BP

For more information on BP PLC, visit Britannica.com.

View more Business & Finance videos

Type: Public
On the web: http://www.bp.com
Employees: 79,700
Employee growth: (0.7%)

BP is also BO (Big Oil). It is the world's third-largest integrated oil concern, behind Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell. BP explores for oil and gas in 30 countries and has proved reserves of 18.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent. BP is the largest oil and gas producer in the US and also a top refiner, with stakes in 16 refineries, processing 4 million barrels of crude oil per day. BP markets its products in more than 80 countries and operates 22,400 gas stations worldwide. The company's reputation took a major hit in 2010 when one of its deepwater rigs, working less than 50 miles south of Louisiana, exploded and killed 11 workers. Millions of gallons of crude gushed into the Gulf of Mexico for months.

Key numbers for fiscal year ending December, 2010:
Sales: $302,545.0M
One year growth: 24.0%
Net income: ($3,719.0)M

Officers:
Chairman: Carl-Henric Svanberg
Group Chief Executive and Director: Robert W. (Bob) Dudley
CFO and Director: Byron E. Grote

Competitors:
Chevron
Exxon Mobil
Royal Dutch Shell

Incorporated: 1998 as BP Amoco PLC
NAIC:32411 Petroleum Refineries; 211111 Crude Petroleum and
SIC: 2911 Petroleum Refining; 1311 Crude Petroleum & Natural Gas; 1321 Natural Gas Liquids; 4922 Natural Gas Transmission; 4612 Crude Petroleum Pipelines; 4613 Refined Petroleum Pipelines; 2992 Lubricating Oils & Greases

Formed by the 1998 merger of British Petroleum Company and Amoco Corporation, BP p.l.c. is the third largest oil company in the world. The company is integrated, with operations in three main segments. The first, exploration and production, operates in 29 countries and produces 1.93 million barrels of crude oil and 7.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. BP's second segment consists of "downstream" businesses such as refining, marketing, supply, and transportation. In this segment, the company operates 23 oil refineries, with total daily throughput of 3.2 million barrels, and 29,000 service stations around the world. BP's third major segment is the production of petrochemicals--substances obtained from petroleum. BP's petrochemicals are used in a wide range of applications, including packaging, fuel additives, synthetic rubber, detergents, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. The company is the world's largest maker of purified terephthalic acid, a substance used to manufacture polyester and fibers and resins used in bottles and containers. The company also has growing operations in solar power.

BP originated in the activities of William Knox D'Arcy, an adventurer who had made a fortune in Australian mining. In 1901 D'Arcy secured a concession from the Grand Vizier of Persia (now known as Iran) to explore for petroleum throughout most of his empire. The search for oil proved extremely costly and difficult, since Persia was devoid of infrastructure and politically unstable. Within a few years D'Arcy was in need of capital. Eventually, after intercession by members of the British Admiralty, the Burmah Oil Company joined D'Arcy in a Concessionary Oil Syndicate in 1905 and supplied further funds in return for operational control. In May 1908 oil was discovered in the southwest of Persia at Masjid-i-Suleiman, the first oil discovery in the Middle East. The following April the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was formed, with the Burmah Oil Company holding most of the shares.

The dominant figure in the early years of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was Charles Greenway. Greenway began his career in the firm of managing agents who handled the marketing of Burmah Oil's products in India. Invited by Burmah Oil to help in the formation of Anglo-Persian Oil, he became a founding director, was appointed managing director in 1910, and took the position of chairman in 1914. The first few years of the company's existence were extremely difficult, and it survived as an independent entity in large part through Greenway's skill. Although Anglo-Persian Oil had located a prolific oil field, it encountered major problems in refining the crude oil. The company also lacked a tanker fleet and a distribution network to sell its products.

For a time Anglo-Persian Oil risked being absorbed by one of the larger oil companies, such as the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, with whom it signed a ten-year marketing agreement in 1912. But in 1914 Greenway preserved the independence of Anglo-Persian Oil by a unique agreement with the British government. Under the terms of this agreement, negotiated with Winston Churchill, then first lord of the Admiralty, Greenway signed a long-term contract with the British Admiralty for the supply of fuel oil, which the Royal Navy wished to use as a replacement for coal.

At the same time, in an unusual departure from the United Kingdom's laissez-faire traditions, the British government invested £2 million in Anglo-Persian Oil, receiving in return a majority shareholding that it would retain for many years. The transaction provided the company with funds for further investment in refining equipment and an initial investment in transport and marketing in fulfillment of Greenway's ambition to create an independent, integrated oil business. In return for its investment, the British government was allowed to appoint two directors to the company's board with powers of veto, which could not, however, be exercised over commercial affairs. In fact, the government directors never used their veto throughout the period of state shareholding in the company. On paper Anglo-Persian Oil was state controlled until the 1980s; in practice it functioned as a purely commercial company.

World War I created considerable opportunities for the fledgling enterprise. Although within Persia the authority of the shah had almost disintegrated, and in 1915 Anglo-Persian Oil's pipeline to the coast was cut by dissident tribesmen and German troops, demand for oil products was soaring. Between 1912 and 1918 there was a tenfold increase in oil production in Iran. The war also created opportunities for Greenway to further his ambition of establishing an integrated oil business. In 1915 Greenway founded a wholly owned oil tanker subsidiary, and within five years Anglo-Persian Oil had more than 30 oil tankers. In 1917, in his biggest coup, Greenway acquired British Petroleum Company, the British marketing subsidiary of the European Petroleum Union. The European Petroleum Union, a Continental alliance with significant Deutsche Bank participation, had been expropriated by the British government as an enemy property. In 1917 Greenway also decided to establish a refinery at Swansea, Wales, with improved refining technology that could produce petroleum products for British and European markets.

World War I, coupled with Greenway's skill, led to Anglo Persian Oil's emergence by the late 1920s as one of the world's largest oil companies, matching Royal Dutch/Shell and Standard Oil of New Jersey in stature. During the 1920s the company made a major expansion in marketing, establishing subsidiaries in many European countries and, after the expiration of the agreement with Shell in 1922, in Africa and Asia. New refineries were established in Scotland and France, and a research laboratory erected in Sunbury, Great Britain, in 1917 greatly expanded the company's activities. In the early 1920s there were some criticisms of the management of Anglo-Persian Oil within the British government and some suggestions that the state shareholding be privatized, but in November 1924 a decision was made to retain the government's equity stake.

Greenway's successor was John Cadman, a former mining engineer who had been a professor of mining at Birmingham University before World War I and who had become a major figure in official British oil policy during the war. In 1923 he became a managing director of Anglo-Persian Oil, and in 1927, chairman. He introduced major administrative reforms and, in the words of business historian Alfred Chandler, as quoted in Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism, "was one of the few effective British organizational builders." Cadman was successful in overcoming the excessive departmentalism and lack of coordination that had formerly characterized the company. In 1928, he also joined forces with other leading oil companies in a clandestine price-fixing agreement among the world's largest oil companies.

