BP is to cut nearly 8,000 jobs in the face of falling profits and rising shareholder concern over its green energy policies as pressure from Net Zero policies continues to bite. The Telegraph has more.
The company will cut 4,700 roles across its 90,000-strong global workforce and end work with 3,000 contractors as it seeks savings of $2 billion (£1.6 billion) across the business. Its 15,000-strong U.K. workforce will be among those hit hard by the cuts.
Murray Auchincloss, BP’s Chief Executive, has vowed to cut costs by the end of 2026 as part of his drive to boost returns and soothe investor concerns over BP’s Net Zero strategy.
That strategy had been driven by his predecessor, Bernard Looney who abruptly resigned in September 2023 after failing to disclose relationships with employees.
One of Mr. Looney’s first announcements upon being named Chief Executive was an ambition to make BP Net Zero by 2050, a highly ambitious plan that involved ramping up investment into green energy. However, investors were lukewarm on the plan and BP’s share price has performed poorly compared to peers in recent years.
Mr. Auchincloss has since scaled back aspects of the plan to focus on financial performance.
Last year he said the company needed to go back to its roots – meaning producing more oil and gas to meet rising global demand. In 2023 BP pushed production up by more than 6% to the equivalent of 2.3 million barrels of oil a day and last year predicted its oil production would rise by 2-3% a year until 2030.
In a memo to staff announcing the job cuts, Mr. Auchincloss insisted that BP remained “uniquely positioned to grow value through the energy transition” but added: “That doesn’t give us an automatic right to win. We have to keep improving our competitiveness and moving at the pace of our customers and society.”
BP was unable to say how many U.K. jobs would be lost. About 6,000 of its 15,000 U.K. employees work in petrol and service stations and so are unlikely to be affected. The rest are spread between its London offices and its North Sea oil and gas production division.
Mr. Auchincloss said in his memo to staff: “I understand and recognise the uncertainty this brings for everyone whose job may be at risk, and also the effect it can have on colleagues and teams.
“We have a range of support available, and please continue to show care for each other, be considerate and keep putting safety first – especially during times of change.”
Worth reading in full.
The Telegraph‘s Annabel Denham remarks that BP’s job losses “have once again exposed the folly of believing we can retire entire industries with minimal economic impact”.
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If you work for BP (or
damn nearany other company) in relation to North Sea oil, you’re screwed.AND all the local businesses which rely on this sector. Basically, NE Scotland is about to suffer the same treatment as the Yorkshire Mining area.
It’s hard enough for business operating in the UK as it is, with rising taxes on employing staff, but then when you add in the Net Zero agenda they’re doomed to a painful decline. At the moment, the cost of Net Zero is really obvious for any companies involved in the gas and oil industry, but if companies in general have to start paying penalties for carbon emissions associated with the raw materials and supplies they buy in, and the carbon emissions associated with the use of the products they sell, then the damage will spread far and wide. This is something that’s coming in France, and I’m sure it will be the same here, if our government wants to maintain its ambition of leading the world into net zero.
if companies in general have to start paying penalties for carbon emissions associated with the raw materials and supplies they buy in, and the carbon emissions associated with the use of the products they sell, then the damage will spread far and wide
It certainly will. It will be a disaster.
Never mind. Starmer said Labour would create lots of well-paid green jobs!
In addition, oil refinery workers will re-train as Turkish barbers, there seems to be a massive boom in Turkish barber shops at the moment. Clearly people need haircuts more often.
Does anyone know of any lists of claimed green jobs? My guess is they’ll all be in the pen-pushing/keyboard tapping category but on the principle of ‘knowing your enemy’ I’d be interested in knowing what the green loons claim.
If DS Editorial come across any “green jobs” when ploughing through the various media for the News Round-up perhaps they could post them? Personally I have never seen a green job advert but then I am not a frequenter of MSM.
And if any subscribers find any adverts let’s see them posted.
Recently I have talked to a solar panel salesman, an underfloor insulation salesmand and a heat pomp salesman. I think they were formerly into double glazing, cavity wall insulation and gas boilers.
I don’t think they have fessed up to anything like details, they just talk in broad brushstrokes, to mix a metaphor.
I’ve been involved in finding, funding, and building small scale hydropower sites, mainly in the Pennines but also down south. They have been very profitable for their investors, but it’s a niche maket, maybe 1000 sites in the UK, total value £1bn, and at one point three quarters of the income came from subsidies.
The industry arose from Cameron’s desire to cozy up to Clegg, but eventually Amber Rudd saw that renewables were too profitable and riskless, and she cut the subsidies, at which point small hydropower stopped being built. Without subsidies the risk-reward equation rapidly reverses because building in rivers requires a lot of capex on civil engineering – and post-covid, construction costs have soared
Is “pushing up the daisies” a green job?
So its two fingers up to Milliband.
No heat or meat to warm you. Just skin and brittle bone all fertility long gone. Needy consumers of big pharma poison until they are broke and dead. Our overlords do a thorough job of extracting every morsel of meat off the carcass.
That is A-OK with Labour, they did not need the taxes from those jobs anyways, Reeves has got everything covered, has thought everything through….
That company has been involved in colonial exploitation for over a century. I feel dirty listening to its pronouncements. These people hate the English natives just as much as they hate the poor folk abroad believe me.
Garages will be closed bit by bit , just like the Banks ! Mad Max – Beyond The Thunderdome , here we come !