Bernard Looney, CEO of BP, and Ben van Beurden, CEO of Shell – I’d like to have a chat with you, call me please?
At a time when the average household bill is set to top £3,600 - £4,000 if you are disabled and/or running medical equipment from home - I cannot imagine how it can ever be ok for these global super powers that are BP, Shell and others to announce record profits whilst the world is facing an unprecedented energy crisis.
BP's profit from April to June is the second highest in the company's long history, sitting at £6.9 billion, followed closely by Shell who have announced profits of £9.4bn, up a staggering 108%.
These numbers speak for themselves, so I’ll keep this intentionally short - Mr Bernard Looney CEO of BP and Mr Ben van Beurden CEO of Shell I'd like to meet with you. Who am I you ask? I'm no-one you'd know. As the leader of a small charity in a town called Gateshead in the North East of England I'm likely inconsequential to you but let me tell you, I and many like me, are busting a gut picking up the pieces of your policies and insatiable push for profit at a time when ordinary people are facing recession, hardship, increased health inequalities and illness.
I challenge you, busy and important as you are, to explain to me how this insane profit at a time of global catastrophe for so many people can ever be ok?
You will say I am sure that prices are internationally set, that we have a post-Covid global demand exacerbated by attempts to cut Russia out of the international energy market and that you are investing heavily in alternatives to fossil fuels. Yep. Got it. And I will say to you with more than £16 billion between the two of you, there’s more than enough money to do all of that, to pay your shareholders handsomely and to ensure people in my town and elsewhere across the United Kingdom don’t die unnecessarily because they are living in a cold home.
And yes, I said it, and not for the first time. We are sleep walking in to a winter of discontent and people will die if we do not correct our path. If you’re not convinced here’s just a few of the stories I’ve heard recently - concerns from an elderly lady she will be stuck downstairs in her house if she can’t afford to run her stairlift, another worried medical equipment that helps her to breathe may be switched off if she’s disconnected. A family who are living mainly off potatoes because they can’t afford anything else. Its Dickensian.
Messrs Looney and van Beurden, you need to know these stories are real, and they are happening now, today, right this minute in a town near you. So I’d really like to talk to you, to understand your perspective and to offer you my view of the world. I suspect its rather different to yours, but let’s give a go. What have you got to lose? Call me.