Strong BP profit renews calls for windfall tax in U.K.

BP posted its highest quarterly profit in more than a decade thanks to surging oil and gas prices, renewing calls for a U.K. government tax on energy companies’ windfall earnings to help households struggling with rising energy bills.

The British energy giant said Tuesday that underlying replacement cost profit — the industry standard measure — more than doubled in the first three months of the year, to $6.2 billion from $2.6 billion in the same period last year.

After accounting for a writeoff of its nearly 20% stake in Russian oil producer Rosneft in response to the Ukraine war, BP PLC said its net loss in the first quarter totaled $23 billion.

The company said it would pay a dividend of 5.46 cents per share and buy back another $2.5 billion in shares.

The earnings report is further evidence of BP’s rebound from a 2020 slump caused when the coronavirus pandemic shut down large chunks of the global economy.