By Jack Mendel
The boss of one of one of the world’s largest energy companies has warned that high energy bills are here to stay.
Anders Opedal, CEO of Equinor – which is bigger than BP, made his comments ahead of the Davos World Economic Forum conference in Switzerland.
Opedal, who was speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, also said windfall taxes were a bad idea because they impacted on investment.
His comments come almost a year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine which sparked a global energy crisis that sent wholesale prices into a tailspin, and pushed up the UK’s cost of living.
While warm weather across Europe has meant lower energy usage than usual, the cost of gas and electric is still making life hard for millions.
Opedal said there is “a kind of re-wiring of the whole energy system in Europe particularly after the gas from Russia was taken away”.
“This will require a lot of investment and these investments need to be paid for, so I would assume that the energy bills may slightly be higher than in the past but not as volatile and high as we have today,” Opedal added.
He warned about the need for more renewable energy, saying “we need to treat energy as something that is not abundant”.
“I think we have had a lot of cheaper energy in the past and we probably wasted some of it, so we need to make sure we’re making the right investments now [and] everyone [should] use as little energy as possible.”
Speaking to the BBC before the conference, which is attended by more than 600 economic leaders, he spoke about his role at Equinor, which he took over in 2020 with a view to “force” a shift to green power.
Making almost £20bn between July and September, up by £10bn on the same period last year, he said windfall taxes had not impacted the firm’s investment but it is “affecting how we judge each project”.
He said “we have to take into account what is the tax level compared to what are all the other risks.”
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