A new biofuel factory in Australia was at the forefront of BP’s efforts to go green under former boss Bernard Looney.

Indeed, BP Australia’s boss Frederic Baudry describes the country as the ‘poster child’ of the FTSE 100 giant’s highly ambitious global energy transition strategy.

So what becomes of the plant in Kwinana south of Perth following Looney’s departure last week – for failing to disclose personal relationships with staff – will say much about BP’s future under new leadership.

For 65 years, the site provided a steady source of employment, and fuel, to generations living in this small industrial offshoot in Western Australia. 

But with planes grounded and cars sitting idle in driveways during the Covid-19 pandemic, demand for fuel collapsed, further squeezing profit margins.

BP shut the plant, laying off 600 workers, and converted the site into an import terminal to ship in cheaper fuel from overseas.

Two years on, the site is on the cusp of being repurposed again to spearhead the oil major’s pivot from hydrocarbons to renewable energy. 

It has been earmarked for a new generation of fuel refinery, one which makes sustainable aviation fuel with raw materials such as used cooking oil or household waste, and renewable diesel using vegetable oils, animal fats and other biowaste products.

With construction expected to get under way next year, BP hopes it will be its first global biofuel project off the blocks, powering planes, trucks and cars.

If all goes to plan – and it’s a big if – BP reckons it will be producing hydrogen from 2026 and at a sufficient scale to begin exporting it by the end of the decade. 

With its natural bounty of sun, wind and space, Australia is seen as an ideal place to generate wind and solar power, despite its remoteness.

During Looney’s tenure, Australia moved up the pecking order, behind the US and the UK, with projects worth tens of billions of dollars in the pipeline.

Some of the projects being planned are mind-boggling in scale, and would be out of the question in smaller, more densely populated European countries. 

One of the biggest is being spearheaded by BP in the Pilbara region of North Western Australian, best known as the country’s iron ore heartlands.

In June last year BP bought a 40.5 per cent stake in the Australian Renewable Energy Hub, which envisions covering around 2500 square miles of outback, an area roughly the size of Devon, with more than 1,700 wind turbines up to 950 feet high, and 18 giant solar farms. 

And all dedicated to generating electricity to produce ‘green hydrogen’, before adding nitrogen to convert it into ammonia to make it easier to export.

The renewables push has been encouraged by Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese’s Labour government, which swept to power last year on the back of bold pledges to tackle climate change.

The firm has already received $70million in federal government funding for the hub in Kwinana.

But at an event in London earlier this year, Baudry warned the Albanese government that more government support is required to give BP the confidence to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into turning its ‘shovel ready projects’ into a reality.

But with the departure of Looney, the driving force behind the company’s green ambitions, some shareholders dismayed by BP’s focus on renewable energy, which they believe has come at their expense, have been offered a glimmer of hope.

BP has been the worst performer of all the global oil majors, with its shares rising 10 per cent since Looney became chief executive in February 2020 compared with a rise of more than 25 per cent at Shell.

David Hewitt an analyst at Liberum said the company now has the opportunity to ‘reverse the overzealous pivot to lower returning renewables’ and refocus on what BP does best.

BP has already watered down its energy transition plan to an extent, announcing earlier this year that it would aim to cut oil production by a quarter by 2030 instead of by 40 per cent.

Russ Mould from AJ Bell believes a further retreat is off the cards for now, particularly with Murray Auchincloss – Looney’s former finance chief – as interim chief executive. 

But Mould speculated that BP may temper its green ambitions if oil prices remain elevated for a long time, or if high inflation deters households and businesses from switching to more expensive, and potentially less reliable, forms of renewable energy.

Volodymyr Zelensky attended a secret roundtable in New York City with the nation’s top financiers, including private equity bosses at JPMorgan, Google and Blackstone to discuss rebuilding war-torn Ukraine.

The meeting was hosted by the nation’s largest bank, JPMorgan, on Wednesday evening, and included Google CEO Eric Schmidt, billionaire Mike Bloomberg, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman.

The former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and billionaire Barry Sternlicht were also in attendance, sources told CNN.

Hours earlier, Zelensky met with Larry Fink, CEO of the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock to discuss how to attract US private sector money for the rebuilding effort, According Fox News.  

