On could call them the 10-20 club, these companies which, in 2021, while the Covid-19 virus continued to wreak havoc, saw their profits pulverize the very honorable bar of 10 billion dollars or euros . The most obvious is Pfizer, which blithely crossed 22 billion dollars (19.3 billion euros), but we could also cite the king of the container ship Maersk, which approached this line of 20 billion, or even the oil companies Shell ($19.3 billion) and, on Tuesday February 8, the British major BP, with $12.8 billion.
It is therefore not surprising that voices are raised asking them for a small contribution to alleviating the suffering of the population, since their profits are the direct consequence of this suffering. “It’s not fair that these oil companies are raking in superprofits while people are afraid to just turn on their radiators”exclaimed Ed Davey, the leader of the British Liberal Democrats Party, asking for an exceptional tax on these profits.
This claim, also supported by Labor, is based in particular on the example of France, which did not hesitate to tax EDF to reduce the electricity bill of the French. It was immediately rejected by Boris Johnson’s government, on the grounds that BP’s profits were already taxed and would therefore fill the state coffers.
Oil to invest on your own
It is easy for companies to argue that today’s excess profits make up for yesterday’s or tomorrow’s losses. BP boss Bernard Looney recalls that the year 2020 was catastrophic with the worst loss in its entire history. Commodities businesses are very cyclical, as they are subject to sudden price fluctuations, and must be understood over time.
The other strong argument is that the company must invest heavily in the energy transition. Even Greenpeace recognizes the ambition of BP, which promises to reduce its gas and oil production by 40% by 2030 and to invest in order to produce 50 gigawatts of renewable electricity, the equivalent of a good twenty nuclear power plants in less than ten years.
This is the current problem. Earn on the dirty, the oil, to invest in the clean, the renewable. This is the position of oil companies, which also justify their very generous policy vis-à-vis shareholders in this way. But neither the latter nor the companies are driving forces in the acceleration of change. The superprofits must make it possible to go faster. Otherwise, they must be returned to consumers.