London-headquartered oil and gas multinational British Petroleum Company (BP) is slashing its investment in energy transition activities and seeking a new partner for Lightsource BP, the renewables developer fully owned by the oil and gas giant.
The change in strategy comes just months after the multinational completed a full takeover of the Lightsource BP business. BP acquired 50.03% of Lightsource BP in a deal completed in October 2024, for a reported $803 million (USD 506 million)
Founded in 2010 as Lightsource Renewables Energy, Lightsource BP builds, operates and partners on solar projects in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Americas and Asia Pacific regions. BP first invested in the business in 2017 when it acquired a 42% stake in the company.
BP now aims to divest $20 billion from its business by 2027, including potential proceeds from selling a stake in Lightsource BP and a strategic review of lubricant business Castrol.
In a press release outlining plans to “fundamentally reset” BP’s business strategy, BP chief executive Murray Auchincloss said the company will be “very selective in our investment in the transition, including through innovative capital-light platforms.”
Plans include cutting investment in energy transition activities by more than $5 billion per year. The remaining $1.5-2bn per year earmarked for energy transition investment will focus on biogas, biofuels and EV charging, “capital-light” partnerships in renewables, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage.
BP expects capital expenditure on low-carbon energy to be less than $800 million per year. Reallocation plans for capital expenditure include increasing investment in oil and gas to around $10 billion per year.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.