In the 1930s one of Cadman's greatest challenges came from the growth of Persian nationalism. Previously, in 1921, the old dynasty of shahs had been overthrown by an army colonel, Reza Khan, who made himself shah in 1925. Reza Khan was determined to reverse the foreign political and economic domination of his country. Anglo-Persian Oil had a symbolic role as a bastion of British imperialism, and, following growing resentment of declining royalty payments from the company due to its falling profits during the Great Depression, the government of Persia canceled its concession in November 1932. The dispute eventually went to the League of Nations, and in 1933 Persia signed a new 60-year concession agreement with Anglo-Persian Oil that reduced the area of the concession to about a quarter of the original and introduced a new tonnage basis of assessment for royalty payments. Anglo-Persian Oil had the formidable backing of the British government, and Persia gained little out of the dispute.

The oil company, which was renamed Anglo-Iranian Oil in 1935--the year Persia became Iran--became a renewed target of nationalist discontent after World War II. The Iranians complained that their dividends were too small, and the signing of 50-50 profit-sharing agreements between governments and oil companies elsewhere--in Venezuela in 1948 and Saudi Arabia in 1950--fueled criticism of Anglo-Iranian Oil within Iran. Extensive negotiations ensued between the company and the Iranian government. Anglo-Iranian Oil eventually offered substantial concessions, but they came too late and were repudiated by the nationalist government of Muhammad Mussadegh.

On May 1, 1951, the Iranian oil industry was formally nationalized. Several years of complex negotiations followed, and eventually, a 1953 coup--in which the British government and the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were implicated--resulted in the overthrow of Mussadegh. After his removal from power, an agreement was reached that allowed the return to Iran of Anglo-Iranian Oil--renamed the British Petroleum Company in 1954--but not on such favorable terms as the company had secured after the early 1930s dispute. Under the accord, which was reached in August 1954, British Petroleum held a 40 percent interest in a newly created consortium of Western oil companies, formed to undertake oil exploration, production, and refining in Iran.

The events of 1951-54 had encouraged BP to diversify away from its overdependence on a single source of crude oil. The Iranian nationalization deprived the company of two-thirds of its production. The company responded by increasing output in Iraq and Kuwait and by building new refineries in Europe, Australia, and Aden (now part of Yemen). Oil exploration activities were launched in the Arabian Gulf, Canada, Europe, north Africa, east Africa, and Australia. Meanwhile, BP, which had moved first into petrochemicals in the late 1940s, became the second largest chemicals company in the United Kingdom in 1967.

The company's future was secured at the end of the 1960s by major oil discoveries in Alaska and the North Sea. In 1965 BP found gas in British waters of the North Sea. In October 1970 it discovered the Forties field, the first major commercial oil find in British waters. Throughout the 1960s BP also had been looking for oil in Alaska, and in 1969 this effort was rewarded by a major discovery at Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope. In the previous year BP had acquired the U.S. East Coast refining and marketing operations from Atlantic Richfield Company, and the stage was now set for a surge of expansion in the United States. Through its large share in Prudhoe Bay, BP owned more than 50 percent of the biggest oil field in the United States, and it needed outlets for this oil.

The solution was a 1969 agreement with the Standard Oil Company of Ohio (SOHIO), the market leader in Ohio and several neighboring states. Under the agreement, SOHIO took over BP's Prudhoe Bay leases as well as the downstream facilities acquired from Atlantic Richfield. In return, BP acquired 25 percent of SOHIO's equity. In 1970 BP and SOHIO engaged in a seven-year struggle to develop the Prudhoe Bay oil field and construct the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline system, which was finally completed in 1977. By the following year BP had taken a majority holding in SOHIO. Later, in 1987, BP would acquire SOHIO outright and merge it with BP's other interests in the United States to form a new company: BP America.

The oil price shocks and the transformation of the balance of power between oil companies and host governments that occurred in the 1970s caused many problems for BP, as for other Western oil companies. BP lost most of its direct access to crude oil supplies produced in countries that belonged to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The company's oil assets were nationalized in Libya in 1971 and Nigeria in 1979. BP and Shell clashed with the British government in 1973 over the allocation of scarce oil supplies. BP's chairman, Sir Eric Drake, refused to give priority to supplying the United Kingdom, despite forceful reminders from Prime Minister Edward Heath that the government owned half of the company.

Problems in the oil industry prompted BP to diversify away from its traditional role as an integrated oil company heavily dependent on Middle Eastern oil production. Beginning in the mid-1970s, BP built up a large coal business, especially in the United States, Australia, and South Africa. BP's chemical interests also expanded during this period, especially after 1978, when it acquired major European assets from Union Carbide and Monsanto. Also in the mid-1970s, BP became active in mineral mining, acquiring Selection Trust, a mining finance house based in Great Britain, in what was then the London stock market's largest ever takeover bid.

CEO Sir Peter Walters, who took BP's helm in 1981, guided a five-year acquisitions binge costing approximately £10 billion. It included the purchase of the Purina Mills animal feed company in 1986 as well as the purchase of the remaining shares in SOHIO. In 1981 SOHIO acquired Keiecott, the largest U.S. copper producer.

Seen retrospectively, this diversification strategy was not always a wise one. A major world recession after 1979 led to considerable overcapacity, forcing BP to close down or sell off parts of its chemicals business in the early 1980s. Late in the decade, the energy conglomerate sold off its coal and minerals interests in the United States, Canada, Indonesia, Australia, and South Africa, netting £428 million in the process. BP started to consolidate its upstream business through divestment in the late 1980s. Another sale of selected worldwide oil and gas interests and assets brought in $1.3 billion. In 1990 and 1991 sales of exploration interests and assets in New Zealand, France, The Netherlands, and from the BP Exploration division in particular totaled £830 million.

One notably successful acquisition was Britoil, a company established by the British government in the 1970s to participate in North Sea oil exploration. Britoil had become one of the largest independent oil exploration and production companies, and in acquiring it, BP almost doubled its exploration acreage in the North Sea.

The late 1980s saw considerable changes at BP. In October 1987 the government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sold its remaining shares in the company as part of a privatization program. The timing of the share issue was particularly unfortunate, as the world's stock markets collapsed between the opening and closing of the offer. One result of the sale was that by March 1988 the Kuwait Investment Office had built up a 21.6 percent stake in the company; government regulatory authorities subsequently reported that this share was reduced to less than 10 percent.

In the early 1990s British Petroleum sought to consolidate its activities to focus on its traditional areas of strength in "upstream" areas--oil and gas exploration, field development, production, pipeline transportation, and gas marketing--and "downstream" areas--oil supply trading, refining, and marketing--as well as in chemicals manufacturing. As a result of its corporate shuffling, BP now focused on its three core businesses: oil exploration and production, oil refining and marketing, and chemicals.

In 1990 BP announced Project 1990, a fundamental change of its corporate structure. The primary aims were to reduce organizational complexity, reshape the central organization and reduce its cost, and reposition BP for the 1990s. Project 1990 was the brainchild of BP's chairman, Robert Horton. Horton earned a reputation for saving money and rose to prominence at BP by cutting costs first at the company's tanker division, then progressing to BP's chemicals subsidiary. Eventually becoming chairman and chief executive officer of BP Oil in 1990, he set out to cut $750 million from BP's annual bottom line by revamping the corporate culture.

