BP plc (Formerly British Petroleum plc ) is the third largest global energy company and the 4th largest company in the world. As a multinational oil company ("oil major") BP is the UK's largest corporation, with its headquarters in St James's, City of Westminster, London. The company is among the largest private sector energy corporations in the world, and one of the six "supermajors" (vertically integrated private sector oil exploration, natural gas, and petroleum product marketing companies). The Company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
History
Further information: Anglo-Iranian Oil CompanyActivity in 1909–1979
In May 1901, William Knox D'Arcy was granted a concession by the Shah of Iran to search for oil which he discovered in May 1908. This was the first commercially significant find in the Middle East. On 14 April 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was incorporated to exploit this.In 1923, the company secretly gave £5,000 -- the equivalent of perhaps millions in today's money -- to future Prime Minister Winston Churchill to lobby the British government to allow them to monopolise Persian oil resources. In 1935, it became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).
After World War II, AIOC and the Iranian government initially resisted nationalist pressure to revise AIOC's concession terms still further in Iran's favour. But in March 1951, the pro-western Prime Minister Ali Razmara was assassinated. The Majlis of Iran (parliament) elected a nationalist, Mohammed Mossadeq, as prime minister. In April, the Majlis nationalized the oil industry by unanimous vote. The National Iranian Oil Company was formed as a result, displacing the AIOC. The AIOC withdrew its management from Iran, and organized an effective boycott of Iranian oil. The British government - which owned the AIOC - contested the nationalization at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, but its complaint was dismissed.
By spring of 1953, incoming U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to organize a coup against the Mossadeq government. On 19 August 1953, Mossadeq was forced from office by the CIA conspiracy, involving the Shah and the Iranian military, and known by its codename, Operation Ajax.
Mossadeq was replaced by pro-Western general Fazlollah Zahedi, and the Shah, who had left the country briefly to await the outcome of the coup, returned to Iran. He abolished the democratic Constitution and assumed autocratic powers.
After the coup, the NIOC became an international consortium, and AIOC resumed operations in Iran as a member of it. The consortium agreed to share profits on a 50–50 basis with Iran, "but not to open its books to Iranian auditors or to allow Iranians onto its board of directors." AIOC, as a part of the Anglo-American coup d'état deal, was not allowed to monopolize Iranian oil as before. It was limited to a 40% share in a new international consortium. For the rest, 40% went to the five major American companies and 20% went to Royal Dutch Shell and Compagnie Française des Pétroles, now Total S.A..
The AIOC became the British Petroleum Company in 1954. BP continued to operate in Iran until the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The new regime of Ayatollah Khomeini confiscated all of BP's assets in Iran without compensation, finally closing BP's 70-year presence in Iran.
In 1959 the company expanded beyond the Middle East to Alaska and in 1965 it was the first company to strike oil in the North Sea.
In 1978 BP acquired a controlling interest in Standard Oil of Ohio or Sohio, a breakoff of the former Standard Oil that had been broken up after anti-trust litigation.
1980s and 1990s
Sir Peter Walters was BP's chairman from 1981 to 1990. This was the era of the Thatcher government's privatisation strategy. The British government sold its entire holding in BP in several tranches between 1979 and 1987. The sale process was marked by a bad attempt by the Kuwait Investment Office, the investment arm of the Kuwait government, to acquire control of BP. This was ultimately blocked by the strong opposition of the British government. In 1987, British Petroleum negotiated the acquisition of Britoil and the remaining publicly traded shares of Standard Oil of Ohio.
Walters was replaced by Robert Horton in 1989. Horton carried out a major corporate downsizing exercise removing various tiers of management within the BP Head Office.
Lord Browne of Madingley, who had been on the board as managing director since 1991, was appointed group chief executive in 1995. Browne was responsible for three major acquisitions; Amoco, ARCO and Burmah-Castrol (see below).
Recent years
British Petroleum merged with Amoco (formerly Standard Oil of Indiana) in December 1998, becoming BPAmoco until 2000 when it was renamed BP and adopted the tagline "Beyond Petroleum," which remains in use today. It states that BP was never meant to be an abbreviation of its tagline. Most Amoco gas stations in the United States have changed the look and name to the BP brand. In many states, however, BP is selling Amoco branded gasoline, as it was rated the #1 petroleum brand by consumers 16 years in a row (the name of the service station itself is still BP) and Amoco has one of the highest brand loyalty for gasoline in the US with only Chevron and Shell having such high rates as BP/Amoco. In May 2008, however, the Amoco name was mostly phased out in favor of "BP Gasoline with Invigorate", promoting BP's new additive. The highest grade of BP gasoline available in the United States is still called Amoco Ultimate, however. In 2000, British Petroleum acquired Arco (Atlantic Richfield Co.) and Burmah Castrol plc.
In April 2004, BP decided to move most of its petrochemical businesses into a separate entity called Innovene within the BP Group. Their intention was to sell the new company possibly via an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the US, and in fact they filed their IPO plans for Innovene with the New York Stock Exchange on 12 September 2005. However, on 7 October 2005, BP announced that they had agreed to sell Innovene to INEOS, a privately held UK chemical company for the sum of $9 billion, thereby scrapping their plans for the IPO.
On 23 March 2005, an explosion occurred at BP's Texas City Refinery in Texas City, Texas. It is the third largest refinery in the United States and one of the largest in the world, processing 433,000 barrels (68,800 m 3 ) of crude oil per day and accounting for 3% of that nation's gasoline supply. Over 100 were injured, and 15 were confirmed dead, including employees of the Fluor Corporation as well as BP. BP has since accepted that its mismanagement contributed to the accident. Level indicators failed, leading to overfilling of a heater, and light hydrocarbons spread throughout the area. An unidentified ignition source set off the explosion.
In 2005, BP announced it would be leaving the Colorado market. Many locations were rebranded as Conoco.
According to some private BP-branded gasoline center operators in the Metro Atlanta area, BP plans to leave the Southern market in the next few years. All corporate-owned BP stations, typically known as "BP Connect" will be sold to local jobbers.
In March 2006, a leak in one of BP's pipelines on the North Slope of Alaska caused a spill of oil onto the tundra, leading BP to commit to replace over 16 miles (26 km) of federally regulated Oil Transit Lines (OTLs). As of the end of 2007, one half of the pipeline had been replaced and all 16 miles (26 km) of pipeline are now tested regularly.
BP has recently looked to grow its oil exploration activities in frontier areas like the former Soviet Union for its future reserves. In Russia, BP owns 50% of TNK-BP with the other half owned by three Russian billionaires. TNK-BP accounts for a fifth of BP's global reserves, a quarter of BP's production, and nearly a tenth of its global profits.
On July 19, 2006, BP announced that it would close the last 12 out of 57 oil wells in Alaska, mostly in Prudhoe Bay, that had been leaking. The wells were leaking insulating agent called Arctic pack, consisting of crude oil and diesel fuel, between the wells and ice.
On 12 January 2007, it was announced that Lord Browne would retire at the end of July 2007. The new Chief Executive will be the current head of exploration and production, Tony Hayward. It had been expected that Lord Browne would retire in February 2008 when he reached the age of 60, the standard retirement age at BP. Browne resigned abruptly from BP on 1 May 2007, following the lifting of a legal injunction preventing Associated Newspapers from publishing details about his private life. Hayward succeeded Browne with immediate effect.
Governance
The Board Members are:
- Peter Sutherland, KCMG – Chairman of BP, board of Goldman Sachs
- Sir Ian Prosser – Non-executive director
- Byron Grote – Chief Financial Officer
- Andy Inglis – Chief executive, Exploration and Production
- Antony B
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