BP invested $2.5 billion (£1.9 billion) in biofuels, hydrogen, EV charging, and renewable energy.
BP has abandoned its goal of reducing its oil output in the next five years, infuriating the green groups, who claim that the company prioritizes profits over the health of the planet.
Greenpeace and Reclaim Finance were among the campaign organizations criticizing the move, which might lead to the oil firm abandoning its plan to cut its petrol and oil output by 25% by 2030 as part of a strategy reset.
This move is due to the intention of CEO Murray Auchincloss to reduce the green initiatives to gain over the investors and increase profits through its more profitable oil and gas businesses.
The company is also looking for multiple new investments in the Middle East and the Gulf of Mexico to improve its output.
As the price of oil rose above $80 per barrel for the first time since August, BP and rival Shell were among the highest rises on the FTSE 100 on Monday. A barrel of Brent crude was up almost 3.5% at $80.85.
According to a BP representative, as Murray indicated at the start of the year’s fourth-quarter results, the direction is the same, delivering as a simpler, more focused, and higher-value company.
According to Philip Evans, the senior climate campaigner for Greenpeace UK, Auchincloss wants to prioritize shareholder wealth and company profits even though billions of dollars worth of damages were made by floods and wildfires that cost many lives and destroyed houses worldwide.
Agathe Masson, a stewardship advocate for Reclaim Finance, claimed that BP was abandoning any climate action to increase their production and urged investors to cast their votes against directors at the upcoming annual shareholder meeting.
She also said that investors need to adopt a longer perspective and reject the climate-wrecking agenda of BP, even though the company may be pleased to watch the earth burn in the name of profits.
The latest action made BP go back to its more aggressive environmental goals. Under former CEO Bernard Looney, the company had promised to reduce its oil and gas output by 40% by 2030 and to increase its investment in renewable energy sources.
Under Looney, this was reduced to 25% in February 2023, resulting in 2 million barrels of oil per day of output in 2030 for oil and gas. That news was after the company announced profits of $28 billion in 2022.
Looney left in September of last year after admitting to the board that he had not disclosed fully and many personal interactions with his coworkers. In January, Auchincloss replaced him, the former head of finance, who shifted his focus back to oil and gas and away from renewable energy.
BP invested $2.5 billion (£1.9 billion) in biofuels, hydrogen, EV charging, and renewable energy. Additionally, it has invested in 6GW of offshore wind power in the UK and has the government’s support for its £4 billion carbon capture project on Teesside.
However, the investors were dissatisfied with the company’s green ambitions, so it reduced its investment in renewables, stopping all new offshore wind projects in June.
It has also recently signed deals to invest in the Gulf of Mexico’s Kaskida developments, Tiber oilfields, and three new oil projects in Iraq. By 2050, the company still plans to have net zero emissions.
Most oil and gas have a history of not sufficiently investing in transition technologies despite having set goals and made statements that have frequently been rejected or abandoned.
Rival BP Shell announced on Monday that refining profit margins had dropped by over a third in the three months leading up to the end of September, with the company contributing to the decline to a slowdown in global demand.
According to the report, refining margins decreased from $7.7 per barrel in the previous quarter to $5.5 per barrel in the third.