Closure signals fading BP vision for clean energy

Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday 30/6/2009 Page: 18

BP HAS turned its back on more than a decade of preparations for a carbon-constrained future, closing its alternative energy headquarters in London and ushering its boss of clean energy out the door.

A BP spokesman, David Nicholas, yesterday confirmed a report in London's Guardian that about 80 staff in the company's alternative energy division would relocate to the corporate head office, and that spending on alternative energy this year would fall to between $US500 million ($620 million) and $USI billion; last year it was about $US1.4 billion.

The resignation of Vivienne Cox, the division's chief and BP's most senior female executive, was announced internally weeks ago and is effective from today. The BP chief executive, Tony Hayward, is said to be courting market favour by refocusing BP as a pure oil play. BP shares were up almost 1% to £478 ($979) in London trade last night.

The chief executive officer of WWF Australia, Greg Bourne, formerly BP's Australasian regional president and who worked for more than 30 years in the oil industry, said BP's alternative energy division was the result of long-range thinking in the 1990s. The former BP chief executive Lord Browne of Madingley drove the strategy, which added the tagline 'Beyond Petroleum" to BP's corporate advertising in 2000.

"What was interesting and quite palpable was the pride and hope that it engendered in employees around the world," Mr Bourne said yesterday. "I am disappointed for the organisation that they've left this behind, and I think many other people within BP would be as well. You must wonder where BP's future now lies."

Alternative energy investment has been affected by recent lower oil prices and the difficulty of obtaining project finance in the financial crisis. Last November BP closed its solar photovoltaic manufacturing plant at Homebush Bay- the largest such plant in Australia - with the loss of 200 jobs. Mr Nicholas said the decision to shut the alternative energy office, located about two kilometres from BP's headquarters in London, was "a real estate thing".