At the heart of the scheme was a conviction that BP had become overly bureaucratic and that strategic flexibility was handicapped as a result. In 1990, Horton said, "What I'm trying to do is simply, refocus, and make it clear we don't need to have hierarchies. We don't need to have baronial head office departments. This is a fundamentally different way of looking at the way you run the center of the corporation." Under Project 1990, nearly 90 percent of corporate center committees were abolished, with individuals taking responsibility instead. Hierarchically structured departments were to be replaced by small flexible teams with more open and less formal lines of communication.

Unfortunately, Project 1990 quickly came to represent wholesale job cuts and low morale. Between 1990 and 1992, more than 19,000 positions--more than 16 percent of the total workforce--were cut. The intended result of the job cuts was to shorten the lines of command and promote individual responsibility, but workloads were not redistributed in the process. Project 1990 earned a poor reputation among employees, because some of the most basic measures to promote good communication and efficiency were eschewed for job elimination. Horton also insisted on maintaining BP's dividend--despite cuts in other vital areas.

As a result of Project 1990's shortcomings, many employees lost faith in it, according to a 1991 internal survey. Horton's personal abrasiveness and tendency to dictate, rather than cultivate, change earned him an unflattering nickname: "The Hatchet." He was forced to resign on June 25, 1992, after BP sustained its first ever quarterly losses. Sales had slid from $66.4 billion in 1990 to $51.9 billion in 1992, and profits declined from $3.2 billion to an annual loss of £458 million ($811 million).

Horton's role was split between Lord Ashburton, the nonexecutive director who had led the mutiny, and Sir David Simon, who advanced from chief operating officer to chief executive officer. Ironically, however, Simon and Ashburton soon found that they needed to accelerate, not reverse, Horton's plan. First, they organized the company's interests into three primary divisions: BP Exploration, BP Oil, and BP Chemicals. The new organizational scheme allowed the parent to better analyze and pinpoint underperforming and noncore assets with a view to improvement or elimination. Of the $4 billion in assets targeted for divestment were BP Nutrition and the company's controlling stake in BP Canada. The company also planned to reduce debt by $1 billion annually and invest $5 billion per year on capital projects.

From 1993 to 1995, BP cut another 9,000 people from the payroll, reducing employment to less than 54,000 by the end of 1996. Reorganization efforts also focused on the troubled American subsidiary, BP Oil, which contributed more than $20 million of the parent company's 1992 loss. Cost-cutting measures at the subsidiary ran the gamut, from selling 300 California and Florida gas stations, to employee buyouts eliminating 600 to 700 jobs, to the close scrutinization of travel vouchers.

The ongoing cuts (which were expected to bring employment down to 50,000) brought home a stern reality; as an unnamed source told Oil & Gas Journal in 1996, "There is no doubt among staff that BP is a lean and mean machine these days, and not the Rolls-Royce among oil companies it once thought itself." Ashburton and Simon also halved BP's "fat-cat" dividend, a measure Horton had been reluctant to take. In 1995, Sir John Browne, former chief of Exploration, took over as BP's chief executive. The change in leadership was to bring about even greater shifts in the company's focus, direction, and size.

Under Browne's guidance, BP accelerated its use of strategic partnerships to cut the cost of doing business around the world. In 1996, for example, the company merged its European fuel and lubricants business--including pipelines, terminals, road tanker fleets, refineries, depots, and retail sites--with Mobil Corporation. The joint venture operated in 43 countries and held a 12 percent share for fuels and an 18 percent share for lubricants in the European market. A joint venture with China's Shanghai Petrochemical Company expanded BP's chemical interests in Asia while limiting the company's liabilities. The company hoped to target Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe for new downstream operations. In 1997, BP announced that it would build its first service stations in Japan. Also in 1997, BP acquired a 10 percent equity stake in AO Sidanco, a major Russian oil and gas company, as well as 45 percent of Sidanco's majority interest in a separate Russian company with major oil and gas properties in east Siberia.

The partnerships and acquisitions of the mid-1990s were mere foreshadowings of much bigger deals to come. In 1998, BP made history by acquiring Amoco Corporation, the fifth largest oil company in the United States and the largest producer of natural gas in North America. The $50 billion deal was both the first megamerger in the oil industry and largest industrial merger ever made. It was a highly significant move for BP; not only did it add substantially to the company's oil operations, but more important, it gave the company a leadership position in natural gas. With demand for gas expected to grow much faster than demand for oil in the coming years, it was critical for BP to move in that direction.

Amoco had been in business since 1889, although it had been known as Standard Oil Company (Indiana) until its name was changed in 1985. The company was formed outside Whiting, Indiana, a location chosen by John Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust as a refinery site close enough to sites in the growing midwestern market to keep freight costs low, yet far enough away to avoid disturbing residents.

From the beginning, the Whiting facility was organized as a self-supporting entity, planning for long-term expansion. Although refining was its main activity, it also constructed oil barrels for transportation and manufactured an oil-based product line consisting of axle grease, harness oil, paraffin wax for candles, and kerosene produced from the crude oil. The oil itself flowed to Chicago and other midwestern cities via two pipes originating in Lima, Ohio. Land transportation began on the refinery's grounds, at a railroad terminal belonging to the Chicago & Calumet Terminal Railroad, a company over which a Standard Oil interest had gained control. This terminal's placement gave the company exclusive use of the tracks, access to the West and the Southwest, and a direct route that eliminated the expense of switching tolls.

Standard (Indiana) had no direct marketing organization of its own. After the Standard Oil Trust was liquidated in 1892 by order of the Ohio Supreme Court, the 20 companies under its jurisdiction reverted to their former status and became subsidiaries of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey). The functions of Standard Oil (Indiana) were then expanded to include marketing.

The company's capitalization was increased from $500,000 to $1 million, which was divided into $100 shares. Standard Oil still owned about 54 percent of Standard (Indiana). Standard (Indiana) used the extra cash to buy Standard Oil Company (Minnesota) and Standard Oil Company (Illinois), formerly P.C. Hanford Oil Company, an oil marketing organization in Chicago. The extra capital expanded Standard's sales territory, which was broadened even further when the property of Chester Oil Company of Minnesota was bought. Other acquisitions followed, and by 1901 the company was marketing through its own organization in 11 states.

At first, Standard (Indiana) had few competitors in the petroleum-product market. It enjoyed about 88 percent of the business in kerosene and heavy fuel oil. After competition began to grow, Standard (Indiana) fought back with strategically placed bulk storage stations and subsidiary companies in competitive areas that cut prices and drove competitors out. Earnings rose from $605,781 in 1896 to a high of almost $4.2 million in 1899, but the company's competitive practices and its growing market share made it the target of government agencies.

In 1911, after a court battle lasting almost three years, Standard Oil Company (New Jersey)--the parent company to Standard (Indiana) and other Standard companies--was ordered to relinquish supervision of its subsidiaries. Gasoline sales had risen from 31.6 million gallons to 1.57 billion between 1897 and 1911. Once independent, Standard (Indiana) began to cater to the burgeoning automobile market, opening a Minneapolis, Minnesota, service station in 1912. Chicago's first service station opened in 1913, and by 1918, there were 451 altogether. Together with growing sales of road oil, asphalt, and other supporting products, the automotive industry provided one-third of all Standard (Indiana) business.

