(Photo Credit: BP)BP created a $100 million fund for projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the company’s oil and natural gas operations. Called the Upstream Carbon Fund, the investment is aimed at generating sustainable GHG emissions reductions across operations.
Funding will be made available over the next three years to support new projects in the Upstream segment, which is responsible for oil and natural gas exploration, ?eld development, and production. BP also said that the company is encouraging businesses and employees to develop ideas and propose projects. The new fund is in addition to the $500 million that BP already invests in low-carbon activities.
Last April, the company set targets that included achieving 3.5 million metric tons of sustainable GHG emissions reductions across the BP Group from 2016 to 2025. In the year since, BP reported that their total direct GHG emissions fell by 1.7 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent at the same time as their Upstream oil and gas production grew by 3%.
Between 2016 and the end of 2018, BP says it generated 2.5 million metric tons of GHG emissions reductions throughout its businesses.
“We’ve got to drive emissions down, we got to drive energy up because that’s what the world wants, and we got to make sure we do it in a way that creates value for our shareholders,” Upstream chief executive Bernard Looney told Bloomberg.
The new fund comes on the heels of a possible deal to power the oil giant’s US operations with solar. Earlier this year, BP’s board agreed to expand corporate reporting and describe how the company’s strategy is consistent with the Paris Agreement goals.
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