The BP company logo is seen outside a petrol station on September 23, 2021 in London, England.
Leon Neal | Getty Images News | beautiful pictures
Giant oil and gas BP Tuesday reported strong full-year net profit, helped by soaring commodity prices.
The major British energy group announced its basic replacement cost profit, used as a proxy for net profit, of $12.8 billion for 2021. That compares to that. net loss of $5.7 billion last year. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected full-year net profit of $12.5 billion.
BP also posted fourth-quarter net profit of $4.1 billion, beating analysts’ expectations of $3.9 billion.
“It’s been another good quarter for the company,” BP CEO Bernard Looney told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Tuesday.
“We call it performing in transition,” says Looney. “I know I sound like a broken record but that’s what we’re doing. We’re doing and delivering for our shareholders today, while looking to the future and moving forward. change companies.”
BP said it intends to distribute an additional $1.5 billion in share buybacks and maintain its dividend at 5.46 cents per share.
Net debt drops to $30.6 billion by the end of 2021, down from $38.9 billion at the end of 2020.
Shares of BP are up more than 23% so far.
The global gas market soars in the final months of 2021, which, coupled with the rise in oil prices to a seven-year high, has seen the world’s largest fossil fuel giants achieve bumper revenue.
It comes at a time when millions of UK households are facing record increase in their energy bills amid the cost of living crisis.
Britain’s energy regulator Ofgem on Thursday announced a whopping 54 per cent increase to its price cap since April. That means UK households could see their energy bills increase by around £700 ($946) a year, with an estimated 22 million households seeing their energy costs increase. they increase.
Against this backdrop, anti-poverty campaigners have described the profits of UK oil and gas producers as “obscene“especially when energy bills go up that can go down 1.1 million more homes fall into poverty.
Last week, the major British oil company Cover report bumper annual earnings and announced they were “stepping up” the distribution to shareholders.
Shell CEO Ben van Beurden described 2021 as a “critical” year. As a result, the company outlined a plan to buy back $8.5 billion of stock in the first half of the year, and said it expects to increase its dividend by 4% to $0.25 per share in the first quarter.
The United States, the oil giants Chevron and Exxon Mobil net profit statement of 15.6 billion dollars and 23 billion dollarsrespectively, a sharp increase year-on-year when the coronavirus pandemic hit oil demand.
UK lawmakers from across the political spectrum have continued to call on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government to impose a wind tax on North Sea manufacturers to help fund a national support package for the family.
However, British Finance Minister Rishi Sunak rejected the move, saying such a policy would ultimately discourage investment.
Oil demand
Global oil demand rebounds in 2021, with gasoline and diesel use surging as consumers resume business activity and tourism recovers amid the coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, the International Energy Agency has noted that moving indicators remain strong even as Covid-19 once again causes record infections.
It marks a dramatic change from 2020 when the oil and gas industry endured a terrifying 12 months on almost every measure.
Energy experts are looking to reassure investors that they have secured a footing more than two years after Covid-19 first rocked the markets, and as shareholder and activists put pressure on corporate executives to take meaningful action on the climate.
The world’s largest oil and gas companies have all sought to strengthen their climate goals in recent years, But so far, no investors believe it Their business model fits perfectly Goals of the Paris Agreement.
To be sure, the burning of fossil fuels like oil and gas is the main driver of the climate emergency.
