BP set to reveal massive profits
BP Amoco is set to trigger new protests from motorists when it reports soaring profits tomorrow.
The group is expected to show profits rising to as much as £11.5bn - the equivalent of £350 a second.
Its Anglo-Dutch rival Shell revealed last week that it had made £9bn over the last year, almost double the figure for the previous 12 months.
While BP is expected to argue that high taxes are to blame for high prices at the pumps, it is unlikely to head off fresh criticism from motorists, oil protesters and environmentalists.
Businessmen Nigel Kyme, from Boston, Lincolnshire, who took part in the fuel protests last year, said that the issue of high fuel prices is still very much alive.
"It affects the whole of the general public and affects people in rural areas more than anything," he said.
"The Government and the oil companies have got it sewn up between them. Ultimately, the Government is to blame.
"I don't know where the oil companies are making money. They are probably not making it in the UK."
Mr Kyme, who runs a transport storage and distribution company, says he thinks the oil companies are greedy. But he accepts they are "not in business to be a charity".
There has been speculation that the record profits from BP could prompt Chancellor Gordon Brown to impose a new windfall tax on the oil giants. However, the Treasury has described the idea as speculative.
Last week, Shell's chairman Malcolm Brinved denied that his firm was profiting from British customers paying high prices at the fuel pumps. He said that over the last decade, around 90% of Shell's profits had been earned in other countries and any profits it made in the UK had not come from refining and selling petrol.
