MOSCOW (MRC) -- bp expects to invest around USD2 billion in low carbon energy in 2021, rising to USD3-4 billion in 2025 and aiming for around USD5 billion in 2030, as per the company's press release.
bp’s strategy aims to significantly expand its low carbon energy interests, with a target of having developed 20GW net of renewable assets by 2025 and aiming for 50GW by 2030.
So far in 2021 bp has entered offshore wind in both the US and UK, acquired a major solar development pipeline in the US and its solar joint venture Lightsource bp has continued to grow. By the end of the first half of 2021, bp had developed 3.7GW of renewable power capacity and had a further 21GW development pipeline.
In line with this strategy, bp has just announced the appointment of Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath as its new executive vice president, gas and low carbon energy, and member of bp’s leadership team.
Until recently she was chief executive officer of RWE Renewables, one of the world’s leading renewables businesses. Anja-Isabel will join bp on March 1st 2022.
Bernard Looney, bp chief executive, said: “I am delighted that Anja has chosen to join us and help lead bp’s transformation from international oil company to integrated energy company. She is exactly the right person for bp, at exactly the right time - a globally respected and deeply experienced leader in renewable energy with a proven track record of transforming and growing businesses.
“I have been hugely impressed by the quality of her strategic thinking and her deep operational expertise. But as impressive as this is, I am even more impressed with how she has done it - leading teams with the right values and a strong sense of purpose. I look forward to welcoming Anja and working together to create value as we drive bp towards net zero and help the world get there too.”
Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath is an electrical engineer with more than 25 years of senior experience in energy, industry and management consultancy, including at the highest level in leading and transforming major renewable energy companies. She led the development of RWE Renewables into one of the world’s largest renewable power companies and the second largest offshore wind player globally, integrating the renewables businesses of E.ON and Innogy into RWE to form RWE Renewables in 2019. Before becoming chief executive of RWE Renewables on its formation, she led E.ON’s Climate & Renewables business as chief executive and previously chief operating officer.
As announced separately, Dev Sanyal, bp’s current EVP gas & low carbon energy, will leave the company at the end of 2021.
As MRC reported before, bp and Lukoil want to quit their Iraqi energy projects due to the current investment environment, the country's oil minister said in July, 2021, as OPEC's second biggest producer faces an exodus of international oil companies that want to exit unattractive contracts. Lukoil wants to sell its stake in West Qurna 2 to Chinese companies.
We remind that Russian energy major Lukoil (Moscow) is studying several potential petrochemical projects in Russia and Bulgaria, with investment decisions expected to be made on two of them in 2021.
Thus, Lukoil announced an investment decision in June, 2019, to proceed with a 500,000-metric tons/year polypropylene (PP) plant at its Kstovo refinery. In September this year it selected Lummus Technology’s Novolen PP technology and basic design engineering for the facility’s production unit. Kstovo is one of Lukoil’s largest crude refineries in Russia with a throughput of 17 million metric tons/year, with the company recently adding a catalytic cracking unit that almost doubled the refinery’s production of propylene feedstock to 300,000 metric tons/year.
At Budennovsk in Russia’s far south west, the company’s Stavrolen petchems complex currently has the capacity to produce 350,000 metric tons/year of ethylene, 300,000 metric tons of polyethylene (PE), 120,000 metric tons/year of PP, and 80,000 metric tons of benzene. Lukoil has for several years been considering construction of a new gas chemicals plant at Stavrolen to crack more ethane extracted from associated petroleum gas produced by its oil and gas fields in the north of the Caspian Sea. The potential new plant would raise Stavrolen’s ethylene and PE output to around 600,000 metric tons/year each, and increase PP production to 200,000 metric tons/year.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of PE and PP, respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
bp is one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, serving millions of customers every day in around 80 countries, and employing around 85,000 people. bp’s business segments are Upstream (oil and gas exploration & production), and Downstream (refining & marketing). Through these activities, bpP provides fuel for transportation; energy for heat and light; services for motorists; and petrochemicals products for plastics, textiles and food packaging. It has strong positions in many of the world's hydrocarbon basins and strong market positions in key economies.
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