BP Abandons US Wind Farms Sending Share Price Soaring

BPĀ announced on Friday morning that it was selling its US wind farm business, sending its share price soaring by 2%. The Telegraph has more.

The FTSE 100 oil company said New York-based LS Power would buy BP Wind Energy North America, which has 10 operating onshore wind farms across the country.

The move is part of BP’s plans to pivot back to its core oil and gas business in the hope of boosting its share price. The company has come under intense pressure from shareholders, including activist Elliott Adviers, to improve performance.

The exit from US wind also comes amid President Trump’s latest assault on the renewables industry.

This week he announced that decisions related to solar and wind energy projects on federal lands will in future have to be approved by interior secretary Doug Burgum.

President Trump said the aim was to end what he calls preferential treatment for renewable energy sources, in line with his pledge to undo the clean energy and climate change policies of former President Joe Biden.

ā€œToday’s actions further deliver on President Trump’s promise to tackle the green new scam and protect the American taxpayers’ dollars,ā€ Adam Suess, Acting Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals Management, said on Thursday.

Mr Trump has long been critical of turbines, derisively calling them ā€œwindmillsā€.

He said in 2019: ā€œI never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. They’re noisy. They kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard? Go under a windmill someday. You’ll see more birds than you’ve ever seen in your life.ā€

In 2023, he said: ā€œWindmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before. No one does anything about that.ā€

Earlier this week, Mr Trump told the BBC that Aberdeen was ā€œthe oil capital of Europeā€ and should ā€œget rid of the windmillsā€.

BP’s move will therefore be seen as politically astute as well as fitting with its plan to divest $20 billion worth of assets by 2027.

Its shares rose by about 2% soon after the Friday morning announcement.

Worth reading in full.

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Jane G
Jane G
8 months ago

Oh good! My share divi should improve!

(Having a pension from this bedevilled industry is a great way of brushing off Green chuggers; they wouldn’t want to have their charity supported by someone using ‘dirty money’ from fossil fuels now, would they?)

mrbu
mrbu
8 months ago

But surely our Government tells us green energy means prosperity, lower prices for consumers, greater energy security, more jobs and economic growth? So either Labour or BP has got it wrong. I know which one I believe to be right!

REG1US
REG1US
8 months ago
Reply to  mrbu

Don’t worry. Crazy Ed is now betting on fusion coming to the rescue any time now, probably yesterday…

soundofreason
soundofreason
8 months ago
Reply to  REG1US

Only one problem – we’ll have to pay the Chinese for that too.

sskinner
8 months ago
Reply to  REG1US

Crazy Ed would make a great woke Dr Who, coming up with insanely improbable ideas that would get immediate support from the new 16 year old voters.

kev
kev
8 months ago

Those windmills don’t look in very good condition, wonder how old they are? How safe they are?

It annoys me that future generations (assuming we make it past the madness) will look back at Solar and Wind and will think we were all insane, we don’t all think its a good idea, a lot of us know now its insane!

soundofreason
soundofreason
8 months ago
Reply to  kev

Fairly sure that’s an AI image.

Westfieldmike
Westfieldmike
8 months ago

So 2% is now ‘soaring’.

NeilParkin
8 months ago
Reply to  Westfieldmike

You could bet your life that -2% would have been reported as ‘Trump wipes billions off stock market’

sskinner
8 months ago

Just for some general context.

50-years-of-global-steal-proeduction
sskinner
8 months ago
Reply to  sskinner

And more general context:

Largest-Oil-and-Gas-companies
NeilParkin
8 months ago
Reply to  sskinner

Wow.!

sskinner
8 months ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Indeed.

RTSC
RTSC
8 months ago

The Green SCAM is unravelling in the USA. We’re usually a few years behind our American cousins …. so it’ll carry on here for a bit longer.

But it will be stopped.