Meanwhile BP Pumps Billions into Oil Sands

Oh the cruel irony. As delegates in Bali are joined by low lying Pacific Islanders alarmed at the rate that homes are submerging under water, its business as usual for the oil industry. Their message to Bali is: two-fingers to you.

Yesterday BP teamed up with the Canadian oil group Husky Energy in a multibillion-dollar deal that will give the UK group a “strategic presence” in oil sands for the first time. BP is following Shell in investing heavily in the region.

BP will take a half share in Husky’s Sunrise oil sands field in Alberta with the Canadian group taking a 50% stake in BP’s Toledo refinery in Ohio. The refinery will be upgraded to cope with the extra heavy crude output from the Canadian field. The two companies are to invest over $5.5bn.

BP’s new chief executive, Tony Hayward, said yesterday: “Toledo and Sunrise are excellent assets. BP’s move into oil sands is an opportunity to build a strategic, material position and the huge potential of Sunrise is the ideal entry point for BP into Canadian oil sands.”

So its sunrise for BP and sunset for the Pacific Islanders