Now BP wants to start selling us electricity

BP has unveiled plans to become an electricity supplier for businesses.

The oil giant is exploring plans to sell electricity to UK commercial and industrial firms – in a potentially major push into a new sector.

It would mark a direct response to arch-rival Shell, which started supplying electricity to industrial customers in August.

Both companies look set to take on the utility giants as they try and find ways to thrive as the world shifts away from fossil fuel. earlier this month a BP subsidiary applied to Ofgem for a licence to supply electricity to any non-domestic premises in the UK.

A spokesman said last night: ‘BP has been asked by a number of commercial and industrial parties to look into the feasibility of supplying electricity, which we are now doing.’

BP’s strategy emerged on the day it launched a share buy- back amid a doubling in thirdquarter profit, with oil prices staying above $60 per barrel.

But it, and other oil majors, are under pressure to adapt to a world in which oil demand is expected to peak within the next few decades, while electrification, including demand for electric cars, is expected to rise. Chief executive Bob Dudley told an industry conference this month that BP was investing in relatively small ventures across technologies and business models that would help it hedge its bets in a rapidly evolving world.

At the same time, the business energy market has become more competitive, with smaller suppliers popping up regularly but many struggling to survive given their size.

BP made its first steps into the UK’s electricity market earlier this year, taking a minority stake in Pure Planet, an energy supplier founded by the team behind Virgin Mobile, and buying electricity and gas on its behalf.