Rubbish Check
Daily Mail Money · 4 August 2026
source“BP puts £3bn US biogas business up for sale: Energy giant continues to dump green assets as oil profits surge”
R4/ 10
Selective
Rubbish Rating — 1 = base fact, 10 = pure rubbish
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In short
Rubbish Talk rates the Daily Mail's framing that BP is "dumping green assets as oil profits surge" a 4/10 because the sale of Archaea is real and BP's profits genuinely doubled, but the headline stitches two facts into a "big oil ditches green to cash in on war" narrative while burying that BP is simultaneously selling off legacy oil and gas assets (North Sea, a German refinery) as part of the same across-the-board simplification drive.
The Verdict
Selective. Every number checks out against BP's own release, but the headline's implied cause-and-effect, that surging oil profits are why BP is dumping green assets, oversimplifies a broader restructuring that is stripping out weak assets of every kind, not just renewables.
What actually happened
BP has launched a sale process for Archaea Energy, its US biogas unit, days after putting its North Sea oil and gas operations up for sale too. New CEO Meg O'Neill is driving a wider portfolio simplification that has already included the sale of the Gelsenkirchen refinery in Germany. Separately, BP reported first-half profit more than doubled amid a global oil price surge tied to Middle East conflict disruption.
Key facts
- Archaea was bought for roughly £3billion ($4.1bn) in 2022 under former CEO Bernard Looney; BP has already written down its value after it "failed to live up to expectations."
- BP's H1 profit rose to £6.6billion from £2.8billion a year earlier; revenues rose to £92billion from £71billion, per the article's cited figures.
- Independent reporting confirms Q2 underlying profit hit $5.73bn, up from $2.35bn a year earlier, and puts the Archaea sale price at roughly $4bn.
- The North Sea sale and the Gelsenkirchen refinery sale are both fossil-fuel/legacy assets, not renewables, undercutting a narrative of a purely anti-green pivot.
- Shares fell 4.9%, or 27.1p, to 525p on the results day despite the profit jump.
What to watch for
- Watch for a confirmed buyer and final sale price for Archaea; the eventual figure versus the original £3bn purchase price will show how much value BP actually destroyed on its renewables bet.
- Track whether BP's "simplification" continues to hit oil and gas assets (like the North Sea) at a similar pace to green ones, which would undercut any "profits fund a retreat from green" reading.
- Aramco's own profit surge, cited in the piece, is a useful cross-check for whether the price rally (not BP-specific strategy) is doing the heavy lifting on the "oil profits" side of the headline.
About this scoreThe R-Score is Rubbish Talk's editorial opinion on how far a headline's framing sits from what the underlying facts support. It is a judgement about presentation and emphasis, not an allegation that any outlet has acted dishonestly. Every figure we rely on is linked under Receipts so you can check it yourself.
