BP seems to be moving “beyond petroleum” again, but not because chief executive Bob Dudley has an inspired vision this time so much as a pragmatic response to a changing world.

Dudley said on a conference call with analysts from JP Morgan Chase that “there are going to be (oil) projects that we don't do, things that we might have done in the past”.

There were even hints that expensive and carbon-intensive assets may be sold off as gas interests and low-carbon technology are embraced further.

“We are certain we’ve got a path, it may not be linear, to being consistent with Paris (climate agreement) goals,” Dudley added.

It was a former boss, John Browne, who first announced that BP would go beyond petroleum more than 20 years ago.

He seemed determined to tackle the carbon emissions problem head on. But that strategy did not survive his exit and the handover to Tony Hayward, who promptly shut the innovative alternative energy division and returned BP to core oil and gas interests.

Now Hayward’s own successor Dudley is once again investing in low-carbon assets and keen to boast that the company is championing clean technology.

However, Dudley is essentially a canny oilman trying to negotiate not just public demands to be greener but also those of his own investors.

At a May annual general meeting shareholders voted to force BP to explain how it is aligning its operations with the 2015 Paris climate change agreement by issuing a report on the subject.

Equally Dudley himself is driven by a pragmatic response to the increasing take-up of electric vehicles over petrol-driven cars, tighter estimates on peak oil demand arriving sooner rather than later but also the recent low price of oil.

The new mantra at BP is “advantaged barrels” that are economic to produce, low-risk to bring to market and lower carbon from emission standpoint.

But deals such as the planned sale of its Alaska business — once one of the key drivers of the UK group’s profits — are driven more by cash than carbon.

Prudhoe Bay is seen as a “mature”asset, meaning its production is much lower than it used to be and it is relatively expensive to run.

Hilcorp Energy, an expert in squeezing value out of old wells, has agreed to pay $5.6 billion for the assets which will help with the $10 billion worth of asset sales promised when BP bought BHP’s US shale business for $10.5 billion.

Oil companies such as BP are not constrained by opportunities, they are constrained by cash and an expectation of growing carbon regulation.

This clearly clashes with the hopes of one of the industry’s few real political cheerleaders, Donald Trump. The US president’s plans to dilute methane gas emission regulations have been met with some opposition rather than cheers from the oil majors.

Equally Trump’s decision to open up the entire coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska has had a mixed reaction.

The oil majors are under pressure from the public and investors to clean up their act, but will it stop smaller independents or state-run companies from China or elsewhere cashing in on cheap if polluting assets?

That issue may need to be scene two of this drama. For the moment it is scene one, with the oil majors looking beyond petroleum.