AN OIL executive has almost doubled the size of his pay packet to around £10 million thanks to soaring profits made on the back of the war in Ukraine.

BP stands accused of wartime profiteering after chief executive Bernard Looney made hay following the company’s income bonanza, which saw profits double to £23.4 billion in the last financial year.

Mr Looney’s pay is 170 times more than the average BP employee’s annual income.

Oil and gas prices rocketed when supplies from Russia plummeted following its invasion of Ukraine.

Like oil giant BP, the “big six” energy companies —British Gas, EDF, E.ON, Npower, Scottish Power and SSE — have seen profits soar to record highs as a result of the war.

Jonathan Bean of Fuel Poverty Action said: “BP’s wartime profiteering generated record profits while millions of vulnerable people sat freezing in their homes as energy prices shot up.

“We campaigned successfully for a windfall tax on their ill-gotten billions. But under intense lobbying, the government created a £10.6bn loophole. 

"This loss could have funded proper pay increases for the whole NHS and education sector.

“Once again, big oil and gas and its senior executives are reaping obscene rewards while most of the country suffers from reduced living standards, due to extreme energy and food inflation while wages are suppressed.” 

Stop the War Coalition convenerLindsey German said: “War, what is it good for? The bosses of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, for a start.

“BP chief executive Bernard Looney’s pay has doubled to £10 million last year following record profits, which happened because Putin’s invasion pushed up the price of oil and gas.

“While working-class people in Ukraine and Russia suffer the costs of war, and while here in the West millions can’t afford to heat their homes, there are rich dividends indeed for those at the top.

“Announced only weeks after arms company shares soared on predictions of a long war, Looney's reward shows there are plenty of profits in war.” 

End Fuel Poverty Coalition co-ordinator Simon Francis said: “It’s a champagne lifestyle for energy bosses while pensioners, disabled people and families freeze in cold damp homes.

“This has capped a week of energy firms excesses. To put it in context, the pay packages of just the bosses of BP and Shell could pay for the energy bills of households in the entirety of Accrington and the Hyndburn area of Lancashire for the next three months.”

Jonathan Noronha-Gant, senior fossil fuels campaigner at Global Witness, which campaigns for a “more sustainable, just and equal planet,” said:  “This enormous pay package is a kick in the teeth to all hard-working people being faced with a cost-of-living crisis.

“Nothing could be a starker example of the gross inequality that sits at the very heart of our broken energy system.

“For a rich few to be seeing their already extraordinary wealth bolstered, precisely because bills have been so unaffordable for the majority, is a twisted irony. 

“At the very least, the governments should be implementing a proper windfall tax on both profits and CEO pay.”

Greenpeace UK’s head of UK climate Mel Evans said: “As families open their energy bills this month, consumed with worry about how they will make ends meet, enormous payouts are dished out to energy bosses.

“It’s fundamentally wrong that energy companies are profiting from a war overseas whilst at the same time increasing wealth inequality in the UK.

“Instead of allowing these huge payouts to end up in the pockets of CEOs, the government must step in with a proper tax on the oil industry and its profits, channel the money into stopping energy waste from homes, and invest in green heating schemes.”