7 ms·

Anger as BP profits triple to $8.5bn amid soaring household energy bills

69 points by lastdong 4y ago

lastdong 4y ago
Didn’t realise the linked article was behind a paywall, here’s the same article on Yahoo Finance https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/bp-profits-triple-8-5bn-062205087.html https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/bp-profits-triple-8-5bn-06...
jakobdabo 4y ago
Meta: I really don't like when media suggests how the reader should feel about an article by prefixing the title with "Anger as" or something like that. That's just a propaganda tool.
- blibble 4y ago
  remember: the independent is a tabloid owned by a Russian oligarch
  - thecoppinger 4y ago
    > The newspaper was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev in 2010. I had no idea. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Independent https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Independent
  - friendlypeg 4y ago
    Their articles used to get upvoted to Reddit front page constantly. I guess in hindsight this was probably just another Russian propaganda project.
bob29 4y ago
This is just a sign that BP is doing a good and efficient job at delivering energy to customers effectively.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Or that there isn't enough competition in the market.
  - djbebs 4y ago
    Tends to happen when you take political action intended to destroy an industry
  - gruez 4y ago
    Really? There are several major oil companies in US alone, and many more throughout the world[1]. The global market for oil is more competitive than the market for pizzas in your local neighborhood. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_co...
- rasz 4y ago
  2020 lockdown helped companies realize they can just cut manufacturing and hike prices.
  - missedthecue 4y ago
    You think BP sets the price on a barrel of crude?
    - oliwarner 4y ago
      Yes. They're a massive multinational producer. They get to say how much they produce and I've a bridge to sell you if you think they can't conspire with other producers to inflate prices. These are finite resources with an expensive discovery and extraction. There's no competition to drive the price anywhere but up.
      - MichaelZuo 4y ago
        You mean OPEC? or OPEC+? Doesn't seem like they would care much about BP's opinion.
anm89 4y ago
Anger as company makes money selling stuff to people that they desperately want and which allows us to maintain our historical outlier standard of living. I wish that everyone could get what they want. The people who hate capitalism could transport themselves to an alternate reality where they make the rules and live in the hell of their own creation.
- Jochim 4y ago
  Capitalism is just a tool. When local government and charities are setting up emergency heated spaces[0] because people can't afford to heat their homes at time when profits have tripled for some energy companies then that tool needs adjusting. [0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/councils-plan-food-bank-style-warm-banks-help-residents-survive/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/councils-...
  - djbebs 4y ago
    That adjustments cause massive negative impacts is just an unfortunate side effect, right?
    - JellyBeanThief 4y ago
      Someone wake me up when y'all specify exactly what these adjustments are, what these predicted impacts are, how those impacts were predicted, how the actual impacts were measured, and how they lined up with or differed from the predictions. I don't come here for vapid rhetoric games.
      - nyokodo 4y ago
        > Someone wake me up when y'all specify exactly what these adjustments are > I don't come here for vapid rhetoric games. One of the principle problems that markets solve is the calculation problem. Billions of people with their subjective and time sensitive needs are making economic decisions and trade offs for themselves, their families, and companies based on their past, present, and predicted future. There is an incredibly complicated dance of price discovery and resource allocation going on constantly. It’s extremely challenging to predict what’s going to happen even at a high level very far in the future due to the vast quantity of inscrutable information. Central planners or regulators who seek to intervene in the market cannot hope to aggregate enough information quickly enough that they can understand in order to intervene without practically assuring negative consequences. The bigger the intervention the worse the consequences tend to be. Intervening in energy markets is going to have big bad consequences. What the consequences are specifically I don’t know but being sure there will be consequences is anything but a vapid rhetorical game.
ilaksh 4y ago
This is why things like rooftop solar, microgrids, vertical access wind turbines, hydrogen, hydrogen storage, ammonia as fuel, local fuel production, etc. seem important to me. Sure, we can eventually switch to Big Electric but then we still have the over centralization and it encourages unsustainability.