To get as much gasoline out of each barrel of crude as possible, Standard formulated the cracking process, which doubled the yield by separating the oil's molecules, by means of heat and pressure, into a dense liquid plus a lighter product that would boil in gasoline's range. The possibility of cheaper gasoline and a new line of petroleum-based products made the method attractive to other refiners, who licensed it, accounting for 34 percent of the company's total profits between 1913 and 1922.

With the end of World War I, company Chairman Colonel Robert Stewart's top priority was to find a secure source of crude oil, to meet the rapidly expanding demand for gasoline and kerosene. Before the war, Standard had depended on the Prairie Oil and Gas Company for its supply, but military needs diverted Prairie's crude to the refineries along the Atlantic seaboard. To obtain a reliable source of crude oil, Stewart acquired 33 percent of Midwest Refining Company of Wyoming, in 1920. A half interest in the Sinclair Pipe Company was purchased in 1921, for $16.4 million in cash, improving transportation capacity. Sinclair's 2,900 miles of pipeline ran from north Texas to Chicago, encompassed almost 6,000 wells, and ran through oil-rich Wyoming.

Standard bought an interest in the Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company in 1925. The interest, costing $37.6 million, was the largest oil consolidation in the history of the industry, giving Standard (Indiana) access to one of the world's largest tanker fleets and entry into oil fields in Mexico, Venezuela, and Iraq. In 1929 Standard (Indiana) acquired another chunk of Pan American stock through a stock swap, bringing its total ownership of Pan American to 81 percent.

Pan American also introduced Standard to the American Oil Company, of Baltimore, Maryland. Started by the Blaustein family, American Oil marketed most of Pan American's oil in the eastern United States and was 50 percent owned by Pan American and 50 percent owned by the Blausteins. The Blausteins were initiators of the first measuring gasoline pump and inventors of the high-octane Amoco-Gas that reduced engine knocking.

Though expensive, these investments proved to be sound; by 1929, the Depression notwithstanding, Standard Oil (Indiana) was second only to Standard Oil (New Jersey) as a buyer of crude oil. Equally profitable as a supplier, the company's net earnings for 1929 were $78.5 million after taxes.

In 1929 Stewart was followed as CEO by Edward G. Seubert, who continued to strengthen Standard's crude oil supply. With an eye to future supply security, Seubert shifted the emphasis to buying and developing crude oil-producing properties like McMan Oil and Gas Company, a 1930 purchase that provided 10,000 barrels daily. Also in 1930, Standard acquired both the remaining 50 percent interest in the Sinclair Pipe Line Company and the Sinclair Crude Oil Purchasing Company for $72.5 million, giving it control over one of the country's largest pipeline systems and crude oil buying agencies. These subsidiaries now became the Stanolind Pipe Line Company and the Stanolind Crude Oil Purchasing Company; they were joined in 1931 by the Stanolind Oil & Gas Company, a newly organized subsidiary absorbing several smaller ones.

In 1929 a retail venture called the Atlas Supply Company, which was co-organized with five other Standard firms, had been organized to sell automobile tires and other accessories nationwide. The Great Depression, however, made competition fierce by the end of 1930. Even worse conditions threatened after the largest oil field in history was found in east Texas in late 1930. The new field caused production to rise quickly to a daily average of 300,000 barrels in 1931, glutting the market. Ruthless price-cutting followed. Standard (Indiana) did not engage in this practice, preferring instead to curtail exploration and drilling activities. As a result, only 49.9 billion barrels were produced in 1931, as against 55.1 billion the year before, and the company's 13 domestic facilities operated well below capacity. The 45,073 employees worked on construction projects, and accepted wage cuts and part-time employment to minimize layoffs. The flow of cheap crude oil continued, often in excess of limits set by state regulatory bodies; gas sales were accompanied by premiums like candy, ash trays, and cigarette lighters. Track-side stations, where gasoline was pumped from the tank car into the customer's automobile, posed another price-cutting threat. Also prevalent were cooperatives organized by farmers, who would buy tank cars of gasoline for distribution among members to save money. These conditions caused 1932 earnings to reach only $16.5 million--down from $17.5 million in 1931.

In 1932 Standard decided to sell Pan American's foreign interests to Standard Oil (New Jersey). These properties cost Standard Oil (New Jersey) slightly less than $48 million cash plus about 1.8 million shares of Standard Oil (New Jersey) stock.

By 1934 the worst of the Depression was over. Activities in Texas led the Stanolind Oil & Gas Company to the Hastings field, which held 43 producing wells by the end of 1935. Also in 1935, more oil-producing acreage in east Texas came with Stanolind Oil & Gas Company's $42 million purchase of the properties of Beaumont-based Yount-Lee Oil Company, an acquisition that helped Stanolind Oil & Gas to increase its daily average production to 68,965 barrels.

During the 1930s overproduction began to threaten, and federal and state governments tried to curb oil production with heavy taxes. Standard felt the bite in Iowa's 1935 chain-store tax, which could not be justified by its service stations' profit margin. Therefore, the company turned back leased stations to their owners, and leased company-owned stations to independent operators, to be operated as separate outlets. By the following July, all 11,685 Standard (Indiana) service stations were independently operated and the company was once more primarily a producer distributing oil at wholesale prices. This move spurred the newly independent entrepreneurs, whose increased sales helped to achieve a net profit for Standard of $30.2 million for 1935.

When Standard reached its 50th year in 1939, during World War II, its research chemists were working to improve the high-octane fuels needed for military and transport planes. Standard's engineers cooperated with other companies to build the pipelines necessary for oil transportation. By 1942, the "Big Inch" pipeline carried a daily load of 300,000 barrels of crude from Texas to the East Coast, where most of it was used to support the war effort. Loss of manpower and government steel restrictions curbed operations, yet the company produced 47 million barrels of crude and purchased about 102 million barrels from outside sources. Other wartime products from Standard plants included paraffin wax coatings for military food rations, toluene (the main ingredient for TNT), butane, and butylene for aviation gasoline and synthetic rubber.

On January 1, 1945, Seubert retired as president and chief executive officer of the company. He left behind him 33,244 employees, sales of crude oil topping the 1944 figure by 37.1 percent, and a gross income of $618.9 million. Seubert was succeeded as chairman and CEO by Robert E. Wilson, formerly president of Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company, and Alonzo W. Peake became president. Peake had been vice-president of production.

The management style instituted by Wilson and Peake differed from the centralized, solo authority Seubert preferred. The two men split the supervisory authority, with no overlap of direct authority. Wilson was responsible for finance, research and development, law, and industrial relations, while Peake's commitments included refining, production, supply and transportation, and sales and long-range planning. Responsibility for operating subsidiaries was split between the two. The result was a decentralized organization, making for swifter, more cooperative decision-making at all levels.

In 1948 Stanolind Oil & Gas formed a foreign exploration department to head exploration attempts in Canada and other countries. The new team spent more than $98 million by 1950, with Canada and the Gulf of Mexico its prime targets.

By 1952 Standard Oil (Indiana) was acknowledged as the nation's largest domestic oil company. It possessed 12 refineries able to market products in 41 states, plus almost 5,000 miles of crude oil gathering lines, 10,000 miles of trunk lines, and 1,700 miles of refined product pipelines. By 1951, gross income had reached $1.54 billion.

