Is there any way to stop energy companies profiting from the cost-of-living crisis?
New StatesmanAug 02, 2022
On Tues., UK energy giant BP reported profits of $8.45B between April and June, the biggest quarterly profit in 14 years. The news comes amid surges in domestic energy prices in the UK, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.
Some of the profits were used to boost dividends by 10%, while company leaders announced plans to buy back $3.5B in shares.
Oil companies are profiteering while the poorest Brits struggle to afford basic necessities. 83% of BP is owned by institutional investors, meaning that powerful foreign financiers are benefiting from impoverishment in the UK. Energy corporations are greenwashing and squeezing the hardest-working for the benefit of the super-rich. The government must do more.
During the COVID lockdowns, travel and manufacturing slowed to historic rates and UK oil companies are still recovering from the losses resulting from Russian sanctions. BP has faced years of slow business and even took on $25B of charges when it wrote of its stake in Russian oil giant Rosnet. Things are not as rosey as they seem for energy companies and these profits don't justify the left's calls for further taxation.
There's a 50% chance that the price of oil will be at least $92.1 per barrel by December 2022, according to the Metaculus prediction community.