LONDON (Reuters) – Nothing escapes the winds of change now sweeping through BP, not even the research team that empowered for more than a century the discovery of billions of barrels of oil.
Geologists, engineers and their scientists were cut to less than 100 from a peak of more than 700 a few years ago, company sources told Reuters, part of a review led by extreme climate change last year with CEO Bernard Looney.
“The winds have turned very cold in the inspection team since Looney’s arrival. This is happening very quickly, ”a senior member of the team told Reuters.
Hundreds have left the oil exploration team in recent months, either moved to help improve low – carbon activities or off, current and former employees said.
The exodus is still the most obvious sign from within the company of its rapid shift away from oil and gas, nonetheless their main source of funding is to finance the conversion to renewable currency for at least the next decade.
MPs declined to comment on the staffing changes, which were not made public.
Reuters spoke to a dozen former and current BP employees who highlighted the major challenges facing the company as it transitions from fossil fuels to carbon neutrality.
Looney has made his ambitions clear both internally and externally by lowering BP ‘s yield targets and becoming the first major oil CEO to promote this as a breakthrough for investors seeking a long – term vision. time for a lower carbon economy.
BP is cutting about 10,000 jobs, about 15% of its workforce, under the Looney restructuring, the most aggressive among European oil giants including Royal Dutch Shell and Total.
The 50-year-old veteran oil engineer, former head of oil and gas exploration and production, aims to cut production by 1 million barrels per day, or 40%, over the next decade and is growing a 20-fold renewable energy product.
Despite the changes, oil and gas will remain BP’s main source of revenue until at least 2030. (REPEATS LINE ABOVE)
And Looney’s attempt to restart BP has done nothing to boost its shares, which hit their lowest level in 25 years late in 2020 and fell 44% a year, mostly some over doubts whether it will be able to transform and the profits it aims to make.
The change marks the end of an era for research teams from Moscow and Houston to BP’s research headquarters in Sunbury near London, with farewell gatherings held on Zoom a few months ago, they said.
“The feeling was brutal,” said a former retiree.
For a reduced BP survey team, led by former North Sea leader Ariel Flores, the focus has shifted to finding new facilities near oil and gas fields that are currently in place to reduce productivity and reduce consumption.
“We are in harvest mode and BP is not said to be a much smaller unexplored company,” said a second source in BP’s oil and production sector.
Flores was not available for reference.
Data from Norwegian consultant Rystad Energy shows that BP acquired around 3,000 square kilometers of new survey licenses in 2020, the lowest level since at least 2015 and far less than at Shell, which received around on 11,000 square kilometers, or Total, bought about 17,000 square kilometers.
Although global survey activity slowed last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the fall in BP was largely due to the change in strategy, four company sources said.
(Graphic: BP slow scan -)
(Graphic: BP audit expenditure -)
Oil and gas exploration has been at the forefront of companies ’evolution to multinational companies that have brought huge profits to shareholders over the decades.
BP began reducing spending on a study under former CEO Bob Dudley in response to the 2014 oil price crash, aiming to use technology to unleash more oil and gas resources.
Looney is driving the research budget even lower, to around $ 350 to $ 400 million per year. That’s about half of BP’s spending in 2019 and a fraction of the $ 4.6 billion spent on a 2010 survey.
Also, BP last year swept $ 20 billion from the value of its oil and gas reserves after losing sight of energy prices. At these lower price assumptions, BP was no longer considering many of its oil and gas reserves worth developing.
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BEYOND PETROLEUM
BP, which started as an Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1908 and has discovered vast fossil fuel resources in places like Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, has sought to diversify into regenerative products previously innovative.
Under the CEO John Browne MP launched “Beyond Petroleum,” billions in wind farms and solar power technology, but most of the investments failed.
Looney believes his plan will succeed with unparalleled government support for energy transitions and technological advances that will make renewable energy more accessible than ever. He has listed Giulia Chierchia, former chief executive of McKinsey, to oversee the development of BP’s strategy.
And a team of geologists and data collectors led by Houston-based Kirsty McCormack, formerly of the survey unit, will now apply analyzes used to study rock structures and mapped to develop fossil fuels to develop low-carbon technologies such as carbon capture. , consumption and storage (CCUS) and georegulatory energy, company sources said.
The uptake of carbon dioxide released by highly polluting industries and its injection into depleted oil reservoirs is being seen to help reduce stop emissions.
Other oil veterans were also reassigned, with Felipe Arbelaez, formerly in charge of BP ‘s oil and gas operations in Latin America, now leading his renewables industry and Louise Jacobsen Plutt, an experienced oil engineer, now the CCUS hydrogen vice president.
BP was also poaching employees from Uber, Toyota and Silicon Valley to increase understanding of electric vehicles, power markets, renewables and expand its capabilities in big data.
Franziska Bell, a former Toyota employee, is vice president for data and analytics at BP while Justin Lewis joined the company in July to head the high-start venture. -technologist after working as a software engineer at Tesla.
The transformation was met with a mixture of surprise and anxiety among workers who question whether the pace is stable and whether it is enough for BP to compete in an energy-efficient world. rapidly changing.
Some current and former key workers have warned that there is a risk that MPs will venture into investments in new areas before they fully understand how to into a transformational company, while abandoning long-established sources of money.
“There is so much change internally that building the organization and getting things going is a big job,” said a senior staff member in the audit department.
(Graphic: Big Oil Costs -)
Reciting with Ron Bousso; Edited by Alexander Smith