Zelensky is scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden later this week to discuss US aid to Ukraine. This comes after Biden and the US Congress have provided more than $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022. 

Zelensky met with senior members of JP Morgan back in February, where he took part in one of the largest annual investment summits organized by the bank, attended by 200 largest corporations, investors, and financial companies.

The meeting discussed the creation of a platform for attracting private capital to rebuild Ukraine. Zelensky also focused on directions of large investment projects in Ukraine specifically in green energy, IT, and agricultural technologies.

JPMorgan has served as Zelensky’s financial adviser to attract private capital for a new investment fund to rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure destroyed in its war with Russia, sources told Fox Digital. 

The meeting comes a day after Zelensky attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. 

In his address to United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Biden pledged that the US would remain the ‘largest single country donor’ of humanitarian assistance and vowed to help ‘climate proof’ the world. 

Biden also emphasized the success of PEPFAR – the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief – as its reauthorization is at stake over conservative claims that it supports abortion abroad.

‘We saved tens of millions of lives that would otherwise be lost to preventable and treatable diseases like measles, malaria and tuberculosis,’ Biden said. 

‘HIV/AIDS infections and deaths plummeted in no small part becuase PEPFAR’s work in more than 55 countries, saving more than 25 million lives.’

The crowd included both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – dressed in his traditional military fatigues – and Russian Amb. Vaisily Nebenzya in the audience.

Biden hammered Russia’s ‘naked aggression’ and vowed to keep funding Kyiv as he again called the present moment ‘an inflection point in world history.’

He also noted that ‘for a second year in a row, this gathering dedicated to peaceful resolution of conflict is darkened by the shadow of war.’

The president called it ‘an illegal war of conquest’ and one that was ‘brought without provocation’ by Russia into Ukraine.

‘Like every nation in the world the United States wants this war to end,’ he said. ‘No nation wants this war to end more than Ukraine. And we strongly support Ukraine and its efforts to bring about a diplomatic resolution that delivers just and lasting peace.’

But he said that ‘Russia alone, Russia alone bears responsibility for this war.’

‘Russia alone has the power to end this war immediately. And it’s Russia alone that stands in the way of peace because the Russians’ price for peace is Ukraine’s capitulation, Ukraine’s territory and Ukraine’s children,’ Biden said.

‘Russia believes that the world will grow weary and will allow it to brutalize Ukraine without consequence,’ the president added.

Biden then laid out what he thought would be the cost of that weariness.

‘But I ask you this, if we abandon the core principles of the United States to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that they are protected?’ he asked.

‘If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure?’ the president added. 

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Published: 21:06 EDT, 16 September 2023 | Updated: 21:12 EDT, 16 September 2023

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Updated: 14:38 EDT, 7 August 2023

Strictly Come Dancing’s Anton Du Beke has revealed how he spent three days in hospital after he was stabbed in the stomach and the leg by his father on Boxing Day as a child while he was living at the family home in Kent.

In a frank and tearful admission on Kate Garraway’s Life Stories, Du Beke said the revelations will likely come as a shock to his friends and family as it is the first time he has spoken about the childhood incident. 

Born to a Spanish mother and Hungarian father, the Strictly judge lived on a council estate in Sevenoaks, and discovered his flair for dancing after picking his sister up from the local studio. Although his mother encouraged his new hobby, his father, Antal, ‘took a turn’ against Du Beke as alcoholism gripped him.

Du Beke, 57, told the ITV show: ‘The alcoholism and the violence…(it was) towards me, because I was a boy, a young man I suppose. 

‘… You’ve got an alcoholic father and a situation where if you’re in the house (he’s) drinking then you end up with the fights and stuff. You’d move room to get away from all of it and then he follows you in and the next thing you know the violence starts and then it came to a head one evening, I ended up in hospital for three days.’ 

Struggling to hold back tears, he said: ‘I got stabbed, I’ve never said this out loud before.’

Anton recalled how he waved down a police car as he limped to hospital after his father attacked him.

He added: ‘I remember walking out of the house to walk up to the hospital, holding my leg, and a police car drove past and I waved him down and I said, ‘He’s in there with a knife’.’

