Is BP A Stranded Whale?

By Paul Homewood

Further to yesterday’s post on stranded assets, it is worth looking at BP’s Annual Accounts for 2024:

https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/investors/results-reporting-and-presentations/annual-report.html#ar-highlights-2-1

Three numbers stand out, which show the claims about stranded assets to be nonsense:

First, equity stands at £78.3 billion:

Secondly, BP has cash reserves of £39.2 billion. (Working capital is also similarly healthy).

Thirdly, cash generated by operations last year was £27.2 billion. (CAPEX was £15.3 billion and dividends took another chunk of £5.0 billion).

In simple terms therefore, half of the £78.3 billion of equity is covered by cash, and the rest can be paid back via less than two years of operational revenue.

The Telegraph story is just another attempt to scare the public away from investing in oil companies.

Shamefully they chose to give publicity to a report by the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association, a lobby group set up to promote the sustainable sector, as their website makes clear: