BP predicts global oil demand will peak in 2025, driven by the rapid growth of renewable energy sources. Despite this, BP’s CEO has shifted focus back to oil and gas, suspending offshore wind projects to boost revenues amid lower earnings. The company’s Energy Outlook indicates that while natural gas demand may decline in a net-zero scenario, it could still grow significantly under the current trajectory.
BP’s recent projections suggest that global oil demand will peak in 2025, largely driven by the rapid growth of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. This transition is expected to contribute to a significant reduction in global carbon emissions by the mid-2020s. BP’s annual Energy Outlook study outlines two potential scenarios: the current trajectory of the energy transition and a pathway to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
In both scenarios, BP predicts that carbon emissions will peak around the middle of this decade. The net-zero scenario forecasts that natural gas usage will peak around the same time and then decline by half by 2050. However, under the current trajectory model, gas demand is expected to continue growing, increasing by about 20% by 2050.
Despite the push towards renewables, BP’s CEO Murray Auchincloss has recently implemented a hiring freeze and suspended offshore wind projects, focusing instead on oil and gas to boost revenues. This shift comes in response to lower earnings in the first quarter of 2024, which were impacted by lower energy prices and a US refinery outage. BP’s upstream production increased by 2.1% year-over-year, thanks in part to the new Azeri Central East platform in the Caspian Sea.
These changes indicate BP’s strategic pivot to stabilize its financial performance while balancing its commitments to the energy transition and renewable energy development.
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