HOMEWARD BOUND
Houstonian Tomeka McLeod takes charge of BP’s hydrogen business
Whether she’s making gumbo or planning new hydrogen projects, there’s no place like Houston for Tomeka McLeod, BP’s new vice president of hydrogen.
The Houstonian recently moved home from London for the leadership role in hydrogen, which BP believes is key to the transition away from fossil fuels.
Hydrogen is gaining traction in Houston, where oil majors such as BP are rethinking how they produce energy and which sources will provide the most opportunity in the future.
McLeod, 49, grew up in Houston. She attended Eisenhower High School north of downtown, studied economics at Rice University and then earned a master’s in business administration from Harvard University. She has worked for BP for 17 years, including 14 in the oil and gas production side of the business.
She sat down with us to discuss her new role, the future of hydrogen in Houston and why she’s happy to be back in Houston after nearly five years abroad.
Q: How did you get started in the energy transition side of the business?
A: As part of the effort to reinvent or reorganize BP, which impacted probably everyone in the company, I was asked to go help set up our new gas and low-carbon energy business. This is where we took all the old upstream gas businesses that we had around the world, put them into one business and added in our new low-carbon energy businesses — hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and renewables. I got to know the executive vice president who was leading that, and he asked me if I would be his chief of staff. This role, I would have to say, was probably one of the most interesting, exciting, challenging roles that I’ve had in BP. I was working on the executive floor in London seeing how some of these big decisions occur, some of the key challenges.
Q: How did that lead you to hydrogen?
A: After having the experience of seeing these low-carbon energy businesses at the very beginning, when we were looking at an Australian new energy hub and deciding whether we wanted to enter this or not, being able to see how that progressed really made me realize this is my passion. This is where I want to be, and so I was very clear. I said hydrogen was the place where I wanted to be.
Q: Why hydrogen?
A: It’s going to take all of these different low-carbon energies in order to really make the energy transition work. We have to be realistic about that. Hydrogen is one of those energy vectors where, in cases where electrification is too expensive or not technically feasible, we really have an opportunity to use hydrogen, and also carbon capture storage, to address those industries. I think that’s a huge opportunity to really make a difference and be able to help these industries decarbonize, so that’s where I raised my hand and said I wanted to go.
Q: What excites you about the energy transition? What drew you to it?
A: To be honest, it’s personal. When I told my sons that I worked in oil and gas, the question from the kids was, “How long is that going to be around?” And I would say to them, “Hey, guys, just think about everything you do every day. We’re going to need oil and gas for a really long time.” I think now they’re seeing that we also have a plan to transition, and we have goals and ambitions. What I’m working on now is basically setting the foundation for the future for my kids and for my grandchildren and for other generations of kids to come.
Q: What are the challenges to developing this new industry?
A: Everybody’s talking about green hydrogen, but when you really think about what it’s going to take to get the number of atscale projects that people were talking about, it’s going to take a huge fundamental move.
From all the renewables you’re going to need, the water you’ll need; the transmission grid is going to have to be upgraded if we’re talking about that amount of power to get to these projects; the amount of land.
I spend a lot of time working with others, trying to figure out,
OK, what are we going to need in order to make this work? What are we going to need for the supply chain, for the equipment, for example, for electrolyzers, which are required to produce green hydrogen.
Q: Where do things stand with BP’s hydrogen efforts so far?
A: We announced that by 2030 we’d like to have 0.5 million to 0.7 million tonnes per annum of hydrogen projects online. We already have some active projects that we’re looking at. We’ve announced that we had an MOU with Linde for carbon capture storage in the Gulf Coast. We’re looking at other projects where we could leverage our footprint in the Gulf Coast.
We’re actively looking at the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest, where we have refineries. We’re looking at how we use those to create potential hydrogen hubs around both of those. So, there are a lot of internal things. Q: And where are you focusing?
A: A lot of my role is external facing. It’s new — so potential partnerships. Who would we partner with, are there synergies with other companies that we could work with? Because, really, to get this industry off the ground, it’s going to take partnerships. It’s going to take obviously partnering with the government, trying to figure out how to do this.
Q: It seems like more women and more women of color are taking leadership roles in
the energy transition. Is that something you’re noticing?
A: I haven’t necessarily seen that. When I go around to things in hydrogen, I’m still probably the only Black female and one of few females. For industries that are more in the technical space, unfortunately, you don’t have as many women. You definitely don’t have as many people of color, or women of color. But you know, it is changing. It’s changing but it’s a slow, slow, slow go.
Q: Why do you think that is?
A: You might feel like you’re seeing a little bit more because this is new. We’re having to crack new problems, so you do need people who think differently. When I look at my team, we’ve got a team that is pretty diverse right now, and I’m building it out. And diversity is definitely one of the key things — all types of diversity in the team.
Q: What are the benefits to doing this foundational work from Houston?
A: Houston is a great location. It probably is the highest concentrated region of emissions in the U.S., and because of that you will have a lot of demand for carbon capture and storage and for hydrogen, as well. It has two other big benefits from a strategic location perspective: The Gulf Coast is a big producer of ammonia, which then gets shipped up to the Midwest.
Then you’ve got the Port of Houston, which I think is very keen to figure out how they can understand what is going to be needed for hydrogen in the future, and it’s likely going to be for derivatives.
If you think about what energy vector will you need to be able to carry it to other locations, ammonia (derived from hydrogen) is one that comes up quite a bit. People are now talking about e-fuels, where you would take hydrogen and combine it with CO2. E-methanol is one, for example, which can be used in the shipping industry to help shippers decarbonize.
There’s probably going to be quite a bit of demand in the EU as well because of some of the standards that they’ve laid out. So, Houston is a great place to be able to export either into Europe, or into Asia Pacific. We’re seeing quite a bit of demand from both in the Gulf.
Q: Are you satisfied with how fast the transition has been moving? And what will it look like moving forward?
A: I think everyone’s dream would be as fast as possible. But we need to be realistic, it needs to be an orderly transition. If you think about the shocks we’ve had in the last year with the Ukraine-Russia war and the rise in energy prices,
I think if everybody had to say what are the three things that are most important to people, it’s affordability, sustainability, security. You gotta have security of energy supply. I mean, we would not be happy if we were sitting here and the lights went out or we had no heat.
Q: How does it feel to be back in Houston?
A: I’m a big family person and we’ve got a nice extended family here. We just hosted Christmas after we moved back, and it was probably 20 people at our house — that’s kind of how we like to do things. I made gumbo and then we made everybody bring sides, everybody has their special thing.
It was really nice — felt really good being back home. And also you know, in London, we hadn’t been able to make a thing like gumbo. In London, the stores are a lot smaller just because of limited space. You don’t have that selection, so it’s nice to be back. My husband was like, what were you doing for two hours in H-E-B? And I was like, I’m just in love.