But now the UK oil major has drastically scaled back the team that looks for new reserves off crude.

Company sources have told Reuters that the unit has been cut to fewer than 100 people.

That's down from a peak off more than 700 a few years ago.

The firm wouldn't comment on the report, but it's all part off a big upheaval triggered by Chief executive Bernard Loony.

The world does have a carbon budget, it is finite and it is running out fast, and we need a rapid transition to net zero.

Society has got to deliver on the Paris schools over the next decade.

He wants to cut BP's oil output by a million barrels per day, or about 40%.

At the same time, it's output off.

Renewable energy is supposed to rise 20 fold.

Loony is driving the exploration budget down to around $400 million per year.

That is less than 1/10 of what it was in 2010.

Investment is flowing into new sources of revenue Instead, last year, BP said it had bought a majority stake in finite carbon the US firm pays landowners to manage forests generating so called carbon offset credits that can be sold to polluters.

For all that, oil and gas will remain BP's main source of income until a least 2030.

Beyond that date, though, it could start to look like a very different company.