Extinction Rebellion are protesting the Wood Group’s Aberdeen and Staines offices after Wood Group significantly reduced it’s renewables operations and expanded it’s fossil fuel operations weeks after receiving a £430m government-backed “green transition loan” in 2021.
… After receiving the £430m loan, Wood grew its upstream oil and gas business by 17% so that it accounted for more than $3bn (£2.4bn) in revenue in 2022, up from $2.6bn in 2021, according to an analysis of the company’s financial results by the Guardian and the investigative journalism organisation Point Source.
Over the same period the company reduced the size of its renewable, hydrogen, and carbon capture business units by 35% so that they only accounted for revenues of $222.8m in 2022, down from $344.6m in 2021.
The five-year loan, which was the first of its kind and was designed to help Wood transition away from fossil fuels, was announced in August 2021 by Liz Truss when she was international trade secretary.
At the time, Truss said the engineering company had “already made great strides in repositioning its business for a low-carbon future”.
After being awarded the loan, Wood announced a string of at least 20 major contract awards for work on oil, gas and petrochemical infrastructure.
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