Pre-spill, BP spent a fortune, hundreds and hundreds of millions, touting itself as the Beyond Petroleum company. How accurate was that claim?
BP’s revenue in 2008 was north of $360 billion (remember $4 gas?). In 2009, better than $240 billion. For the 12 months ending March 31, 2010, $272 billion.
Total BP spending on alternative energy in 2009? Think Progress:
Indeed, although BP ads depict green flowers and spinning windmills, BP only invested a tiny fraction of their profits into alternative energy last year. Their actual investments in alternative energies — $1.3 billion in 2009 — are dwarfed by their profits. In fact, the last two years their budgeted alternative energy investments were around seven percent compared to profits. According to Driessen of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, BP spent the same amount on this advertising over two years (the campaign was launched in 2000) as they did on hydrogen, wind, and solar energy over a six-year period (my emphasis)
Think Progress likes to compare the green spending to profit. But spending is also an offset to revenue. So let’s see, $1.3 billion / $240 billion is . . . 0.5%. One half of one percent beyond petroleum.
By the way, that WikiInvest page linked above has a couple of nice play-with charts. Here’s another, total revenue by all major oil companies.
If you think BP and ExxonMobil are doing well, check out SNP (the big China company) for the 1st and 4th quarters of 2009. Click around. Do these guys own the world, or what?
GP
