Prices at BP’s UK forecourts have fallen as much as 6p a liter from a peak earlier this year as crude has fallen. But Looney said it would be hard to follow France’s TotalEnergies, which has pledged to step in with a series of price cuts for French motorists from September. “Different countries are taking different approaches to how to handle the cost of living crisis,” Looney told the Financial Times, noting that France, unlike the UK, had not raised taxes on energy companies since the start of the crisis. . “Our tax bill will be significantly higher here in Britain than it would otherwise be and it is now clear to the government to decide how to allocate the proceeds of this additional tax to help those most in need.” The UK government introduced a tax on the profits of North Sea oil and gas producers in May as it faced mounting pressure to deal with rising energy bills for consumers. BP said the levy would increase its UK taxes on top of the £1.25bn it already expected to pay this year. Looney’s comments come after Centrica, the owner of British Gas, last week called on the UK government to support households affected by the energy crisis. BP’s underlying profit rose to $8.5 billion in the second quarter, beating analysts’ estimates of $6.8 billion and more than tripling the group’s $2.8 billion in the same period a year earlier. BP shares rose 3 percent in early afternoon trading. The group’s results cap a string of record profits for some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, a boom that is likely to fuel calls in some countries for another round of tax increases on the sector. US giants ExxonMobil and Chevron reported record second-quarter profits of $17.9 billion and $11.6 billion respectively, while Shell broke its profit record for the second straight quarter, generating adjusted earnings of $11.5 billion. Looney, who took the top job in 2020 with a pledge to transition BP from fossil fuels to renewables, said he understood many people were under “intense financial pressure”. The best way to help companies like BP was to invest in providing safer, more affordable forms of energy with lower carbon emissions, he added. “Our job is to help solve this energy trilemma.” BP in May outlined £18bn of planned investment in the UK this decade in a failed attempt to fend off calls for a windfall tax. On Tuesday, he unveiled some of the investments, saying he had submitted an environmental statement for the development of the Murlach oil and gas project in the North Sea and was making progress with several other projects in wind power and electric vehicle charging. Former chancellor Rishi Sunak introduced the energy profits levy, but Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, his rival to become the next UK prime minister, has rejected the idea of ​​increasing its scale or scope. “I don’t believe in windfall taxes,” he told a Tory meeting in Leeds last week. “What we need to do is encourage Shell and other companies to invest in the UK because we need to increase our productivity.” Energy bills are expected to rise further this winter. Britain’s energy price cap will rise by 70 percent to more than £3,358 in October and top £3,600 a year in January, according to forecasts published on Tuesday by energy consultancy Cornwall Insight. Motor industry group RAC said petrol prices had started to fall from a record high of £1.92 a liter at the start of July but were still not falling fast enough and called on the government to further cut fuel taxes by 10p per liter.

BP said its quarterly profit was driven by “strong” refining margins and the “continued excellent performance of oil trading”. Like European rivals Shell and Total, BP is not breaking out the performance of its commercial units, but they have been solid performers. BP’s unit that refines and markets oil reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $3.7 billion, up from $2.03 billion in the previous quarter. “The driver of the big pace was another excellent quarter of oil products trading,” said Biraj Borkhataria, analyst at RBC Capital Markets. BP raised its dividend 10% to $0.06 a share, higher than previously guided, and pledged to buy back $3.5 billion in shares in the third quarter after completing 2.5 buybacks billion dollars between April and July. Additional reporting by Nathalie Thomas, George Parker and David Sheppard