Oil giant BP has swung to a mammoth 12.8 billion US dollar (£9.5 billion) annual profit after notching up more than 4 billion US dollars (£3 billion) in the final three months of the year alone.
The group reported an underlying replacement cost profit – its preferred measure – of 4.07 billion US dollars (£3.01 billion) for the three months to the end of December, up from 115 million US dollars (£85.1 million) a year earlier.
It helped drive BP to the hefty profit haul overall for 2021, which comes after it slumped to its biggest annual loss in 2020, when it tumbled into the red by 18.1 billion US dollars (£13.4 billion) on a statutory basis.
BP also announced more cash returns for shareholders, with another 1.5 billion US dollars (£1.1 billion) of share buybacks before its first-quarter 2022 results.
The figures follow rebounding oil prices after economies worldwide have reopened following the early stages of the pandemic.
But the results also come amid mounting pressure on the sector as the cost of living crisis deepens, with calls growing for a windfall tax on energy giants.
Bernard Looney, chief executive of BP, said: “2021 shows BP doing what we said we would – performing while transforming.
“We’ve strengthened the balance sheet and grown returns. We’re delivering distributions to shareholders with 4.15 billion US dollars of buybacks announced and the dividend increased. And we’re investing for the future.
“We’ve made strong progress in our transformation to an integrated energy company, focusing and high grading our hydrocarbons business, growing in convenience and mobility and building with discipline a low-carbon energy business.”
Labour MPs have been calling for a windfall tax on energy giants.
They argue that while households are paying through their teeth for gas – energy bills are set to spike more than 50% in April – the companies who extract that gas are reporting massive profits.
Some of this money should be reclaimed to help struggling households cope with the rise, proponents of the tax say.
