webdiplomacy.net

A few years back British Petroleum, one of the global superpowers of the oil industry, changed its name to BP and pushed a "beyond petroleum" marketing campaign highlighting its green initiatives. Pretty much everyone assumed this was a cynical attempt to con consumers into thinking that this major polluter was environmentally friendly...

However, maybe not. Or maybe the act has slowly become reality, like a British POW pretending to be mad in order to be released slowly finds himself unable to act sane if he wanted to. BP have all but abandoned oil exploration across the globe, and have initiated a ten year plan intended to divorce them entirely from the oil industry. This could be the biggest change of direction since Lloyd's of London decided that there was too little money to be made selling cups of coffee to merchants, and decided to sell them insurance instead.

The times, they are a changing.

Are they changing because BP is an environmentally friendly, forward thinking, archetypal model of an ideal corporation or because exploration for and extraction of oil is growing more expensive with less long term certainty?

I can think of 168 million reasons why it's not the former.

168 million reasons? The significance of the number escapes me.

In terms of their motivation it would be nice to think the former, but I'm hoping for the latter. If oil is no longer considered an attractive bet by some of the big hitters then real progress in reducing emissions is bound to follow.

Octavious wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 05, 2020 2:03 pm

168 million reasons? The significance of the number escapes me.

The Deep Horizon Oil spill. 168 million gallons of oil.

The demand for oil is projected to increase in the coming decades as more nations modernize. There's still plenty of incentive to explore for new reserves.

My mostly uneducated guess would be that BP is looking to capture as much of the green energy market as they can, before others pivot as oil becomes less appealing. If Biden wins in '20, the Dems have a 12-15 year plan to convert the US into a green energy machine. Much of Europe is listing towards green energy revolutions as well.

BP certainly has the resources to pour into sector. Potentially fewer large competition (I'm guessing). Lots of green money to be made.