We hit the ground running in January and haven’t slowed down.
Over the past 12 months, our teams have been working hard to supply the energy the world wants and needs today, which is mostly oil and gas, and to develop lower carbon energy for the future.
Fully focused on safely delivering our strategy, we’ve taken steps, big and small, towards achieving our aims.
Here’s a look back at the progress we’ve made over the year across our businesses and around the world – from the start-up of a new platform in the Gulf of Mexico to the opening of the UK’s largest public EV charging hub in Birmingham.
We’ve completed four major oil and gas projects – along with a pipeline replacement project in Trinidad & Tobago and an upgrade at our Cherry Point refinery.
We started operating our fifth deepwater platform in the US Gulf of Mexico. Argos is the first new bp-operated production facility in the region since 2008.
Also in the US, the start-up of ‘Bingo’, bpx energy’s second central processing facility in the Permian basin, doubled our oil and gas processing capacity in the basin, driving towards our planned production increase of 30-40% by 2025. In addition, we achieved our goal of electrifying 95% of our wells in the Permian.
Across the ocean in the UK North Sea, we began production from the Seagull field. Seagull connects to our ETAP central processing facility and reuses existing subsea infrastructure – a great example of how we’re getting more out of our current fields.
Two big new gas projects – one in Indonesia and one in India – are helping to keep energy flowing in growing markets. Reliance Industries and bp began production at KG-D6 MJ – the third of three major gas projects that together contribute to meeting about 15% of India’s gas demand.
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, we completed the expansion of our Tangguh LNG plant. About 35% of Indonesia’s gas production is expected to come from Tangguh once the expansion project is fully operational.
The Tangguh LNG plant in Indonesia
The bpx energy team hosted investors and analysts for a guided tour of some of bpx’s top-tier locations in the Permian basin, including the newly launched electrified oil, gas and water handling facility, Bingo
Completing the topsides of the new Azeri Central East platform (ACE), the next phase of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) field development in Azerbaijan, planned to start up production in 2024
Argos platform in the Gulf of Mexico
The Ruby floating production, storage and offloading vessel, part of the MJ project in India
We’ve been working to meet our aim of installing more than 100,000 EV charging points globally by 2030 – with around 90% of those rapid or ultra-fast.
The year started with the launch of a charging corridor for electric trucks in Germany, with ultra-fast chargers at key sites along one of Europe’s busiest road freight routes. It’s part of our effort to help decarbonize transport.
We announced plans to invest up to $1 billion in EV charging across the US by 2030. That includes an intent to build EV charging infrastructure in major cities, including at select Hertz locations to serve Hertz EV customers and the general public.
Also in the US, bp pulse announced plans to install Tesla chargers across the bp pulse network by agreeing purchases of its ultra-fast charging hardware units in a $100 million deal.
And bp pulse and partners opened the UK’s largest public EV charging hub at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre, where 180 EVs can now charge simultaneously.
Meanwhile in China, Castrol invested in expanding and upgrading its technology centre in Shanghai, to further boost collaboration and innovation with EV customers and extend its testing capability for EVs and data centres.
It came as Castrol launched its strategy to grow its core business in new ways and diversify into areas, such as data centre thermal management. The team unveiled a refreshed brand, with a cool sonic identity, to signal to customers how the business is evolving. Castrol is also investing in its technology centres in the UK, US and Germany.
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E-Truck charging in Germany
REWE to Go store in Germany
Our customers are front and centre in our convenience business. This year, we have added new stores to our network and have continued to evolve our offers – to give our customers what they want, when and where they want it.
The purchase of TravelCenters of America added around 280 large sites to bp’s portfolio. Strategically located on major highways across the US, these sites will provide options to expand and develop new offers, including EV charging, biofuels, renewable natural gas (RNG) and, later, hydrogen, both for passenger vehicles and fleets.
