The Upstream History of Her Majesty's BP (and farewell to an old friend)

Before we jump into the charts this week I want to give my respects to an old friend.

A couple weeks ago news broke that BP may stop publishing its annual Statistical Review (HERE).

“The report has been seen by some BP executives as detrimental to the company's new direction,” sources told Reuters

“detrimental” who are they listening to? Some consultant just out of business school speaking the platitudes of ESG?!

The statistical review was first publish in 1952.

You know what happened the year prior?

Mossadegh nationalized their assets in Iran.

Here we are in 2022 with a third of the company’s production from Russia looking like it’s going to zero.

The world needs more energy education and data, not less.

The BP data led to one of my favorite oil charts of all time.

BP provided the post 1965 data. My useless ability to find data in out of date antiquated books before the Google Machine was invented provided pre-1965.

Check out the line on US consumption per capita since the 73/74 oil shock - been trending pretty well. You don’t see that talked about among climate activists.

CO2 emissions are dispersed globally so until China & India reduce demand the 1.5C target is dead in the water.

I’ll still be able to update the chart from other sources but it’s like seeing the house you grew up in bulldozed for high rise condos.

I never really understood the ESG/Climate movement until I read Marko Papic’s book, Geopolitical Alpha (HERE) and started to understand how politicians are motivated by the median voter.

The data in the chart below is taken from Gallup polls and what I clearly see is an energy price charts.

Source: Gallup Polls

When prices are falling, energy becomes an after thought and climate policy is favored and vice versa.

In the early 1990s the Clean Air Act was passed at the nadir of energy prices.

The first Earth Day was proclaimed in 1970 at a time of flat and stable prices. We all know what happened the following decade .

There are parallels to be drawn to the rise of the climate/ESG movement of recent years.

Born on the back of cheap energy. That era is over.

Prior to the recent U.S. midterms, inflation became the #1 issue and support for climate issues faltered.

Source: YouGov

Even voters that ID as a Democrat, the party most supportive of climate policies, have shown less enthusiasm as of late.

Source: YouGov

This is a long rant to say that the world needs more energy education

It needs BP data now more than ever.

OK I am off my soap box, let’s talks some BP charts.

Present day BP is the results of the merger mania that occurred at the bottom of the last cycle when BP bought ARCO and Amoco.