Category Archives: BP

BP boss could be in line for special bonus of up to £11.4m

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Firm set for clash with investors over possible payout to Bernard Looney from three-year share award plan

BP is set for a clash with investors after it emerged that its chief executive could be in line for a special bonus of up to £11.4m. The payment, in shares, would be on top of his £1.38m salary and annual bonus for 2022.

Strong growth in BP’s share price means Bernard Looney is set for a multimillion-pound payout from a three-year share award plan set up in 2020, when countries around the world were in lockdown and the company was cutting jobs amid a global collapse in demand for oil.

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British Museum hints at ‘complete reimagination’ and a net zero carbon future

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Chair of the museum, George Osborne, says it no longer wants to be a ‘destination for climate protest’

The future for the British Museum could be very different indeed. That was the message from the organisation’s chair George Osborne in his annual speech to Trustees last month, in which he announced a “complete reimagination” of the museum, under a billion-pound masterplan that will be revealed next year.

Among the hints of potential loans of its exhibits, leading to further speculation over the Parthenon marbles, was one explicit promise on energy. “Our goal is to be a net zero carbon museum,” said Osborne, “no longer a destination for climate protest but instead an example of climate solution”.

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BP shares in Kremlin oil firm are ‘blood money’, says Zelenskiy adviser

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British oil giant had said it would ‘exit Russia’ but still owns nearly 20% of state-controlled fossil fuel firm Rosneft

The chief economic adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called on BP to exit Russia entirely after the fossil fuel firm was offered a £580m dividend by the oil giant Rosneft.

Oleg Ustenko has written to BP’s chief executive, Bernard Looney, to demand the British company cuts ties with the state-controlled Russian firm nine months after announcing its intention to leave the country.

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British Museum urged to drop BP sponsor deal for Egypt exhibition

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Brian Eno, Ahdaf Soueif and Miriam Margolyes sign open letter about exhibition opening shortly before Cop27

Campaigners including the musician Brian Eno, the author Ahdaf Soueif and the actor Miriam Margolyes have criticised BP’s sponsorship of an exhibition of Egyptian artefacts at the British Museum.

The exhibition opens shortly before the critical Cop27 climate summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh this November.

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Revealed: BP’s ‘greenwashing’ social media ads as anger over fuel costs rose

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Oil company spent £800,000 on social media influence ads after Labour proposed windfall tax

BP has spent more than £800,000 on social media influence ads in the UK this year that champion the company’s investments in green energy, it can be revealed.

On Tuesday, BP announced a 14-year high profit of £7bn for the second quarter of this year. In the previous eight days, the company paid about £570,000 to Facebook and Instagram for influence ads that reached tens of millions of viewers in the UK.

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Boris Johnson says windfall tax ‘not the right thing’ but refuses to rule out U-turn

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The prime minister claimed ‘these kinds of taxes’ deterred investment, contrary to BP boss saying it would not

Boris Johnson has refused to rule out the introduction of a windfall tax which would help to relieve pressure on the cost of living crisis.

Speaking to LBC’s Nick Ferrari, Johnson said that while he believed a disadvantage of windfall tax would be the impact it would have on investment, the prospect of such a taxwas still something to be looked at.

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BP profits soar to $6.2bn amid calls for energy windfall tax

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Company beats forecasts thanks to high oil and gas prices but is hit by offloading its stake in Russia’s Rosneft

BP’s profits more than doubled to $6.2bn (£5bn) in the first three months of the year, boosted by soaring oil and gas prices.

It was well ahead of the $4.5bn of expected by analysts and is likely to revive calls for a windfall tax on oil and gas companies from Labour and the Liberal Democrats, who argue the money raised could be used to ease the burden for those hardest hit by the cost of living costs.

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Climate and heritage experts call on British Museum to end BP sponsorship

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Culture Unstained put together submission stating oil company ‘falls short’ in response to climate crisis

A group of climate scientists, archaeologists and those familiar with the museum industry have written to the British Museum’s board of trustees to urge them to sever a sponsorship deal with BP, arguing that it goes against the museum’s own policies and that a renewal would damage its reputation.

The submission, put together by the group Culture Unstained, is part of an escalating campaign against the oil firm’s sponsorship of the museum, which is expected to make a decision about renewing the deal imminently.

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Shell to exit joint ventures with Gazprom and pull out of Nord Stream 2

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Decisive move to end tie-up with Russian state gas firm follows BP pledge to sell its 20% Rosneft stake

Shell is to exit its joint ventures with Russian state energy firm Gazprom, a day after BP said it would offload its 20% stake in Kremlin-owned oil firm Rosneft, as British businesses scrambled to distance themselves from Vladimir Putin.

The oil company said it would “exit its joint ventures with Gazprom and related entities”, which are worth about $3bn.

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Shell and BP paid zero tax on North Sea gas and oil for three years

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Firms defend paying no corporation tax after government handed out billions to energy giants

Shell and BP, which together produce more than 1.7bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, have not paid any corporation tax on oil and gas production in the North Sea for the last three years, company filings reveal.

The oil giants, which have an annual global footprint of greenhouse gases more than five times bigger than Britain’s, are benefiting from billions of pounds of tax breaks and reliefs for oil and gas production.