Anton’s sister Veronica Richards also appeared on the show and told how Antal was againt his son’s dreams of becoming a dancer.

She said: ‘He used to call Anton gay and he took a turn against him. My dad’s drinking affected his mood – he was mean, he wasn’t a nice person when he was drunk.

‘My dad was drinking his money down the toilet, so what Mum did was work nights in a nursing home. So she wasn’t there to ­protect us.’

Antal, who was from Hungary, was cleared by police over the knife attack and later divorced Anton’s mother, Spanish-born Ascension. Anton eventually moved out of the family home and changed his name from Anthony Beke to Anton Du Beke.

He explained: ‘I wanted a new start and a new beginning and I wanted to leave what went before behind and then move on.

‘I just wanted to be me. I started with Anton Du Beke and I went from there really.’

Antal died in 2001 and Anton chose not to attend his funeral, however the star remains close with his mother and sister.  

He said: ‘I don’t think about him. I never give him a second thought. It does not influence me at all.  I hate the thought that anything like that defines you. I hate ‘Woe is me’. My motivation to do what I did wasn’t because of that, it’s because I wanted to do it.

‘And there’s only one way to do it, which is to be the best at it.’

Elsewhere during the interview, Anton discussed his 20-year tenure on Strictly Come Dancing.

He joined the judging panel for the 2021 series and told how Len Goodman was the only person he went to for advice on the new role.

He said: ‘They asked me to judge, so I spoke to Len of course. I didn’t speak to anyone else. I feel like Len and I shared the journey of Strictly Come Dancing together. 

‘I’d known Len for 45 years. It was immediately clear what I should do in five seconds — he said to me, ‘Be yourself and say what you see’. That’s it.’ 

Despite being on the show for so long, Anton only reached the final twice, with Katie Derham in 2015 and Emma Barton in 2019 but failed to win each time.

Speaking about his track record, he said: ‘I realised within ten minutes two things. One, this isn’t about me, and two, I’m going to have to be myself because we had the ­microphones on and cameras on at all times.

‘So I never minded who I got, and if I got someone who couldn’t dance I’d just fly them in. That’s the fun.

‘But I hated getting voted off, it was absolutely mortifying, gutting and really, really felt horrible because I hated not being part of the show.’

Kate Garraway’s Life Stories airs Wednesday on ITV1 at 9pm. 

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President Biden holds moment of silence for ‘First Lady of Football’ Norma Hunt during the Chiefs’ White House visit after the Kansas City matriarch died aged 85

By Isabel Baldwin For Dailymail.Com

Published: 20:18 EDT, 5 June 2023 | Updated: 20:24 EDT, 5 June 2023

The devastated household of Levi Davis are dealing with extra irritating delays to find out what has occurred to the X Issue star as pink tape holds up Spanish cops’ seek for the lacking Brit.

Spanish officers mentioned there will probably be no port or sea searches for Levi, 25, within the close to future as a result of a choose investigating his disappearance remains to be ready for a report from coastguards.

It comes after his mom Julie Davis revealed police advised her they now consider a man noticed in difficulties within the sea by crew on a cruise liner docking in Barcelona was prone to be her son who vanished in October.

Ms Davis criticised the delay in her receiving details about the cruise ship sighting and branded Spanish police as ‘sluggish‘. 

At this time she was dealing with extra frustration after it was confirmed there may be nonetheless no information on when and whether or not an exhaustive seek for her lacking son will happen to see if a physique or different proof pointing to his whereabouts might be discovered.

A Spanish choose must authorise the search of the waters and different areas round Barcelona’s port.

In a single day, sources on the Excessive Courtroom of Justice of Catalonia confirmed: ‘The investigating choose is ready for a coastguard report informing on every little thing that is been completed.

‘There is no request by the choose for any kind of search at current. As soon as this report is acquired, the next steps will probably be thought-about.’

One other well-placed supply, explaining the investigating choose’s position within the case, added: ‘When circumstances have been judicialised as this one has, the choose decides on issues as and after they’re requested.

