BP to increase oil and gas investments
Marketplace Morning Report
Marketplace
4.5 • 927 Ratings
🗓️ 26 February 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From the BBC World Service: Under pressure from investors, energy giant BP is increasing investments in oil and gas by $10 billion a year, while decreasing previously planned renewables funding by more than $5 billion. Plus, Ukraine has struck a deal to let the U.S. jointly exploit its mineral resources. Then, Donald Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants is raising economic concerns. How are small businesses in the U.S. responding?
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Oil giant BP scraps its green golds and bets billions on oil and gas. Good morning. This is the Marketplace Morning Report and we're live from the BBC World Service. I'm Leanna Byrne. BP is making a dramatic U-turn under pressure from investors. It's slashing green investment and pouring $10 billion a year into oil and gas. |
| 0:23.9 | Nick Butler is the former head of strategy at BP, now visiting professor at the Policy Institute |
| 0:29.3 | at King's College London. Hello, Nick. Nick, what do you make of this? I mean, BP once championed |
| 0:36.8 | a transition to renewables, you know, you used to work there. What do you think of this? I mean, BP once championed a transition to renewables. You know, you used to work |
| 0:39.9 | there. What do you think? Well, I think the verdict was made very quickly by the market. So when the |
| 0:46.6 | statement was put out at 10 o'clock this morning, the share price fell by 5% within 5 minutes. |
| 0:52.9 | I don't think this is going to be sufficient to stop the speculation |
| 0:57.8 | about takeovers and breakups. I think it's really very surprising that the board is still in place |
| 1:05.8 | and that there haven't been any changes there. And I think on renewables, what they should have done and what |
| 1:12.1 | the world needs at the moment is to separate out the renewables business and to make it a different |
| 1:18.0 | company with new investors. And they haven't done that. They've just cut the money that's going to |
| 1:23.0 | it, which I think still leaves them trying to manage a sort of conglomerate, which clearly hasn't worked. |
| 1:29.9 | Yeah, they haven't done that. |
| 1:31.2 | And they're saying, you know, this switch in focus is to get higher returns, shareholder value and cash flow growth. |
| 1:38.3 | I mean, what does this say about BP's original green strategy? |
| 1:42.2 | Was it flawed? |
| 1:43.3 | It was ahead of its time, certainly. I was involved in it. I think what they should do now |
| 1:49.4 | is recognise that these are two very different businesses, low carbon and oil and gas. |
| 1:56.3 | They are a company expert in oil and gas. We still need oil and gas. And they're going to focus on that. |
| 2:02.0 | But I think the world is changing and they shouldn't give up on renewables in this way. I think they should separate it out, let it build a separate business with different shareholders. |
| 2:13.3 | And I think I'm just sorry that that's not what they've done. |
| 2:16.5 | And are they ditching renewables? Do you think, because the world is changing? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Marketplace, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Marketplace and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.