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Well of course a company is going to look to profit from its business, thats the whole idea. It does frustrate me when we, especially in this country, view making money out of your business to be a bad thing. I dont think any of us expect energy resources to be some sort of charity. Yes oil companies make alot of money but they also spend alot of money and do alot of work to bring us our fuel.
Most of oil companies profits come from exploration rather than the sale of petrol, and the base product (oil) price is dictated by a stock market, not the companies themselves. They pay a big load of tax every year just for the right to drill off our shores for a start, they drill for it, extract it, refine it, deliver it to us etc and pay the Government 58p a litre duty before it even gets to the petrol station. When its all said and done they're doing all of this for 55p a litre (the true cost of petrol today, roughly). Then the Government, who've done nothing at all to bring us our fuel, ride in on the back of it and lump 58p on it plus 20%. At least the oil companies do something to make their money, the Govt just makes it off the back of everyone elses work.
It'd be like you making shoes and making £2 a pair, you sell them to a retailer to sell them on and the Government comes in and lumps an extra £5 a pair on them and people then accuse you of 'profiteering' when it was you who made them in the first place.
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