To investigate offshore wind development prospects in Japan, BP has formed a joint venture with Marubeni, an integrated trading and investment giant.
Both companies have decided to develop a strategic cooperation for offshore wind and maybe other decarbonization projects, such as hydrogen.
BP will join Marubeni in their plan for an offshore wind farm off the coast of Japan, obtaining a 49 percent stake in the business as part of their deal.
The companies consider this as a first step toward establishing a market-leading position in Japan’s offshore wind market. BP will also build a local offshore wind development team in Tokyo as part of the agreement.
Japan has established a goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050, with a goal of building 10GW of offshore wind power by 2030 and 30-45GW by 2040.
Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, BP’s senior vice president of gas and low-carbon energy, remarked “We are unlocking new regions and new opportunities for BP.
“Combining our international energy expertise and technical capabilities with Marubeni’s track record of wind and energy development and first-class regional relationships, we can together build important new clean energy resources for Japan and Asia.
“We want to continue to build on BP’s offshore wind portfolio – and we can’t wait to get to work in Japan with Marubeni.”
Since 1960, BP has had a presence in Japan. It now has a sizable oil and LNG trading business as well as a Castrol lubricants business with Japanese customers, which it intends to expand.
In 2021, BP and NYK Line, a Japanese shipping business, agreed to collaborate on future fuels and transportation solutions to help the hard-to-abate shipping sector decarbonize.
With projects in the United States and the United Kingdom, BP already has a net offshore wind development pipeline of more than 5GW.
It has quadrupled its renewables development pipeline to more than 24GW since 2019, and is on track to reach its 20GW renewable capacity development objective by 2025.
In Japan, Marubeni is a significant offshore wind developer. It is the principal partner in the development, permitting, and building of the 140MW Akita offshore wind farm project, which is the country’s first large-scale, commercial offshore wind project to reach financial close.
Marubeni has a total power generation capacity of around 12 GW and has developed and operated more than 2 GW of onshore and offshore wind power around the world.
The transaction is subject to merger control clearances, and once obtained, completion is likely to happen quickly.
