BP boss Bernard Looney's pay packet more than doubled last year to £10m after high oil and gas prices helped the company to record profits. 

The FTSE 100 chief executive's pay for 2022 includes salary of £1.37m, an annual bonus for the year of £2.37m, and shares worth £6m. 

It compares to the £4.5m he was awarded in 2021, and is higher than the £9.7m paid to the former boss of rival Shell, Ben van Beurden. 

The payouts have sparked criticism after a year in which soaring oil and gas prices have triggered a cost of living crisis. 

Global Witness, the campaign group, said: “People everywhere struggling to feed their families or warm their homes in the harsh winter months, have every right to be angry that the chief executive of a huge energy firm is netting millions of pounds in pay."

The £6m share award is based on the company’s performance over the past three years, covering the pandemic.  

Paula Rosput Reynolds, chairman of BP’s pay committee, said those had been “among the most challenging in BP’s recent history” .

She said the total paid to Mr Looney “reflects the complexity of Bernard’s job of running our global enterprise and its diverse and essential businesses”.

Mr Looney took over in 2020 and has started diversifying the company away from oil and gas as part of the global push to cut carbon emissions.

Ms Reynolds added: “It took great resilience to introduce our new strategy and extraordinary focus on operations to ensure that the company performed through a pandemic and beyond.  

“During that time almost all of the metrics that we set forth – and which were endorsed by shareholders – have been met."

BP said the pay committee had used its discretion to cut Mr Looney’s pay packet around £746,000.   

Like other oil and gas giants, BP reported record profits for 2022, in its case $28bn, as oil and gas prices leapt in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

It scaled back plans to cut its oil and gas output, citing concerns about energy security. 

It is now aiming to produce two million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2030. 

That is down 25pc from 2019 levels compared with previous plans for a 40pc cut.