<article><p class="lead">Some of BP's exploration projects in Africa are delayed by 6-12 months by the Covid-19 pandemic, and this will affect dates for first oil and gas, according to the firm's Africa new ventures vice president Jonathan Evans.</p><p>The pandemic has hit BP in two ways, Evans said, through travel restrictions and imposed quarantine, and through the dramatic demand reduction and steep price falls.</p><p>"One of the big questions is how quickly will demand come back from the low levels seen over the last few months. Will it ever return to the same levels we saw pre-Covid," he said.</p><p>BP has kept its African production mostly stable, particularly in Angola and Egypt, according to Evans. But other lockdown restriction affected seismic surveys, exploration and project construction, he said.</p><p>BP believes the demand slump and price decline brought by the Covid-19 pandemic will accelerate the global energy transition towards a higher share of renewables and low-carbon energy.</p><p>"The current operational and pricing environment is forcing BP to make some portfolio choices sooner than it may have done as it faces the reality of projects losing money every day," Evans said. So the firm will shift away from long-dated, frontier exploration in Africa towards lower-carbon energy projects, in line <a href="https://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/2068893">with its strategy</a> of reaching net zero carbon emissions across its operations and of halving the carbon intensity of the oil and gas products that it sells, both by 2050. </p><p>Today it released ambitious and tangible energy-transition goals <a href="https://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/2129244">for the next decade</a>.</p><p>In Africa, BP will focus more on its traditional heartlands where it has existing infrastructure, like Egypt and Angola. In addition, it will develop projects such as the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim LNG project offshore Mauritania and Senegal, Evans said. </p><p>More broadly, the firm will invest in large-scale LNG projects in Mozambique, although there it is a major buyer of gas rather than it being involved in the upstream, he said.</p><p>BP will continue to develop oil and gas, but these projects will have to have a much lower carbon footprint, Evans said. So it will explore technologies such replacing gas-fired compressors with electric drives so that offshore platforms can be powered by onshore wind, solar or gas-fired power plants.</p><p>"These are the kind of technologies we are looking at for big LNG projects in places like Mauritania and Senegal," he said.</p><p>"If you combine that with carbon capture [and] storage for power projects, it is possible to imagine negative-carbon projects, with zero carbon inputs and negative carbon outputs," Evans said. "We will see that happening in Africa over the next decade."</p><p class="bylines">By Elaine Mills</p></article>
