Shareholders to choose between arctic oil or solar factory
A hundred shareholders holding over 120,000 shares today (26/1/00) forced BP Amoco's Arctic exploration plans onto the company's annual general meeting agenda by submitting a formal resolution opposing BP's controversial 'Northstar' project. Investors in BP Amoco will now have the chance to vote on whether the high-risk rig and sub-sea pipeline project in the Arctic Ocean should go ahead. The move will also give BP Amoco's 800,000 shareholders a chance to prevent the company from lobbying for the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the only part of America's Arctic completely off-limits to oil exploration.
The resolution submitted by British and American investors also asks BP Amoco to invest capital freed up from arctic projects in expanded solar manufacturing capacity. The hundred shareholders have been gathered together by Greenpeace, the US socially responsible investor Trillium Management Corporation and US Public Interest Group - PIRG (1).
Simon Billenness, senior analyst with Trillium Asset Management Corporation said:
"As US investors we support BP Amoco's aim to play a leading role in supplying the world's energy needs without damaging the environment. Unfortunately we have yet to see any sign of BP Amoco actually acting on this green vision. With this resolution, shareholders in the US and for the first time in Europe have a chance to put policy into practice. They can choose between funding dirty arctic oil or clean and profitable solar power."
BP Amoco is forging ahead with Northstar, which will use risky and untested technology to transport oil ashore in pipes buried beneath the seabed. The US Army Corps of Engineers have said that there is an up to one in four chance of a major spill during Northstar's lifetime. Oil spills would harm polar bears, endangered bowhead whales and seals that migrate through the area.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is an important polar bear breeding ground as well as home to indigenous groups such as the Gwich'in people. BP Amoco currently finances 'Arctic Power', a group set up solely to lobby US Congress to open up the wildlife refuge for oil and gas drilling.
Concerned shareholders submitting the resolution are asking BP Amoco to switch investment to solar and make its vision of being a green energy company a reality. BP has a solar subsidiary, Solarex, yet ironically the company is not making profits from solar because of its lack of ambition for solar business.
Solar is too expensive to generate large-scale consumer demand because the level of solar panel production is too low. However a recent report by financial analysts KPMG, showed that panel prices would come crashing down if just one large solar factory was built. This factory would cost US $500 million, equivalent to the lowest estimate for the cost of Northstar. Despite this market opportunity, 99.95% of BP Amoco's investments are in fossil fuels - which cause devastating climate change. BP Amoco's CEO John Browne has made widely publicised statements supporting action on climate change - while encouraging massive oil expansion in the Arctic. The Western Arctic is on the frontline of climate change, warming three to five times faster than the Earth as a whole, resulting in major problems like a reduction in sea ice, which is threatening Arctic species such as the polar bear and walrus who feed on the ice.
Greenpeace campaigner Stephanie Tunmore said:
"The Arctic already undergoing massive changes due to global climate change. Polar bear populations are already suffering. Yet BP Amoco is investing US $5 billion on arctic oil expansion. This is entirely incompatible with their vision of being environmentally responsible."
Notes to Editors:
1. In the UK, a shareholders resolution must be signed by 100 shareholders on whose shares there has been paid up to an average sum of at least £00 nominal value.
2. Trillium Asset Management is a leading US social investor managing $600 million in client assets. It has supported numerous shareholder resolutions including one submitted to Amoco in 1993, which resulted in the company withdrawing from Burma in 1994.
Further information:
Contact:
Greenpeace press office on 020 7865 8255