In 1955 Peake retired as president, to be succeeded by former Executive Vice-President Frank Prior, who inherited the problem of a decrease in allowable production days in the state of Texas, as a result of additions to oil reserves in the state. The rising amount of imported oil was another problem that surfaced during Peake's tenure. The total had swelled from 490,000 barrels per day in 1951 to 660,000 barrels in 1954.

Nevertheless, cheaper international exploration costs spurred Standard (Indiana) to again become active in the growing foreign oil arena that it had all but left in 1932 when it sold Pan American's foreign interests. To handle international land leasing and joint ventures, the company organized Pan American International Oil Corporation in New York, as a subsidiary of Pan American Petroleum. Foreign operations included exploration rights for 13 million acres in Cuba, obtained in 1955; a subsidiary company formed in Venezuela in 1958, for joint exploration of 180,000 acres together with other companies; and 23 million acres obtained for exploration in Libya.

The traditional oil industry profit arrangement for international activities had been an even split between the company and the host government, although several firms had quietly bent the guidelines. Standard (Indiana) broke openly with this custom in a 1958 deal with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), in which Standard (Indiana) split the profits evenly, then gave NIOC half of its own share, to which it added a $25 million bonus.

The late 1950s also saw domestic reorganization. In 1957 the company consolidated nine subsidiaries into four larger companies. Stanolind Oil & Gas Company became Pan American Petroleum Corporation, consolidating all Standard Oil (Indiana) crude oil and natural gas exploration and production. American Oil Pipe Line Company, a former subsidiary of American Oil, was merged into Service Pipe Line Company--which had been known as Stanolind Pipe Line Company until 1950--focused on oil transport. Crude oil and natural gas purchasing operations were combined to form the Indiana Oil Purchasing Company; and Amoco Chemicals Corporation consolidated all chemical activities into a single organization. Total income for 1957 was about $2 billion.

In 1960 company President John Swearingen succeeded Prior as chief executive officer, the chairmanship being left vacant. Swearingen turned both domestic and foreign operations over to subsidiaries, making Standard Oil (Indiana) entirely a holding company. Operating assets were transferred to the American Oil Company, into which the Utah Oil Refining Company also was merged. American Oil's responsibilities now included the manufacture, transport, and sale of all company petroleum products in 45 states, although limited marketing operations in three other states also were maintained. This consolidation allowed the company to develop a national image and provided more efficiency in staff use and storage and transport flexibility. Coverage being national, the company was able to advertise nationally and demand better rates from ground and air transporters.

Standard (Indiana) also became concerned with product trade names. The 1911 breakup had left several former Standard (New Jersey) subsidiaries in different areas of the country with the Standard Oil name and rights to the associated trademarks. American Oil thus had the right to use the Standard name only in the 15 midwestern states that had been the company's original territory. Thus, in 1957, the word "American," together with the Standard Oil (Indiana) logo, was used in all other states. Since a five-letter name was easier for motorists to note, in 1961 the company began to replace the brand name American with Amoco, the name first coined by American Oil's original owners for the high-octane, anti-knock gasoline that had powered the Charles Lindbergh trans-Atlantic flight. Familiar within the company since the 1945 organization of the Amoco Chemicals Corporation, "Amoco" was used increasingly on products and by subsidiaries, until, by 1971, major subsidiaries everywhere had "Amoco" in their names.

In 1961 Standard's total income reached almost $2.1 billion, yielding net earnings of $153.9 million. Continuing with methodical reorganization, Swearingen oversaw the expansion and modernization of the company's domestic refining capacity as well as 11 of its 14 catalytic cracking units. An aggressive marketing program featured large, strategically placed retail outlets, plus the addition of Avis car rental privileges to the credit card services that had been in operation since the early 1930s. By the end of 1966 there were 5.5 million card holders, encouraging American Oil to go national with its motor club.

Because only 8 percent of its assets was located overseas, Standard (Indiana) still lacked a large foreign market for crude oil. Swearingen moved swiftly to close the gap. By 1964 foreign explorations were taking place in Mozambique, Indonesia, Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, and Iran. Refining and marketing also were flourishing, through the acquisition of a 25,000-barrel-per-day refinery near Cremona, Italy, and about 700 Italian service stations. About 250 service stations also were opened in Australia in 1961, along with a 25,000-barrel-per-day refinery. Other foreign refineries were to be found in West Germany, England, Pakistan, and the West Indies. In 1967 Standard began production in the Persian Gulf Cyrus field, by which time the huge El Morgan field in the Gulf of Suez was producing 45,000 barrels daily.

The market for Standard's chemical products also increased during the mid-1960s. To keep pace with demand for the raw materials used in polyester fiber and film, the company built a new facility at Decatur, Alabama, in 1965, adding another in Texas City, Texas, a year later. There were also 641 retail chemical fertilizer outlets in the Midwest and the South. The popularity of polystyrene for packaging also grew. All of these advances ensured profitability; overall chemical sales rose to $158 million by the end of 1967, on total revenues of almost $3.6 billion.

Fuel shortages and the wave of OPEC price rises, nationalizations, and takeovers of the early 1970s underlined the importance of oil exploration. Swearingen's strategy was to accumulate as much domestic exploration acreage as possible before other companies acted, while organizing production in developing foreign markets that were not too competitive.

To capitalize on concern about air pollution, the company introduced a 91-octane lead-free gasoline in 1970 at a cost in excess of $100 million. Although motorists were initially reluctant to accept the 2 cent-per-gallon price rise, the 1973 appearance of catalytic converters on new cars assured the success of the fuel.

Environmental matters came to the fore again in 1978, when an Amoco International Oil Company tanker, the Amoco Cadiz, suffered steering failure during a storm and ran aground off the French coast, leaking about 730,000 gallons of oil into the sea. The huge oil spill cost $75 million to clean up and left its mark on the area's tourist trade as well as its ecosystem. The French government brought a $300 million lawsuit against Amoco that eventually led to a $128 million judgment against Amoco. Amoco appealed the ruling, but the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago not only upheld the judgment but increased it to $281 million. Amoco chose not to appeal this ruling and paid the French government $243 million and the affected Brittany communities $38 million.

In late December 1978 the Shah of Iran was overthrown, and Standard (Indiana) hurriedly closed its Iranian facility and evacuated American staff members after all American employees of Amoco Iran Oil Company received death threats. The year 1978 had seen record-breaking production in Iran, and its loss resulted in a 35 percent production decrease in the company's overseas operations. Despite these turbulent events, net income was $1.5 billion in 1971, on total revenues of $20.197 billion.

By the end of the 1970s, chemical production accounted for about 7 percent of company earnings. To gain more visibility with consumers, Standard (Indiana) began to stress end-product manufacture as well as the production of ingredients used in manufacturing processes. The trend had begun in 1968, when polypropylene manufacturer Avisun Corporation was purchased by Amoco Chemicals Corporation from Sun Oil Company. The $80 million price tag included Patchoque-Plymouth Company, maker of polypropylene carpet backing. By 1986 a 100-color line plus improved stain resistance made Amoco Fabrics & Fibers Company's petrochemical-based Genesis carpeting a serious competitor of the stain-resistant carpeting offered by du Pont. Other strategies focused on market stimulation for basic industrial products. Since this required specialized marketing skills, the company divided its chemical operations among four subsidiaries.

