On the return-to-shareholders front, BP aims to distribute 30-40% of operating cash flow via dividends and buybacks, maintaining its policy of increasing the dividend by at least 4% annually, subject to board approval.
Strategically, BP is targeting >20% CAGR in adjusted free cash flow from 2024–2027, while reducing its net debt to US$14–18 billion by end-2027. It’s also pursuing US$ 4–5 billion of structural cost savings by 2027, and expects divestment proceeds of US$ 3–4 billion in 2025, helping fund its balance sheet objectives.
Below are key drivers of BP's value that present opportunities for upside or downside to the current Trefis price estimate for BP:
For additional details, select a driver above or a division from the interactive Trefis split for BP at the top of the page.
BP is a major player in the global energy industry, with operations spanning oil production, refining, and new renewable technologies. Its low-carbon energy segment focuses on natural gas, solar, and wind energy. The company is striving to pivot toward sustainable energy, keeping a diverse energy portfolio that includes both traditional hydrocarbon operations and significant investments in renewables. A key focus is its investment in natural gas as a transition fuel while aggressively expanding into solar and wind power ventures.
BP has concentrated on low-carbon energy initiatives, oil trading, and refining efficiency. The company aims to thrive in a market moving toward environmental sustainability, focusing on biofuels and decarbonization solutions.
Proved reserves are an extremely critical metric for an oil and gas exploration and production company. It represents the total quantity of technically and economically recoverable oil and gas reserves owned by the company at a given point in time. It directly impacts the company's production growth outlook. At the end of 2024, BP's total proved reserves stood at 6.25 billion oil-equivalent barrels (both developed and undeveloped). These reserves consist crude oil , natural gas, natural gas liquids).
BP also outlined a USD-20-billion target for divestments through 2027. At the same time, the British firm pledged to grow upstream operations by increasing oil and gas investments to about USD 10 billion per year. The company will seek to strengthen its portfolio and boost production to 2.3-2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2030. The shift marks a departure from the low-carbon plan presented by BP in 2020 that aimed at 50 GW of renewables by 2030 while cutting down on oil and gas production. It also adds the company to a list of energy majors, including Shell and Equinor, that have decided to scale back their renewable ambitions.
It is estimated that a large part of the world's oil reserves has already been discovered. Recent statistics have indicated that global consumption has been outpacing reserve additions. Peak oil is a commonly used term to describe the point at which world oil output will reach a maximum and decline afterward.
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) The Oil and Gas Industry in Net Zero Transitions World Energy Outlook Special Report predicts that demand for oil and gas will peak before 2030. However, it also says that oil and gas will remain necessary in 2050 — although on a reduced production scale. Oil’s share of total energy demand fell below 30% for the first time ever in 2024, 50 years after peaking at 46%.
Due to limited underlying growth in product demand, there has been an increase in recent years toward increasing the complexity of refineries rather than expanding capacity. In the U.S., no new refineries have been built since 1980. However, improvements in process design and technology have seen capacity increase by around 1% per year.
The early refineries that were established were mainly used to process light sweet crude, resulting in an increase in demand for light sweet crude. As a result of higher oil prices in recent times, heavy crude oil is becoming more economically attractive. In addition, the interest in the development of new cost-effective methods for extracting and transporting heavy crude oil for refining into valuable light and middle distillate fuels is also increasing.
BP’s low-carbon portfolio today is centered on a tighter set of projects focused on hydrogen, carbon capture, biogas, EV charging, and select renewables. Its flagship developments include H2Teesside, a large low-carbon hydrogen plant in the U.K. targeting 1.2 GW of capacity and more than 2 million tonnes of CO₂ captured annually, and the Net Zero Teesside Power project, a gas-fired plant with integrated CCS meant to deliver roughly 742 MW of low-carbon power while capturing ~2 Mt of CO₂ per year.
BP is also advancing the Lingen Green Hydrogen project in Germany—a 100 MW electrolyzer expected to produce about 11,000 tonnes of green hydrogen annually—as well as expanding its biogas and biofuel businesses and growing its bp pulse EV-charging network, including ultra-fast charging partnerships in the U.S. At the same time, BP is pruning parts of its renewables footprint, such as selling its 1.3 GW U.S. onshore wind portfolio and exiting some large green-hydrogen ventures, reflecting a shift toward capital-light, returns-focused investments.
