BP has lost a quarter of its share value in the last two weeks. The fall started when company profits turned out to be just $9 billion, down from $14b a year ago and $28b in 2022. As The Telegraph reports, "BP's shareholders had realized that the green spending they supported in 2020 had halved their dividends." But Shell, Chevron, and Exxon — the other oil giants — they were all doing much better.

Twenty years ago BP changed its branding to "Beyond Petroleum"*. By 2020 the company was hellbent on getting there. Suicidally, the oil company pledged to reduce their own oil production by 40% by 2030, (which did nothing except help all their competitors) and promised to pivot into renewable power. BP set itself a target to increase renewables generation by a factor of twenty this decade.  The media gushed  —  "BP Shuns Fossil Fuels", said Politico. BP supposedly shone a light on "stranded oil and gas"!

Thus and verily,  in mid 2020, with exquisite timing, BP management leapt headlong in the magical energy pit. They were sure that after the pandemic the world would 'build back better' with renewables "so their economies would be more resilient"... CEO Bernard Looney actually said that (probably while reading from the WEF handbook of "What to Wear for Billionaires").

So BP flagged a write-down of $18 billion dollars in fossil fuel assets and talked of  "accelerating" it's green investments. Then everything went wrong. Just after BP bet the house on renewables, the Ukraine war broke out and everyone needed oil and gas and no one needed another wind farm. There was a bonanza selling fossil fuels as prices lifted off (seen in the BP income in 2022) but suddenly no one could afford to buy real energy to make solar panels and turbines, and no one had much cash left to buy randomly-failing generators either. It's been all downhill in renewables ever since.

Prior to this, BP operated Australia's largest oil refinery for 66 years in Kwinana, Western Australia until it closed in 2021. Until a few weeks ago, BP was planning to launch a $600 million biofuel project on the same site, and the Australian government was thinking of tossing $1 billion dollars at a hydrogen project there too.  They were supposed to turn cooking oil into av-gas and renewable diesel, and be a hub for hydrogen. It's sadly pathetic and unravelling at warp speed.

The Telegraph has all the sordid details as British Petroleum fights for life.

BP faces 'existential crisis' after ruinous attempt to go green

The energy giant has vowed a 'fundamental reset' after its costly foray into net zero

Johnathon Leake and Ben Marlow, The Telegraph

Five years on from that speech in February 2020, the company is beleaguered by a ruthless activist investor, under pressure to boost its flatlining share price and considering a return to the oil and gas exploration that made it so successful to begin with.

The abrupt turn follows decades of crisis at one of Britain's most venerable institutions. Today, its future is more uncertain than ever.