A glorious headline: “BP to slash spending on net zero ventures as it focuses on oil and gas again.”

The company formerly known as British Petroleum is going to focus on petroleum again. Great news.

The first sentence of the Associated Press article: “British energy company BP confirmed Wednesday that it would slash spending on green ventures and increase its oil and gas production, a change in direction that it hopes will bolster its flagging share price but has been met with incredulity from climate action campaigners.”

The company’s CEO said, “This is a reset BP, with an unwavering focus on growing long-term shareholder value.”

Imagine that: shareholder value! The corporation is going to be run for the benefit of the people who own it rather than for far-left activists who don’t.

The CEO also “told investors after the release of the update that the company’s faith in the green energy transition was ‘misplaced’ and that the company went ‘too far, too fast’ in recent years. Demand for oil and gas, he added, will be ‘needed for decades to come.'”

This was always obvious, contrary to activists’ refrain of “peak oil.” Yet for years, when money was basically free because of ultralow interest rates, oil companies could play with the idea that it wasn’t obvious and burn money on net-zero schemes outside their expertise. Not anymore.

This shift from BP was in the making for a while. Andrew Stuttaford was writing about it over a year ago. The CEO who led the net-zero charge — Bernard Looney, who was also on the board of Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft until the Ukraine invasion — was thrown overboard in 2023.

Oil companies should make oil. If they don’t think that’s a good business anymore, they should wind down and return their capital to shareholders who can invest it elsewhere, including in renewable energy companies if they so choose. Ideologically driven corporate remakes are a terrible waste of time and money. Now BP will need to make up lost ground.