Now Reading: BP DITCHES green targets and makes screeching U-turn back to oil & gas after ‘misplaced’ Net Zero shift
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BP DITCHES green targets and makes screeching U-turn back to oil & gas after ‘misplaced’ Net Zero shift
BP DITCHES green targets and makes screeching U-turn back to oil & gas after ‘misplaced’ Net Zero shift
ENERGY giant BP has axed its green targets and shifted back to oil and gas — admitting that its move to Net Zero was “misplaced”.
The firm has scaled back investment in renewable projects by 70 per cent.
It also plans to spend an extra £7.8billion on oil and gas production, a 20 per cent rise.
The reset takes a leaf out of Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” playbook.
It is another sign of firms adjusting to life under the US president whose country is out to jack up oil production to 2.5million barrels a day by 2030.
Previously, it planned to cut output by a quarter.
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BP Boss Murray Auchincloss said the firm’s “optimism” for a fast energy transition had been misplaced.
He admitted: “We went too far, too fast.”
He said BP was betting that oil and gas would be “needed for decades to come”.
It is now forecasting an increase in demand by 2035.
Mr Auchincloss attributed the decision to switch focus to fossil fuels to global changes since 2020.
He said: “We had Covid, a war in Ukraine, a brief recession — it impacted the ability of nations and corporations to afford this.”
He said cost and security of supply was now most highly valued by nations, particularly after the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The shift away from Net Zero risks leaving the UK isolated.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s defence of his Clean Power push has increasingly put Britain out on a limb.
The UK’s electricity prices are now the world’s highest.
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