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Protests took place at the Aberdeen offices of Norwegian-owned oil company Equinor today as it announced profits of £24 billion for 2024 and a rollback on its climate commitments.

Equinor is the UK’s biggest supplier of fossil gas and has made £141 billion in profits in recent years as fuel poverty figures have soared. The 2024 profits equate to £65.8 million every day or £45,662 profit every second.

The company announced that, despite the worsening climate emergency, it will increase fossil fuel production and reduce its spending on renewable energy. Equinor has also benefited from a tax break of £400 million from the UK Government in 2021 and 2022.

The news has been met with outrage from climate campaigners, who staged a ‘knit-in’ protest at the company’s Aberdeen offices.

Photos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15v0XM4SCz4TWU6UyHVMSsmkrf4VFx8Fh?usp=sharing

The ‘North Sea Knitters’ have been fighting two controversial Equinor projects over the last two years; the Rosebank oil field and the new Peterhead power station.

The Court of Session last week overturned the approval of the huge Rosebank oil field declaring it ‘unlawful’. The UK Government must now reassess the field, which will now have to consider the devastating climate impact of burning the oil contained. The North Sea Knitters have pledged to continue putting pressure on the company to drop the Rosebank project.

The Peterhead power station is a joint project between Equinor and Scottish energy company SSE to build a new gas burning power station in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire. SSE has been forced to redo its assessment of the climate harm from the project after research found it could cause 5 times more pollution than claimed in planning documents.

Ann Collings from the North Sea Knitters said,

“Equinor is clearly prioritising wealthy shareholders over a liveable planet for our children. As mothers and grandmothers, we are heartbroken.”

Friends of the Earth Scotland’s Oil and Gas Activism Officer Freya Aitchison said,

“Seeing the obscene profits that companies like Equinor are making year after year drives home the fact that the fossil fuel industry has no real interest in a fair or fast energy transition. They exist to enrich their bosses and shareholders, while the planet burns and more and more people struggle to pay their energy bills.

“The tide is turning against fossil fuels, with Rosebank’s defeat in court and Equinor and SSE being forced to reassess the full climate impact of the new Peterhead power station. People are demanding an end to fossil fuels and a just energy transition that is dictated by the workers, not greedy company bosses.”

Notes to Editors

Photos from North Sea Knitters protest: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15v0XM4SCz4TWU6UyHVMSsmkrf4VFx8Fh?usp=sharing

Equinor profit announcement: https://www.equinor.com/news/equinor-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2024-results

Rosebank court case verdict:
https://foe.scot/press-release/climate-victory-in-rosebank-and-jackdaw-cases/

Analysis of company tax returns by TaxWatch and Uplift revealed that the Norwegian state-backed oil company Equinor, used the Ringfence Expenditure Supplement to secure £400 million in tax breaks in just two years (2021 and 2022).
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/rosebank-equinor-oil-and-gas-tax-break-north-sea-4837476

Energy giant SSE has been ‘shamed’ into doing a new assessment of the climate harm for its plans for a controversial new gas burning power station in Peterhead. Expert research published in October 2024 demonstrated how climate pollution from the project could be 5 times higher than the company had stated in official planning application documents submitted to the Scottish Government.
https://foe.scot/press-release/sse-shamed-into-new-assessment-of-climate-harm-of-peterhead-gas-plans/

About the Peterhead gas burning power station
SSE and Equinor submitted a planning application for a new gas burning power station with carbon capture plant at Peterhead, Aberdeenshire. The application is for an additional plant alongside the existing Peterhead gas burning power station, which is already Scotland’s single biggest polluters.
The development poses a significant risk to Scotland’s legally enshrined climate and emission reduction targets and to a just transition for workers and communities. The Scottish Government will make the decision whether to approve this project and lock households into reliance on fossil fuels for energy for the next 25 years.
https://foe.scot/resource/stopping-plans-for-a-new-gas-burning-power-station-at-peterhead-civil-society-briefing/

The North Sea Knitters are a group of women from all over Scotland who use knitting as a form of resistance to protest fossil fuel expansion.
https://www.instagram.com/northseaknitters/

Friends of the Earth Scotland is:
* Scotland’s leading environmental campaigning organisation
* An independent Scottish charity with a network of thousands of supporters and active local groups across Scotland
* Part of the largest grassroots environmental network in the world, uniting over 2 million supporters, 73 national member groups, and 5,000 local activist groups.