, are consistent with the objectives of the Paris Agreement”, which aims to limit climate change, assured the chief executive of BP, Bernard Looney, during an analyst conference. He notably argued that BP was now more ambitious in its objective to reduce emissions linked to its activities: these must be 50% carbon neutral by 2030, but Mr Looney admitted that this would be “more difficult”. to achieve it.
Greenpeace, which praised a year earlier “the most ambitious of the oil giants” for its transition, now castigates commitments “undermined by pressure from investors and governments”.
In fact, BP on Tuesday announced a 10% increase in its fourth quarter dividend, as well as a new $2.75 billion share buyback program. Shareholder payouts topped $14 billion for 2022. ‘More than half’ of BP’s profits ‘go directly to super-rich shareholders, while millions can’t even afford to heat their homes’ , denounces the NGO Global Justice Now, which calls for the oil giants to be taxed more.
The United Kingdom government introduced in May, then increased at the end of the year to 35%, a tax on windfall energy profits, as did the European Union, which adopted a “temporary solidarity contribution” at the end of September. According to BP, the exceptional British tax weighed in 2022 up to 1.8 billion dollars in its accounts, and the European contribution, up to 505 million.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appeared to rule out a further tax hike on hydrocarbon producers on Tuesday. The government “maintains a balance between funding significant cost-of-living assistance […] while encouraging investment in the North Sea to enhance energy security,” he noted.
The company was recently accused of delaying the implementation of the exit from Russia. She had indicated in December that it was proving “complex” to get rid of her 19.75% share in Rosneft. “We remain actively engaged in the sale of our stake […] and we will inform the market in due course,” Looney repeated on Tuesday.