BP boss Bernard Looney almost doubles pay to £4.5m in 2021
BP’s boss, Bernard Looney, saw his pay balloon to nearly £4.5m in 2021, after soaring oil prices transformed the company into a “cash machine”.
Looney, who announced BP was selling its 20% stake in Kremlin-controlled oil company Rosneft on 27 February after coming under pressure from the UK government, enjoyed an inflated pay packet thanks to £2.4m in bonuses based on financial performance.
His reward was unveiled after the FTSE 100 firm reported its biggest profit in eight years. It booked earnings of $12.8bn (£9.45bn) for 2021, compared with a loss of $5.7bn the year before, after cashing in on historic highs in the market price for gas and oil.
The same price increases, since aggravated by the war in Ukraine, have fuelled a cost of living crisis for Britons. Household energy bills are predicted to reach as much as £3,000 a year and petrol prices as much as £2.40 a litre.
Labour has called on Rishi Sunak to introduce a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies to help pay for policies to ease the cost of living crisis, but the chancellor has rejected the idea.
Having received no bonus in 2020, the extra sum Looney received for 2021, together with a £142,000 wage increase, meant that his total pay-and-perks deal soared to nearly £4.5m, compared with £2.4m in 2020.
The company said his windfall had been adjusted to ensure that he was not simply benefiting from the effect of rising oil prices, which he has previously said have turned the company into a “cash machine”.
The award covers the year before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has forced BP into promising to sell its 20% stake in Rosneft after the government expressed “concern” about the decade-old link.
Looney was one of two BP representatives on the Rosneft
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