In recent years, BP has spent a lot of money trying to convince the world it had moved ‘Beyond Petroleum’. But having junked its solar and wind energy programmes, and been responsible for one of the largest oil spills in history, the only thing left that’s green about this huge multinational corporation is its famous logo. With its entrance into the tar sands, it’s safe to say that Beyond Petroleum has gone Back to Petroleum…
BP has recently dived into its first big Tar Sands extraction venture. The Sunrise Project, a partnership with Husky Energy, will pump out a planet-destroying 3 billion barrels of oil, whilst polluting the local environment and creating serious health and safety concerns for local First Nations communities.
Despite opposition from environmental groups, First Nations communities, climate activists, pension groups and concerned UK citizens they have decided to go ahead with the Sunrise Project. However, no oil will be extracted until at least 2014, so there is still time to stop the project from going ahead.
The Sunrise Project is set to produce 200,000 barrels per day. Sunrise will use so-called SAG-D (Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage), where water is superheated into steam with vast amounts of natural gas, then injected deep into the earth to melt the oil from the sand and clay.
Learn more about BP’s involvement in the tar sands, its shambolic clean-up attempt of the Gulf of Mexico, and its business plan modelled on the end of the world.
In 2012, BP is tried to distract attention from its dirty deeds by sponsoring the London 2012 Olympics. Find out more here.
Recent Action
- We co-founded the Reclaim Shakespeare Company, a troupe of anarcho-thespians who jump up on stage before BP-sponsored Shakespeare performances to perform their own Bard-inspired pieces about the perils of taking money from BP.
- We teamed up with campaigners on Dow and Rio Tinto to launch Greenwash Gold 2012, an online campaign to vote for the worst Olympic sponsor
- For the third year in a row, we attended BP’s 2012 AGM, bringing representatives from the Gulf Coast and tar sands affected communities to challenge the Board directly. Read all about the uncomfortable questions we asked BP and the Board’s inadequate responses.
- We co-ordinated an open letter to the Olympics organisers, raising a wide range of concerns about BP’s Olympic sponsorship. Only the Commission for a Sustainable London agreed to meet with us.
- We have set up a tongue-in-cheek ‘BP London 2012 Greenwash’ Facebook page and Twitter feed where you can get the latest news and views.
- We are working with PLATFORM, Liberate Tate, London Rising Tide and Art Not Oil to target BP for its ongoing sponsorship of the arts.
- We joined in Rev Billy’s Exorcism of BP from the Tate Modern and the ‘guerilla ballet’ BP White Swan.
- BP was one of the main targets of our 2011 Tar Sands Tour, where we caused a lot of excitement by turning up at their AGM.