BP gambles a low carbon future will pay dividends
Execution of low-carbon future could vault firm into industry leader on climate change
NEW YORK BP Plc’s flashy February rebrand left many wondering whether the oil major could make good on its promise to transform itself into a net-zero emissions company by 2050.
Chief executive Bernard Looney fleshed out his plans last week, with more details on how the company will slash production of oil and gas while boosting investments in renewable energy, hydrogen and electric vehicle charging. The execution of the low-carbon future for BP could set the company on course to lead industry efforts to address climate change.
In June BP ranked below Repsol SA and Eni SpA when Carbon Tracker analyzed the climate plans of the largest oil companies.
“If we were to do our ranking now, BP has moved to the top of the pack,” said Mike Coffin, with Carbon Tracker, the not-for-profit climate change analyst.
Overall, BP has gone further than any oil company but there are areas of concern. Following is an assessment of the goals and how ambitious analysts and campaigners consider them.
• Renewables: Develop 50 gigawatts by 2030, from 2.5 gigawatts today
Although hard to make direct comparisons with competitors, BP’s goal of 50 gigawatts is around the same level as the current installed capacity of all clean energy in the U.K. — a world leader in offshore wind.
“BP has been half a step behind Shell and Total in how aggressive they’ve been,” said Albert Cheung, head of analysis at BloombergNEF. “This really changes that dynamic, and it will be interesting to see who else follows.”
In order to meet that target, BP will need to add about five gigawatts from sources like wind and solar every year over the next decade. Massive projects like offshore wind farms can take up to a decade to build, meaning the firm may need to buy its way into projects that are either already operational or at least progressing in the development process.
“BP’s biggest risk is that they’ll have to target mergers and acquisitions aggressively in order to reach their renewables targets,” said Christyan Malek, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s head of EMEA oil and gas.
• Hydrogen: Make up 10 per cent share of certain markets
This is a very early stage goal, with little detail yet. BP plans to identify what are “core markets” for hydrogen and then make up 10 per cent of each of them. But it’s not yet clear how many of these markets will exist by 2030 or how BP plans to define them.
“The devil is in the details. The definition of a core market is subjective and ‘market share’ means different things for producers, distributors or retailers,” said Tifenn Brandily, an analyst at BNEF. “It’s too soon to say if that’s an ambitious target or not.”
• Electric vehicle charging: Build 70,000 charging points, from 7,500 today
That many charging points installed today in Britain would make up close to 40 per cent of the country’s entire market in 2030, according to projections from BNEF. The real impact comes from the kind of technology BP chooses to deploy.
“If it is all fast chargers it’s about 50 per cent of all those forecast in Europe so a very noticeable share,” said Ryan Fisher, an analyst at BNEF. “But if it’s slower chargers there are expected to be a million of those, it’s not as impressive.” Most of the chargers will be ultra fast enabled, according to a LinkedIn post from Ashwin Shenoy, an electrification manager at BP’s advanced mobility unit working on charging networks.
• Oil and gas: Reduce production by 40 per cent; no exploration in new countries
The radical move to slash production by 40 per cent within the next decade goes much further than any oil company to this point. Analysts at Carbon Tracker said BP would have to cut hydrocarbon production by 25 per cent before 2040 to meet the goals set under the Paris Agreement on climate change.
“Slashing oil and gas production and investing in renewable energy is what Shell and the rest of the oil industry needs to do for the world to stand a chance of meeting our global climate targets,” Mel Evans, senior climate campaigner for Greenpeace U.K., said. “This is a necessary and encouraging start.”
BP is set to meet a majority of these reductions by simply moving it off its books. Looney said in an interview with Bloomberg TV that BP’s production cuts will come “predominantly through divestments.” In the end, real reductions in the use of fossil fuels will come from the world reducing its demand for oil and gas, said Carbon Tracker’s Coffin.
The new goals also do not include cuts to production from Rosneft in which BP owns a 20-per-cent stake, according to a company spokesman.
“Leaving Rosneft’s production out of this is going to become untenable at some point, as it will become a larger and larger share of emissions as BP’s production shrinks,” said Andrew Logan, senior director of oil and gas at Ceres.
• Bioenergy: Produce more than 100,000 barrels a day of bioenergy, up from 22,000 today
At first blush the bioenergy target seems modest — it’s equivalent to about seven per cent of the company’s reduced oil and gas output in 2030, according to Coffin.
Producing biodiesel with current technology is still much more expensive than its fossil fuel cousin. So the market will need regulation in the form of mandates or carbon pricing to make it economical. In all climate scenarios that envision a clean energy future, bioenergy’s share of the mix is expected to rise so BP could revise its goals depending on what future government policy support for the alternative fuel looks like.
• Emissions: Cut upstream emissions to 235 million metric tonnes, from 360 million metric tonnes today
BP’s pollution target stands out as it includes an absolute emissions goal whereas other companies set long-term climate goals based on carbon intensity. That’s a measure of carbon emissions per unit of energy produced and a number that can be easily manipulated.
By 2050, the company aims to zero out all emissions tied to the oil and gas it produces, and now it has set an interim goal of 40 per cent reduction by 2030.
There is still room for improvement, in the eyes of environmentalists at least. The plan does not include emissions linked with refinery outputs from crude oil that other companies have extracted or energy products that BP markets, such as power or gas supply agreements.
On the remainder, which is as much as 640 million metric tonnes, the company has set a target of cutting carbon intensity in half.
BP Plc posted the biggest earnings-day share gain in at least 10 years on Tuesday despite slashing the dividend by 50 per cent and abandoning its progressive payout policy.
“Where is growth going forward? There’s one clear direction,” said Charlie Donovan, executive director at the Centre for Climate Finance and Investment at Imperial College London and formerly head of structuring and valuation for BP’s global power business.