BP CEO Bernard Looney pictured in Texas March 8, 2022. During a roundtable discussion on October 31, 2022, Looney said his company’s strategy is ‘to invest in hydrocarbons today because the today’s energy system is a hydrocarbon system”.
F. Carter Smith | Bloomberg | Getty Images
BP The strategy centers on investing in hydrocarbons while simultaneously pumping money into the planned energy transition, the oil and gas supermajor’s CEO said on Monday.
“What the world needs, more than ever right now, is a conversation and a series of actions involved in the practicalities and realities of today and tomorrow,” said Bernard Looney, who was on a panel discussion moderated by CNBC’s Hadley Gamble, said.
“And by that I mean, our strategy as BP – which we execute in the UK, which we work on here in the Middle East and we do in the US and around the world – is to invest in hydrocarbons today, because today’s energy system is a hydrocarbon system,” he added.
Speaking at the Adipec conference in Abu Dhabi, Looney said his company was “obviously trying to produce these hydrocarbons with the lowest possible emissions” while investing in “accelerating the energy transition”.
“And we do it in Britain, we do it in the US, we do it here,” he said, citing carbon capture, electric vehicle charging, hydrogen and wind power. offshore.
A major oil and gas producer, BP says it aims to become a net zero company by 2050 or earlier. It is one of many large companies to have committed to net zero in recent years.
While such commitments attract attention, achieving them is a daunting task with significant financial and logistical hurdles. The devil is in the detail and goals can often be light on the latter.
Looney’s comments on hydrocarbon investing come at a time when high profile figures such as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres are making their feelings on fossil fuels known.
In June, for example, António Guterres criticized new funding for fossil fuel exploration. He called it “delusional” and called for the funding of fossil fuels to be abandoned.
The effect of fossil fuels on the environment is considerable. The United Nations states that, since the 19th century, “human activities have been the main driver of climate change, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas”.
Back in Abu Dhabi, BP’s Looney referenced the war in Ukraine as he sought to make the case for developing a system focused on a range of sources and priorities.
“There is a saying that wars do two things: wars reveal and wars accelerate,” he said.
“And one of the things he revealed is that whenever we focus on just one thing, it can end up being a problem,” he continued.
Expanding on his point, Looney said that if he had “asked someone in Europe two or three years ago what they wanted from energy, they would almost exclusively have said net-zero”.
“If I ask them today what they want from energy, they are bound to tell you that they want an energy system that works.”
An energy system that worked, he argued, was “an energy system that provides the world – Europe in this example – with secure energy, affordable energy and cleaner energy”.
What the planet needed, he later added, was a plan that aimed not just at reducing emissions, but also at safety and affordability.
“We should be very optimistic here,” he added, noting that “many things that will contribute to energy security will contribute to a cleaner energy system.”
“Offshore wind is local, hydrogen can be local, electric vehicle charging, electrification of transport, is local, bioenergy is local – so the things that contribute to a low-carbon economy also contribute energy security.”
“And if we have a more diverse system, over time we should have a more affordable system.”
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