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European oil and gas supermajors BP, Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies are committing a joint investment of $500 million to help ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all.
The joint investment commitment is part of the energy majors’ efforts to support promising, high-impact projects, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa, South, and Southeast Asia. These projects are aimed at helping millions of people in underserved communities gain access to electricity and improved cooking conditions, the companies said on Friday.
Their shared intent is for the committed capital to be invested in a broad range of solutions, including solar home systems, mini/metro grids, clean cooking solutions, and enabling technologies such as e-mobility, and energy storage and management solutions.
The investment is in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 7 (UN SDG7), which aims to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all.
The supermajors have picked a global private equity firm with a strong track record in impact investing to manage the joint investment, BP said, without naming the firm.
“It is early days, but we hope that by jointly investing, we will be able to contribute to wider efforts to tackle the very real challenge of access to energy,” said BP’s chief executive Murray Auchincloss.
Europe’s oil and gas majors have recently scaled back investments in renewables and focused on their core business of providing oil and gas the world still needs.
On the Q3 earnings call, Shell’s CEO Wael Sawan said, commenting on the company’s focus on its core business, “We start from the perspective of believing that oil and gas have a critical role in the energy transition for a long time to come.”
BP is reportedly scrapping a previous target to reduce its oil and gas production by the end of the decade.
In the Q3 results release, CEO Auchincloss said “In oil and gas, we see the potential to grow through the decade with a focus on value over volume.”
“We also have a deep belief in the opportunity afforded by the energy transition,” Auchincloss added.
