BP has put its $4bn (€3.5 billion) US biogas business up for sale as new chief executive Meg O’Neill reshapes the oil major, which on Tuesday posted its highest quarterly profit since 2022.
Archaea, which captures methane from landfill sites, is the largest renewable gas producer in the US. It was one of the biggest investments that BP made in the era when it was trying to pivot to become a green energy giant.
The business was bought under Irishman Bernard Looney, who looked to pivot BP towards renewable energy during his tenure.
But it has struggled and BP wrote down its value significantly at the end of last year, as part of a $4.2 billion impairment of its biogas and solar arms. The oil major took a further $1.1 billion impairment on its green energy assets in the latest quarter.
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“Some assets may have been important to BP in the past. That does not necessarily mean they are the right assets for BP’s future,” said O’Neill, who started as chief in April, adding that BP was now focused on businesses that improved cash flow and returns and would take “action on those that don’t”.
She made the announcement as BP reported a 144 per cent rise in second-quarter adjusted profits to $5.7 billion, ahead of an analyst prediction of $5.1 billion, on the back of higher oil, gas and refined fuel prices during the Iran conflict.
It was the highest quarterly profit since 2022, when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine caused an energy crisis in Europe as gas prices quadrupled.
O’Neill has quickly started reshaping BP’s business since she joined from Australian company Woodside.
Last week, the UK oil major announced the sale of its business in the UK North Sea. BP has also closed its venture capital arm, sold its Austrian fuel station business and its stake in the Bay du Nord deepwater project in Canada.
O’Neill has made cutting BP’s huge debt pile and strengthening the company’s balance sheet her priority, and she said that the group’s various financial obligations, which include debt, hybrid bonds and its reparation payments for the Deepwater Horizon disaster, had declined significantly.
“They are down $7 billion from the previous quarter,” she said. BP said it would bring net debt below $18 billion by the end of December, hitting the goal a year earlier than expected.
However, the company admitted it was “disappointed” with its cost-reduction programme despite cutting almost 7,000 jobs last year and 4,000 contractor roles.
Earlier, Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company by production, said it had made $33.4 billion of adjusted profit in the second quarter, a 33 per cent year-on-year rise, after higher prices for its crude and refined fuels. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026