69 points by lastdong 4y ago

Didn’t realise the linked article was behind a paywall, here’s the same article on Yahoo Finance https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/bp-profits-triple-8-5bn-062205087.html https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/bp-profits-triple-8-5bn-06...

jakobdabo 4y ago

Meta: I really don't like when media suggests how the reader should feel about an article by prefixing the title with "Anger as" or something like that. That's just a propaganda tool.

blibble 4y ago
remember: the independent is a tabloid owned by a Russian oligarch
- thecoppinger 4y ago
  > The newspaper was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev in 2010. I had no idea. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Independent https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Independent
- friendlypeg 4y ago
  Their articles used to get upvoted to Reddit front page constantly. I guess in hindsight this was probably just another Russian propaganda project.

bob29 4y ago

This is just a sign that BP is doing a good and efficient job at delivering energy to customers effectively.

Ekaros 4y ago
Or that there isn't enough competition in the market.
- djbebs 4y ago
  Tends to happen when you take political action intended to destroy an industry
- gruez 4y ago
  Really? There are several major oil companies in US alone, and many more throughout the world[1]. The global market for oil is more competitive than the market for pizzas in your local neighborhood. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_co...
rasz 4y ago
2020 lockdown helped companies realize they can just cut manufacturing and hike prices.
- missedthecue 4y ago
  You think BP sets the price on a barrel of crude?
  - oliwarner 4y ago
    Yes. They're a massive multinational producer. They get to say how much they produce and I've a bridge to sell you if you think they can't conspire with other producers to inflate prices. These are finite resources with an expensive discovery and extraction. There's no competition to drive the price anywhere but up.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      You mean OPEC? or OPEC+? Doesn't seem like they would care much about BP's opinion.

anm89 4y ago

Anger as company makes money selling stuff to people that they desperately want and which allows us to maintain our historical outlier standard of living. I wish that everyone could get what they want. The people who hate capitalism could transport themselves to an alternate reality where they make the rules and live in the hell of their own creation.

Jochim 4y ago
Capitalism is just a tool. When local government and charities are setting up emergency heated spaces[0] because people can't afford to heat their homes at time when profits have tripled for some energy companies then that tool needs adjusting. [0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/councils-plan-food-bank-style-warm-banks-help-residents-survive/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/councils-...
- djbebs 4y ago
  That adjustments cause massive negative impacts is just an unfortunate side effect, right?
  - JellyBeanThief 4y ago
    Someone wake me up when y'all specify exactly what these adjustments are, what these predicted impacts are, how those impacts were predicted, how the actual impacts were measured, and how they lined up with or differed from the predictions. I don't come here for vapid rhetoric games.
    - nyokodo 4y ago
      > Someone wake me up when y'all specify exactly what these adjustments are > I don't come here for vapid rhetoric games. One of the principle problems that markets solve is the calculation problem. Billions of people with their subjective and time sensitive needs are making economic decisions and trade offs for themselves, their families, and companies based on their past, present, and predicted future. There is an incredibly complicated dance of price discovery and resource allocation going on constantly. It’s extremely challenging to predict what’s going to happen even at a high level very far in the future due to the vast quantity of inscrutable information. Central planners or regulators who seek to intervene in the market cannot hope to aggregate enough information quickly enough that they can understand in order to intervene without practically assuring negative consequences. The bigger the intervention the worse the consequences tend to be. Intervening in energy markets is going to have big bad consequences. What the consequences are specifically I don’t know but being sure there will be consequences is anything but a vapid rhetorical game.

ilaksh 4y ago

This is why things like rooftop solar, microgrids, vertical access wind turbines, hydrogen, hydrogen storage, ammonia as fuel, local fuel production, etc. seem important to me. Sure, we can eventually switch to Big Electric but then we still have the over centralization and it encourages unsustainability.