STORY: BP has slashed planned investment in renewable energy.
And said it would increase annual oil and gas spending to $10 billion.
The major strategy shift is aimed at boosting earnings and shareholder returns.
BP cut planned annual investment in energy transition businesses by more than $5 billion, to between $1.5 billion and $2 billion per year.
CEO Murray Auchincloss announced the news in a statement on Wednesday (Feb 26).
His predecessor Bernard Looney pledged in 2020 that BP would cut oil and gas output by 40% while rapidly growing renewables by 2030.
But BP now aims to grow oil and gas production to between 2.3 million and 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2030.
Across the energy sector, companies that had shifted their position in response to the need to lower carbon emissions, have now returned their focus to oil and gas.
Senior climate adviser for Greenpeace UK, Charlie Kronick, says oil companies ‘are no longer pretending’ to be a part in a low carbon transition:
:: Over the last few years, five years, there’s been a debate about whether or not the fossil fuel industry, and particularly the big oil companies could be part of the green transition, the low carbon transition. I think the announcement today from BP that’s been trailed very heavily, that they’re abandoning their green targets, It ends that debate forever.
Fossil fuel prices have rebounded from the pandemic lows.
And BP is seeking to regain investor confidence after it underperformed peers.
It’s also come under pressure to make transformative changes after activist investor Elliott Investment Management built a stake in the company.
