bp and Japan's Marubeni to pursue offshore wind in Japan

Energy firm bp and the major Japanese integrated trading and investment conglomerate, Marubeni announced on Wednesday a partnership to explore a selected offshore wind development opportunity in Japan.

The companies said that these partnerships are for offshore wind and potentially other decarbonisation projects, which includes hydrogen. 

bp will join with Marubeni in their proposal for an offshore wind project off the coast in Japan – an area of exceptional wind resource – purchasing a 49 percent stake in the proposed project, the companies said in a statement on Wednesday.

They explained that this is a first step towards building a market-leading offshore wind position in Japan. bp said it will establish a local offshore wind development team in Tokyo.

“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,” said Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, bp’s executive vice president of gas & low carbon energy.

Japan wants to be carbon neutral by 2050. The country has set a target of deploying 10GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 and 30-45GW by 2040.