DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the recent profit numbers of oil companies are causing quite a stir in Europe.</s>DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: And it is prompting talk of a windfall tax. Janet Guyon joins us now from London with a closer look at this story. Janet, what can you tell us about this? It sounds very interesting.</s>JANET GUYON, LONDON BUREAU CHIEF, "FORTUNE": Well, it really is, David. I mean, there was quite a bit of controversy yesterday when BP -- formerly known as BP Amoco -- released its profits. They reported $14 billion for the year 2000, which was a 55 percent increase from '99. Now, there's a lot of outcry here about the huge profits that BP and Royal Dutch/Shell made last year while petrol prices -- gasoline prices -- are quite high here. We had those blockades in the fall of people refusing to allow some of the tankers on the road because of the high fuel prices. So there's been a call for a windfall profits tax on some of the oil companies here in the U.K. And the idea would be a special tax on those profits in order to, basically, get some of the money back for taxpayers.</s>MARCHINI: Janet, how's this likely to sit with investors, dare I ask?</s>GUYON: Hah hah. Well, investors of course aren't going to like this. I mean, after all, one of the reasons that the profits are so high is oil prices are so high. And, actually, the return on investments for some of the oil companies isn't particularly high. Some were in the single digits, below some of the banks here. So, for investors, this is not a great deal. Certainly for the general public, it has a great deal of appeal. And we do have a general election coming up here in Britain. So it has a great deal of political appeal to the general population.</s>MARCHINI: All right. Janet Guyon, "Fortune" magazine, reporting live from London. Thanks.
Will European Oil Companies Have to Pay Windfall Gas Tax?