The billions of pounds that BP PLC (LSE:BP.) has promised to investors in share buybacks and dividends in the past year could instead be used to pay for dealing with natural disasters, covering the UK or Australia for the next seven years or more than paying for the damage caused by last year’s Hawaii firestorm.
This is according to non-profit group Global Witness, which said natural disasters "have been made worse and more likely by the oil and gas that give BP its profits, and its shareholders their payouts".
With today's announced $3 billion quarterly profit feeding through to a $1.75 billion top-up for its buybacks, payouts from the FTSE 100 oil major have reached $12.7 billion or just over £10 billion for the year, with BP also pledging a further $3.5 billion in buybacks in the first half of 2024 and at least $14 billion through 2025.
With shareholder returns for the year increased by 43% compared to a five-year average, Global Witness's senior campaigner Jonathan Noronha-Gant said "BP's shareholders remain among the biggest winners of Russia's war in Ukraine".
He noted that following the Ukraine invasion BP profited massively from the rise in energy prices, "and now the firm has decided to hand that windfall to investors instead of clean energy or the victims of the war".
Renewables investments
BP's recent shifts in strategy also seem poised to steer the world farther away from achieving climate targets, Global Witness said, noting that data shows the company's carbon emissions rose 3% in 2023 compared to 2022 and are projected to increase by an additional 5% in 2024.
“Shareholders should want to protect their long-term positions. That means demanding a rapid clean energy transition for companies like BP. These reckless shareholder pay-outs do the opposite," said Noronha-Gant.
“As millions of struggling households begin to receive their cost-of-living payments today, BP's shareholders, in contrast, celebrate with an eye-watering payout.
“BP is making huge profits off the back of a cost-of-living and energy crisis that has devastated the finances of so many in the UK and around the globe."
In its results, BP reported a renewables pipeline of 58.3 gigawatts at the end of the quarter, up 21.1GW net during the year, including BP being awarded the rights to develop two North Sea offshore wind projects in Germany, increases to Lightsorce-bp's solar pipeline, and a 12.4GW increase in dedicated hydrogen renewables, with US Department of Energy funding confirmation for the MachH2 Hub hydrogen project in the US Midwest during the past quarter.
BP paid $10.17 billion of income tax in 2023, its results showed, and $1.8 billion in production taxes.