Dec 15, 2017

BP buys stake in solar company

Amy Harder

Photo: Julie Dermansky/Corbis / Getty Images

European oil and natural gas giant BP announced Friday it's investing $200 million over three years in Lightsource, one of Europe's largest solar companies, to acquire a 43% stake in the business.

The big picture: This is another sign of how big oil is slowly and gradually investing in lower-carbon technologies, alongside continued investments in oil and natural gas, driven by a series of overlapping factors, such as the notion of slowing oil demand and investor concern about climate change.

Yes but: This is a drop in the bucket compared to BP's nearly $2 billion net profit it disclosed as its most recent quarterly earnings. BP's renewable-energy assets, which also include wind farms in the U.S. and biofuels in Brazil, aren't "making a material difference to the bottom line," BP CEO Bob Dudley told an oil conference earlier this year.

Go deeper:

My latest Harder Line column published Monday looked at the factors at play driving companies to make these decisions.
ExxonMobil yields to its investors on climate risk, the company said earlier this week in filings.
Dudley's full remarks about what the firm describes as the "energy transition," per BP's website.

Add Axios on Google

BP buys stake in solar company

What to read next