BP has established a US$100mn fund for projects that aim to deliver new greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions in its upstream oil and gas operations
The new Upstream Carbon Fund is set to provide significant further support to BP’s work generating sustainable greenhouse gas emissions reductions in its operations.
In April 2018, BP set targets aimed at reducing its emissions and advancing the energy transition, including achieving 3.5mn tonnes of sustainable GHG emissions reductions across the BP Group from 2016 to 2025 and targeting a methane intensity of 0.2 per cent.
In the year since, BP’s total direct GHG emissions fell by 1.7mn tonnes CO2 equivalent, despite a three per cent growth in upstream oil and gas production on the same basis. By the end of 2018, BP generated 2.5mn tonnes of sustainable GHG emissions reductions throughout its businesses since 2016. BP’s methane intensity for 2018 was 0.2 per cent – in line with the target.
Upstream Chief Executive Bernard Looney said, “This US$100mn investment is designed to build on that momentum. It will fund ideas both big and small because everything counts in our transition to a lower carbon future and everyone at BP has a role to play.”
Under the new initiative, funding totalling up to US$100mn will be made available over the next three years to support new projects in the upstream that will generate additional GHG emission reductions. Businesses and employees throughout BP’s upstream operating businesses are being invited to come up with ideas and propose projects for this funding.
The Upstream Carbon Fund will be in addition to the US$500mn that BP invests in low carbon activities each year, including investment in venturing activities and into its significant alternative energy business. BP is also a founding member of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, which brings together 13 of the world’s largest energy companies and has set up a US$1bn investment fund to address methane emissions and other issues.
BP’s targets for reductions in operational emissions are part of its reduce-improve-create (RIC) approach to the energy transition, which aims to improve its products to allow customers to reduce their emissions and to create and grow new low carbon businesses. The projects that are awarded funding will help to deliver the further emissions reductions necessary to achieve the RIC targets.
The announcement of the new fund is a further step in BP’s work to meet its targets and advance the energy transition. In January, BP announced that progress towards the sustainable emissions reductions target has now been incorporated as a factor in the remuneration of 36,000 employees across the Group.