In 1983 John Swearingen retired as chairman of the board. In his stead came Richard W. Morrow, who had been president of the Amoco Chemicals Corporation from 1974 until 1978, before assuming the Standard (Indiana) presidency in 1978. In 1985 Standard Oil Company (Indiana) changed its name to Amoco Corporation. Morrow also presided over the 1988 acquisition of Dome Petroleum, Ltd. of Canada, which was later merged into Amoco Canada. Dome, owning 28.7 million acres of undeveloped, arctic region land, improved Amoco's oil and gas reserves. The Dome purchase was hard-won, costing Amoco $4.2 billion. Other chances to expand oil and gas exploration in 1988 came with the acquisition of Tenneco Oil Company's Rocky Mountain properties, for approximately $900 million.

Amoco Corporation began the 1990s with record revenues of $31.58 billion and net income of $1.91 billion. By 1990, the need for raw materials had expanded internationally, moving strongly toward Europe and the Far East. Joint ventures in Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan met the growing demand for polyester fibers, helping to generate about 35 percent of business overseas.

H. Laurence Fuller took over as chairman in 1991 amidst a downturn in Amoco profits owing to weakening demand for petroleum products and reduced prices caused by the recession. Revenues fell to $28.3 billion in 1991 and to $26.22 billion in 1992, while net income declined to $1.17 billion and $850 million, respectively. Fuller aimed not only to turn around the company's fortunes but also to overtake Exxon, the top U.S. oil company, in profitability. Fuller began this effort with a 1992 restructuring intended to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Approximately 8,500 employees were axed--16 percent of Amoco's workforce--contributing to $600 million in savings. Exploration operations were cut back from a wildcatting strategy spread out over more than 100 countries to a targeted search for oil and gas in 20 countries with proven reserves. China became a prime target area; after establishing an offshore drilling operation in 1987, Amoco signed a deal in 1992 to become the first foreign company to explore the Chinese mainland, thought to hold more than 20 billion barrels of oil.

This restructuring served as prelude to an even larger reorganization effort initiated in 1994. A total of 4,500 more jobs would be cut over the next two years, with projected savings of $1.2 billion each year. Amoco's organizational structure was completely overhauled. The three major subsidiaries--Amoco Production Company, Amoco Oil Company, and Amoco Chemical Company--that had been responsible for the three major areas of operation were replaced by a decentralized structure with 17 business groups divided into three sectors: exploration and production, petroleum products, and chemicals. A Shared Services organization was created to share the resources of Amoco's support operations.

Amoco's chemical operations were overhauled during these restructurings by shedding such weak areas as oil well chemicals and by increasing expenditures in fast-growing areas such as polyester. One result was that profits from Amoco's chemical sector increased from $68 million in 1991 to $574 million in 1994 thanks in large part to its 40 percent share of the world market in paraxylene and purified terephthalic acid, both used to make polyester, the demand for which grew dramatically, especially in Asia.

New product expenditures also were bolstered during this period. With demand for alternative and cleaner-burning fuels on the rise, Amoco introduced Crystal Clear Ultimate, a cleaner-burning premium gasoline, and test-marketed compressed natural gas for use by fleet operators. Also tested were shared service stations that offered Amoco gas and fast food (from McDonald's and Burger King), or such services as dry cleaning (DryClean U.S.A.). These tests were so successful that Amoco planned to roll out 100 such units in 1995 at a cost of $100 million.

In 1994, Amoco made one of its largest natural gas finds off Trinidad and Tobago. The company embarked on a drive to become a leader in natural gas-powered electricity generation, creating Amoco Power Resources Corporation to pursue this venture and purchasing a 10 percent interest in electricity facilities in Trinidad and Tobago.

With the cost of oil and gas exploration soaring and lean operations not able to withstand the failure of a risky venture, more and more oil companies turned to joint ventures in the early and mid-1990s to spread the risk. Amoco was a member of a ten-company consortium that signed an agreement in 1994 with the Republic of Azerbaijan to develop oil fields in the Caspian Sea. Also in 1994 Amoco joined with rivals Shell Oil and Exxon to finance a $1 billion offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, to be the world's deepest. In 1995, Shell and Amoco created a limited partnership to develop oil fields in the Permian Basin area of west Texas and southeast New Mexico. In 1997, Amoco partnered with the Argentina oil company Bridas Corp. to form Pan American Energy--an exploration and production company that planned to conduct operations in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

The middle and late 1990s also were marked by continued divestitures. In 1995, the company sold its motor club business to a subsidiary of Montgomery Ward and its credit card operations to Associates First Capital Corporation, a Ford subsidiary. Two years later, it announced a major divestiture program, designed to shed nonfundamental properties and allow a tighter focus on core assets. The company sold off Amoco Gas Co., a gas pipeline and processing unit in Texas, to Tejas Gas Corp. The same year, the company sold a large portion of its domestic exploration and production assets--including oil and gas properties in Oklahoma; upstream oil and gas operations in Colorado; production properties in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and North Dakota; and coalbed-methane reserves in Alabama's Black Warrior Basin.

The British Petroleum-Amoco merger was finalized at the end of 1998. The new company--named BP Amoco p.l.c.--was 60 percent owned by BP shareholders and was headed by BP's CEO Sir John Browne. Amoco's former CEO, Laurance Fuller, was co-chairman of the board, an office he shared with BP Chairman Peter Sutherland. BP shareholders owned 60 percent of the company. The merger served a dual purpose for both BP and Amoco. In the short term, it reduced costs by eliminating areas of overlap between the two organizations--most notably, in the reduction of approximately 10,000 jobs. In the long term, the pooling of BP's and Amoco's assets and revenues allowed the company to finance more development and take on larger projects.

But the oil giant's frenetic growth did not stop with the merger. Just a few months after closing the Amoco deal, the company announced yet another major acquisition: Atlantic Richfield Co. (Arco). Arco, which was based in Los Angeles, had been in the oil business since 1866--longer than either British Petroleum or Amoco. The company operated refineries and a 1,700-unit chain of gas stations in the western United States. It also held major oil and gas reserves, most of which were in Alaska. Together, in fact, BP Amoco and Arco would have controlled almost 70 percent of the oil production in Alaska--a degree of control that made the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) uncomfortable. The FTC refused to approve the merger until the company agreed to sell off Arco's Alaskan holdings, and the deal was delayed for months before finally closing in the spring of 2000.

Meanwhile, BP Amoco was pursuing still another acquisition. In March 2000, the company agreed to purchase Burmah Castrol, a U.K. lubricants group. Burmah Castrol was the maker of Castrol brand motor oil, one of the world's best-selling car motor oils. The company also manufactured chemicals used in the foundry, steel, and construction industries. The acquisition, which was finalized in mid-2000, gave BP Amoco the second largest market share in lubricants in Europe. In addition, like Amoco and Arco, it allowed the company to reduce costs by eliminating redundant jobs.

The year 2000 also marked a major change in corporate identity. Known in the two years since the merger as BP Amoco--a marriage of two strong trade names--the company shed "Amoco" from its name, becoming simply "BP p.l.c." The well-known Amoco name and logo were replaced with a new BP logo and color scheme--a green and yellow sunburst. Industry analysts speculated that the changes were intended to help the company move away from its longstanding identity as an "oil company" and reposition itself as an "energy company"--one with operations in oil, natural gas, and solar power.