‘As soon as the choose receives the report and sees what work the native coastguards have completed, he’ll be capable to determine whether or not he can approve new procedures or not.’

The revelation means the continued probe into Levi’s disappearance will nearly definitely have moved no additional forwards by the weekend when he can have been lacking for six months.

CCTV footage confirmed him leaving the Outdated Irish Pub close to Barcelona’s La Rambla at round 10pm on October 29 after taking a ship from Ibiza with simply 40 euros (£35) and no change of garments. 

Detectives have advised Levi’s household they’ve now found his cellphone sign was final picked up within the early hours of October 30 by a phone mast on the far finish of the port closest to the ocean entrance.

It had beforehand been thought his cell phone, which hasn’t been used since his disappearance, was final pinged near the town’s foremost Sants railway station.

Julie mentioned the regional Mossos d’Esquadra police had additionally advised her they believed her son was prone to be the person 4 members of cruise liner MSC Bellissima, which docked in Barcelona across the similar time, had seen within the sea carrying the identical light-coloured prime as Levi and shouting for assist in English.

A lifebuoy was thrown to him and coastguards in Barcelona mobilised their helicopter referred to as Helimer 203 and a vessel referred to as Salvamar Mintaka.

A ship operated by firefighters was additionally despatched to the scene together with police and Purple Cross vessels.

The search operation is alleged to have lasted a complete day however was referred to as off after it was confirmed no-one was lacking from the cruise liner and police confirmed no-one had been reported lacking in port waters or within the sea off Barcelona.

Levi’s disappearance had not been reported to police on the time and his passport was not discovered close to a cargo cargo on the port till days later.

Catalan police launched a search off their very own backs on November 8 earlier than receiving an official lacking individuals’ report from an Ibiza-based buddy of Levi’s on November 12.

Police investigators admitted they have been treating his disappearance as ‘disturbing’ in February as they confirmed the case had been positioned within the arms of a specialist crime unit which is working with the investigating choose.

A spokesman for the Mossos d’Esquadra confirmed on the time there had been a big change in the best way the probe was being carried out as he provided a extra detailed perception into why the shift had taken place.

He mentioned: ‘This case was initially investigated by a gaggle of officers on the police station the disappearance was first reported to in Barcelona.

‘That is the overall process in circumstances the place there aren’t any apparent or very evident indicators a disappearance is linked to a criminal offense.

‘Now this case is being led by a specialist investigative unit based mostly in Barcelona.

‘With the knowledge at our disposal, it would not seem that this particular person has gone lacking voluntarily and would not wish to be discovered.

‘We’re coping with an grownup male whose disappearance would not have a logical clarification and which we’re due to this fact treating as disturbing.

‘It would not essentially imply he is been the sufferer of a criminal offense and it is necessary to make clear that the group that is now investigating this particular person’s disappearance will not be a homicide squad or murder unit as a result of that may imply there’s a chance or certainty he’s useless.

‘What it’s is a unit which has been tasked with this case following the preliminary investigation by officers on the station the place this particular person was reported lacking.

‘It is a larger degree of investigation now and a extra specialist investigation.’

The police revelation adopted claims Levi, whose twenty fifth birthday was final month, was £100,000 in debt to Somali criminals and Levi mentioned he had been blackmailed over a intercourse tape and his life was at risk in a chilling final video he recorded shortly earlier than vanishing.

His mom questioned earlier this week why the details about the cruise ship workers was solely popping out months later.

Voicing her exasperation on the means the search was being carried out in Spain, Ms Davis added: ‘I do not know what to consider anymore.

‘I do know the Spanish police might be sluggish however I am unable to make head nor tail of it.

‘There’s numerous solutions to questions that I have to know.

‘It is disheartening if you ask police questions and get very restricted suggestions.’

Levi performed premiership rugby union for Bathtub between 2017 and 2020, when he joined Ealing Trailfinders. A yr later he signed for Worthing Raiders.

The rugby player-turned-reality star carried out on X Issue: Superstar in 2019 with fellow rugby gamers Ben Foden and Thom Evans as a part of the group Strive Star. In 2020 he appeared on E4 relationship collection Celebs Go Digital Relationship and have become the primary rugby union participant to come back out as bisexual.