BP Expected to Withdraw From Trade Groups Over Climate Policies

BP, Europe's second-largest oil company, is expected to withdraw from at least two less-prominent trade groups due to climate policies, following Total and Shell, several industry members told The Washington Post.

The British oil giant is leaving the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a lobby group for the U.S. oil and petrochemicals sector, and the Western States Petroleum Association, the largest and most powerful corporate lobbying group in California.

Shell and Total left the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers in November because of disagreements about policies on climate change, with Total citing the group's lack of support for the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

Still, BP is expected to stay in the American Petroleum Institute, the biggest energy trade association.

API President Mike Sommers on Monday told the Financial Times he was confident his group could still European energy majors.

"The P in API is petroleum," he said. "And I think that we'll continue to represent this industry for many, many years to come."

BP executive chief Bernard Looney earlier this month set one of the oil sector's most ambitious targets for curbing carbon emissions.

"We have got to change and change profoundly because the world is changing fast and so are society's expectations of us," Looney said in his first major speech as CEO, after earlier highlighting a need to "reinvent BP."

"It is aiming to reduce and neutralize the carbon in the oil and gas that we dig out of the ground," Looney added.

Information from Reuters was used in this report.

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