Browne's aggressive acquisition strategy proved to be both well timed and well executed. The last years of the 20th century were marked by rapidly increasing prices in both crude oil and natural gas--hikes that paid off handsomely for BP. At the same time, the company began to realize the large cost reductions promised by its acquisitions. In 2000, the company made $12 billion in pretax profits--a record for a U.K. company.

Unsurprisingly, it appeared that natural gas would play an important role in BP's future. The company planned to increase its gas marketing and trading business by 9 to 11 percent annually over the first three years of the 21st century. In comparison, the company expected its retail petroleum business to grow by only 3 to 4 percent annually. By 2003, BP estimated gas to account for more than 40 percent of its daily hydrocarbon production.

BP also planned to increase its operations in solar power. In 2001, the company signed a deal with the Spanish and Philippine governments to bring solar power to 150 Philippine villages--the largest solar energy project ever undertaken. BP also planned a fivefold expansion of its solar photovoltaic cell manufacturing operation in Spain. When complete, the Spanish operation would be one of the largest solar facilities in the world. The company planned to have a solar business worth $1 billion by 2007.

Principal Subsidiaries

Amoco Egypt Gas (U.S.A.); Amoco Egypt Oil (U.S.A.); Amoco Energy Company of Trinidad and Tobago (U.S.A.); Amoco Trinidad (LNG) B.V. (Netherlands); Atlantic Richfield Company; Atlantic Richfield Bali North (Indonesia); BP America (U.S.A.); BP Amoco Capital; BP Amoco Company (U.S.A.); BP Amoco Corporation (U.S.A.); BP Amoco Norway; BP Australia; BP Canada Energy; BP Capital BV (Netherlands); BP Chemicals; BP Chemicals Investments; BP Developments Australia; BP Espana; BP Exploration Co.; BP Finance Australia; BP France; BP International; BP Nederland; BP Oil International; BP Oil New Zealand; BP Oil UK; BP Shipping; BP Singapore Pte; BP Solar; BP Southern Africa; Britoil; Burmah Castrol; Deutsche BP; Standard Oil Co. (U.S.A.); Vastar Resources Inc. (U.S.A.); Abu Dhabi Marine Areas (33%); Abu Dhabi Petroleum Co. (24%); China American Petrochemical Co. (Taiwan; 50%); CoTo Finance Partnership (50%); Empresa Petrolera Chaco (Bolivia; 30%); Erdolchemie (Germany; 50%); Lukarco (Kazakhstan; 46%); Malaysia-Thailand Joint Development Agency (Thailand; 25%); Pan American Energy (Argentina; 60%); Ruhrgas AG (Germany; 25%); Rusia (Russia; 25%); AO Sidanco (Russia; 10%); Unimar Company Texas (Indonesia; 50%).

Principal Competitors

ChevronTexaco Corporation; Exxon Mobil Corporation; Royal Dutch/Shell Group.

Further Reading

Bahree, Bhushan, Christopher Cooper, and Steve Liesman, "Bigger Oil: BP to Acquire Amoco in Huge Deal Spurred by Low Energy Prices," Wall Street Journal, August 12, 1998, p. A1.

Beck, Robert J., "State Companies Lead OGJ 100 World Reserves, Production List," Oil and Gas Journal, September 28, 1992.

"Big Problems: British Petroleum," Economist, February 8, 1992. "BP After Horton," Economist, July 4, 1992.

Chelminski, Rudolph, Superwreck: Amoco, The Shipwreck That Had to Happen, New York: Morrow, 1987.

Cook, James, "First-Rate Company," Forbes, May 1, 1989, pp. 84-85.

Dedmon, Emmett, Challenge and Response: A Modern History of Standard Oil Company (Indiana), Chicago: Mobium Press, 1984.

Fairhall, David, The Wreck of the Amoco Cadiz, New York: Stein and Day, 1980.

Ferrier, R.W., The History of the British Petroleum Company (Vol. 1), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Giddens, Paul Henry, Standard Oil Company (Indiana): Oil Pioneer of the Middle West, New York: Arno Press, 1976.

Guyon, Janet, "When John Browne Talks, Big Oil Listens," Fortune, July 5, 1999, p. 116.

Jones, Geoffrey, The State and the Emergence of the British Oil Industry, London: Macmillan, 1981.

Knott, David, "BP Sharpening Focus on Improved Shareholder Value, Efficiency," Oil and Gas Journal, July 8, 1996, pp. 22-26.

------, "British Petroleum Maps Strategy for Continued Gains," Oil and Gas Journal, March 22, 1993, pp. 25-29.

Mack, Toni, "Catching Up to Exxon," Forbes, March 13, 1995, pp. 64, 66.

Melcher, Richard A., Peter Burrows, and Tim Smart, "Remaking Big Oil: The Desperate Rush to Slash Costs," Business Week, August 8, 1994, pp. 20-21.

O'Connor, Brian, "Dealmaker Browne May Dazzle with Another Lightning Strike," Daily Mail, November 22, 2001, p. 77.

"An Oil Major Redefines Its Role," Petroleum Economist, February 1, 2001, p. 3.

Palmeri, Christopher, "A Good Match in the Oil Patch," Forbes, September 21, 1998, p. 88.

Strauss, Gary, and Thor Valdmanis, "BP, Amoco Nozzle Up: Oil Companies Pump Out $50 Billion Merger Deal," USA Today, August 12, 1998, p. 1B.

Therrien, Lois, "Amoco: Running Smoother on Less Gas," Business Week, February 15, 1993, pp. 110-12.

"Whittle-Down Economics," Oil and Gas Investor, November 1992, pp. 43-46.

Yerak, Rebecca, "Plugging the Drain at BP Oil," Plain Dealer (Cleveland), January 26, 1993.

— Geoffrey Jones and Gillian Wolf

1. blood pressure.
2. boiling point.
3. British Pharmacopoeia.

This article is about the energy company. For other uses, see BP (disambiguation).

BP p.l.c.

Type	Public limited company
Traded as	LSE: BP NYSE: BP
Industry	Oil and natural gas, alternative fuels
Founded	1909 (as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company) 1954 (as the British Petroleum Company) 1998 (merger of British Petroleum and Amoco)
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Carl-Henric Svanberg (Chairman) Bob Dudley (CEO) Byron Grote (CFO)[1]
Products	BP petroleum and derived products BP service stations Air BP Aviation Fuels Castrol motor oil ARCO gas stations am/pm convenience stores Aral service stations solar panels
Revenue	US$ 386.46 billion (2011)[2]
Operating income	US$ 39.81 billion (2011)[2]
Net income	US$ 25.70 billion (2011)[2]
Total assets	US$ 290.92 billion (2011)[2]
Total equity	US$ 111.46 billion (2011)[2]
Employees	79,700 (2011)[2]
Website	www.bp.com

BP p.l.c.^[3][4] (LSE: BP, NYSE: BP) is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors".^[5][6] It is vertically-integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading. It also has major renewable energy activities, including in biofuels, hydrogen, solar and wind power.

