BP: New boss Murray Auchincloss gets £8m pay packet in 2023

Mr Looney, who earned more than £10m in 2022, was obliged to repay BP £1.8m last year after leaving the company under a cloud.

He did receive a basic salary of £1.18m, but that was more than outweighed by the loss of bonuses and share-based awards from previous years, worth nearly 3m.

BP previously announced that Mr Looney would forfeit up to £32.4m after his departure, including nearly £25m in long-term share awards.

At the time it said the former boss had “knowingly misled” the board about his personal relationships.

In 2023, BP made a full year profit of $13.8bn (£10.7bn), down from a record $27.7bn in 2022, when oil prices soared as a result of economies recovering from the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

While earnings fell by a large margin, 2022’s figure was still the company’s second-highest profit in a decade.

Global Witness accused BP of giving its chief executive “a multi-million, fat cat pat on the back” after becoming “one of the biggest winners of Russia’s war in Ukraine” while most people were “living paycheck to paycheck”.