Meanwhile, partnerships with food retailers in Europe are continuing to provide customers to our forecourts with food for now and later. In Germany, we extended our relationship with Lekkerland to deliver REWE To Go stores at Aral retail sites with the intention of transforming our customers’ experience with new product ranges, store layouts and digital solutions. And in Poland, we plan to add more than 100 EasyAuchan stores to our network by the end of 2025.
With the launch of Wild Bean Cafe in Spain, coffee lovers can now pick up their favourite brew in Madrid and Malaga. We’ve also piloted new ‘food for now’ offers at Wild Bean Cafes around the world, including in the UK, Australia, India, Indonesia and China.
A TravelCenters of America site in Ohio, US
A Wild Bean Cafe in the UK
A new Wild Bean Cafe in India
We’ve made steady progress this year in our bioenergy business. bp’s Archaea Energy brought online a first-of-its-kind renewable natural gas plant in Medora, Indiana. The plant, which captures landfill emissions and provides customers with lower carbon fuel, has a standardized modular design that can lead to faster builds than previous industry standards and could pave the way for more facilities like it in the US.
To increase biofuels production volumes, we are investing in our refinery sites where we currently make co-processed biofuels to increase capacity. Our aim is to produce around 100,000bpd of biofuels by 2030 through a range of biofuels technologies.
Towards that aim, our Lingen and Rotterdam refineries, in Germany and the Netherlands, respectively, delivered bp’s first co-processing trials of Nuseed Carinata oil, made from a cover crop, for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
Meanwhile, Air bp helped make history by supplying sustainable aviation fuel for the first 100% SAF-powered transatlantic flight on a commercial airline.
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is co-processed at Lingen refinery in Germany
Air bp fuelling the Virgin Atlantic 747 with 100% SAF for the transatlantic flight
We have laid solid foundations in our effort to further develop our lower carbon hydrogen business.
In the UK, our green hydrogen project on Teesside – HyGreen – hit a new milestone when it progressed to the next stage of government funding negotiations and moved a step closer to supporting Teesside’s low carbon transformation and the delivery of the UK’s net zero targets.
And in the US, the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen, of which bp is a member, was selected by the US Department of Energy to develop a Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub. A Midwest clean hydrogen hub – which, under the proposals, would include blue hydrogen production at or near bp’s Whiting refinery – could help to decarbonize America’s industrial heartland, where there’s a cluster of ‘hard-to-abate’ industries.
A model showing how hydrogen could power Aberdeen city’s transport infrastructure
The site of a former steel mill in Teesside, UK, is undergoing a transformation. It’s the location of one of bp’s planned hydrogen developments, which include blue and green hydrogen facilities, and a carbon capture and subsea storage facility in the Teesside area
A student at Redcar and Cleveland College in Teesside, where bp is funding a Clean Energy Education Hub to equip students with the specialized skills needed for the transformation of the region’s industrial landscape
Our renewables pipeline continues to grow as we work towards our aim of having developed 50GW of renewable power to financial investment decision by 2030. We plan to use some of that power to help decarbonize our own operations, such as those at our refineries.
Most recently, we announced an agreement to acquire the remaining 50.03% stake in Lightsource bp, one of the world’s leading developers and operators of utility-scale solar and battery storage assets.
In the US, construction began on two new bp solar projects – Arche and Peacock. Once up and running, they will help to provide lower carbon energy to industry.
We upgraded 40 turbines at our Fowler Ridge 1 onshore wind farm in Indiana. The new turbines can generate up to 40% more power, more efficiently and with greater reliability than the previous turbines.
In offshore wind, we entered the German market with a 4GW auction win, as well as South Korea with our Deep Wind Offshore joint venture. And, we were successful in our bid to develop our innovation demonstrator floating offshore wind project off the coast of Aberdeenshire in Scotland.
Driving stakes into the ground for construction of the Arche solar project in Ohio, US
The upgrade of turbines at Fowler Ridge 1 wind farm in Indiana, US, involved 120 new blades
bp’s wider transformation is under way. While we’re mostly in oil & gas today, we’ve increased global investment into our lower carbon businesses, convenience stores and power trading from around 3% in 2019 to around 23% in 2023.