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Crown gives go ahead to rival ‘net zero carbon’ North Sea schemes

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Exclusive: crown estates accused of greed in selling rights to ‘incompatible’ carbon capture and windfarm projects

A clash between two multibillion pound “net zero carbon” schemes is brewing in the North Sea after the Queen’s property manager granted development rights for one patch of seabed to two different projects at the same time.

The crown estate will earn millions of pounds after agreeing to lease an area off the Yorkshire coast to the latest phase of the giant Hornsea offshore windfarm, as well as to a scheme led by BP which plans to begin storing carbon dioxide under the seabed. This has prompted concern that the giant wind turbines could interfere with seabed sensors for the carbon storage project.

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Boris Johnson to consider using army to supply petrol stations

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Ministers to discuss emergency plan Operation Escalin after BP reveals a third of its forecourts have shortages

Hundreds of soldiers could be scrambled to deliver fuel to petrol stations running dry across the country due to panic buying and a shortage of drivers under an emergency plan expected to be considered by Boris Johnson on Monday.

The prime minister will gather senior members of the cabinet to scrutinise “Operation Escalin” after BP admitted that a third of its petrol stations had run out of the main two grades of fuel, while the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents almost 5,500 independent outlets, said 50% to 90% of its members had reported running out. It predicted that the rest would soon follow.

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Biden corporate tax plan could earn EU and UK billions, study shows

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EU forecast to reap extra €50bn per year with UK expected to gain €200m from BP alone

A proposal to be tabled by the US president, Joe Biden, at the upcoming G7 meeting for a 15% global corporate tax rate could reap the EU €50bn (£43bn) a year, and earn the UK nearly €200m extra alone from the British multinational BP, according to research.

Should the tax rate be set higher at 25%, the lowest current rate within the seven largest world economies, the EU would earn nearly €170bn extra a year – more than 50% of current corporate tax revenue and 12% of total health spending in the bloc.

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Eco investors turn up the heat on Shell over climate target

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Voting at the oil giant’s annual meeting this week could see Follow This activists making trouble over emissions

Shell is braced for its largest climate rebellion this week as shareholders face the choice between backing the oil giant’s carbon-cutting plans or siding with an activist investor who is calling for tougher emissions targets.

With its annual meeting planned for Tuesday, the Anglo-Dutch company has called on its investors to vote against a shareholder resolution from campaign group Follow This in favour of its own plans to reduce its emissions to “net zero” by 2050.

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Downfall: BP worker sacked for Hitler meme wins $200,000 in compensation

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BP ordered to pay Western Australia oil refinery worker for lost wages, after his parody of bosses got him fired

An oil refinery worker who was sacked for creating a Hitler parody of his bosses has been awarded $200,000 in compensation.

The employee, a technician on a BP refinery in Western Australia, was sacked after he used an oft-parodied scene from the 2004 film Downfall by Oliver Hirschbiegel about the final days of Hitler and Nazi Germany to depict his bosses during a tense wage negotiation.

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Australian worker sacked over Downfall meme video wins job back in federal court

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The BP technician privately shared the video to parody heated pay negotiations

A BP worker who was sacked after privately sharing a version of a Hitler parody video during pay negotiations has had a win in the federal court.

The Downfall meme format has been widely circulating on the internet for more than a decade, with users adding their own subtitles to a clip from the 2004 German film Downfall, showing a highly agitated Adolf Hitler in his bunker screaming at his military commanders in the final days of the war.

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Saudi Arabia price war wipes billions from value of major oil firms

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Royal Dutch Shell and BP lose more than £32bn from their combined market value

Saudi Arabia’s oil price war has wiped billions of pounds from the market value of the industry’s biggest companies after oil markets recorded one of the biggest price slumps in history.

The decision of the world’s largest oil-producing nation to increase its production even as the coronavirus outbreak stalls global oil demand triggered a 30% drop in oil prices on Monday morning.

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Activists try to occupy British Museum in protest against BP ties

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Environmental group puts pressure on museum to end its partnership with oil company

Dozens of activists have coated themselves in plaster and are trying to occupy the British Museum overnight in a bid to pressure the institution to cut ties with oil corporation BP.

About 60 protesters were taking part in the defiant act of impromptu sculpture making as the museum in London attempted to close its doors at 5pm on Saturday.

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Energy industry’s carbon emissions rise at fastest rate in nearly a decade

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BP report reveals that swings in global temperatures are increasing the use of fossil fuels

Carbon emissions from the global energy industry rose by the fastest rate in almost a decade in 2018 after surprise swings in global temperatures stoked extra demand for fossil fuels.

BP’s annual global energy report revealed for the first time that fluctuating temperatures are increasing the world’s use of fossil fuels in spite of efforts to tackle the climate crisis.

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Top oil firms spending millions lobbying to block climate change policies, says report

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Ad campaigns hide investment in a huge expansion of oil and gas extraction, says InfluenceMap

The largest five stock market listed oil and gas companies spend nearly $200m (£153m) a year lobbying to delay, control or block policies to tackle climate change, according to a new report.

Chevron, BP and ExxonMobil were the main companies leading the field in direct lobbying to push against a climate policy to tackle global warming, the report said.

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