BP has operations in over 80 countries, produces around 3.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and has 22,400 service stations worldwide.^[7][8] Its largest division is BP America, which is the biggest producer of oil and gas in the United States and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.^[9][10][11] As at 31 December 2010 BP had total proven commercial reserves of 18.07 billion barrels of oil equivalent.^[2] The name "BP" derives from the initials of one of the company's former legal names, British Petroleum.^[12][13]

BP's track record of corporate social responsibility has been mixed. The company has been involved in a number of major environmental and safety incidents and received criticism for its political influence. However, in 1997 it became the first major oil company to publicly acknowledge the need to take steps against climate change, and in that year established a company-wide target to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases.^[14] BP currently invests over $1 billion per year in the development of renewable energy sources, and has committed to spend $8 billion on renewables in the 2005 to 2015 period.^[15]

BP's primary listing is on the London Stock Exchange and it is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. As of December 2011, it was the 4th largest company on the FTSE, with a market capitalisation of £87.1 billion.^[16] It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Activity in 1909–1979 1.2 1980s and 1990s 1.3 21st century 2 Corporate affairs 2.1 Governance 2.2 Financial data 2.3 Company name 3 Operations 3.1 Exploration and production 3.2 Refining and Marketing 3.2.1 Air BP 3.2.2 BP Shipping 3.2.3 Castrol 3.2.4 Service stations 3.2.4.1 ampm 3.2.4.2 Aral 3.2.4.3 ARCO 3.2.4.4 BP Connect 3.2.4.5 BP Express 3.2.4.6 BP 2go 3.2.4.7 BP Travel Centre 4 Corporate social responsibility 4.1 Environmental record 4.1.1 Renewable energy 4.1.2 Climate change 4.1.3 1993–1995: Hazardous substance dumping 4.1.4 2006–2007: Prudhoe Bay 4.1.5 2010: Texas City chemical leak 4.1.6 2010: Deepwater Horizon oil spill 4.1.7 Stock decline and takeover speculations 4.1.8 Mist mountain project 4.1.9 Canadian oil sands 4.2 Safety record 4.2.1 1965: Sea Gem offshore oil rig disaster 4.2.2 2005: Texas City Refinery explosion 4.2.3 2006–2010: Refinery fatalities and safety violations 4.2.4 2009: North Sea helicopter accident 4.2.5 2010: Deepwater Horizon well explosion 4.3 Political record 4.3.1 2007: Propane price manipulation 4.3.2 2008: Oil price manipulation 4.3.3 Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline 4.3.4 Colombian pipeline 4.3.5 Contributions to political campaigns 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links 8.1 Official 8.2 Other

History

Further information: Anglo-Iranian Oil Company

Activity in 1909–1979

A 1922 BP advertisement

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.^[17] This was the first commercially significant find in the Middle East. On 14 April 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was incorporated as a subsidiary of Burmah Oil Company to exploit this.^[17] In 1923, it employed future Prime Minister, Winston Churchill as a paid consultant, to lobby the British government to allow Burmah to have exclusive rights to Persian oil resources, which were successfully granted.^[18] In 1935, it became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).^[17]

Following 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.^[19] The Majlis of Iran (parliament) elected a nationalist, Mohammed Mossadeq, as prime minister. In April, the Majlis nationalised the oil industry by unanimous vote.^[20] The National Iranian Oil Company was formed as a result, displacing the AIOC.^[21] The AIOC withdrew its management from Iran, and organised an effective boycott of Iranian oil. The British government – which owned the AIOC – contested the nationalisation at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, but its complaint was dismissed.^[22]

By spring of 1953, incoming US President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorised the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to organise a coup against the Mossadeq government with support from the British government.^[23] 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.^[23]

Mossadeq was replaced by pro-Western general Fazlollah Zahedi^[24] and the Shah, who returned to Iran after having left the country briefly to await the outcome of the coup. The Shah abolished the democratic Constitution and assumed autocratic powers.

After the coup, Mossadeq's National Iranian Oil Company became an international consortium, and AIOC resumed operations in Iran as a member of it.^[21] 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."^[25] AIOC, as a part of the Anglo-American coup d'état deal, was not allowed to monopolise 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..^[26]

The AIOC became the British Petroleum Company in 1954. In 1959, the company expanded beyond the Middle East to Alaska^[27] and in 1965 it was the first company to strike oil in the North Sea.^[28] In 1978 the company 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.^[29] In 1967 the giant oil tanker, the Torrey Canyon, foundered off the English coast, even though the ship was flying the well known flag of convenience, that of Liberia. The ship was in fact operated on behalf of BP. The Prime Minister of that time, 1967, had the ship bombed by RAF jet bombers, in an effort to break the ship up and sink it (see Torrey Canyon oil spill). This was unsuccessful, and the method has not been repeated. BP continued to operate in Iran until the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The new regime of Ayatollah Khomeini confiscated all of the company’s assets in Iran without compensation, bringing to an end its 70-year presence in Iran.

1980s and 1990s

Classic shield logo, designed by Raymond Loewy and used until 2002

Sir Peter Walters was the company chairman from 1981 to 1990.^[30] This was the era of the Thatcher government's privatisation strategy. The British government sold its entire holding in the company in several tranches between 1979 and 1987.^[31] The sale process was marked by an attempt by the Kuwait Investment Authority, the investment arm of the Kuwait government, to acquire control of the company.^[32] This was ultimately blocked by the strong opposition of the British government. In 1987, British Petroleum negotiated the acquisition of Britoil^[33] and the remaining publicly traded shares of Standard Oil of Ohio.^[29]

Walters was replaced by Robert Horton in 1989. Horton carried out a major corporate down-sizing exercise removing various tiers of management at the Head Office.^[34]

Standard Oil of California and Gulf Oil merged in 1984, the largest merger in history at that time. Under the anti-trust regulation, SoCal divested many of Gulf's operating subsidiaries, and sold some Gulf stations and a refinery in the eastern United States.^[35]

John Browne, who had been on the board as managing director since 1991, was appointed group chief executive in 1995.^[36] Browne was responsible for three major acquisitions; Amoco, ARCO and Burmah-Castrol (see below).

21st century

British Petroleum merged with Amoco (formerly Standard Oil of Indiana) in December 1998,^[37] becoming BP Amoco plc.^[38] In 2000, BP Amoco acquired Arco (Atlantic Richfield Co.)^[39] and Burmah Castrol plc.^[40] As part of the merger's brand awareness, the company helped the Tate Modern British Art launch RePresenting Britain 1500–2000^[41] In 2001, the company formally renamed itself as BP plc^[38] 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 stations in the United States were converted to BP's brand and corporate identity. In many states BP continued to sell Amoco branded petrol even in service stations with the BP identity as Amoco was rated the best petroleum brand by consumers for 16 consecutive years and also enjoyed one of the three highest brand loyalty reputations for petrol in the US, comparable only to Chevron and Shell. In May 2008, when the Amoco name was mostly phased out in favour of "BP Gasoline with Invigorate", promoting BP's new additive, the highest grade of BP petrol available in the United States was still called Amoco Ultimate.

Chief scientist, Steven Koonin (top right, with laptop), speaks about the energy scene in the boardroom in 2005.

In April 2004, BP decided to move most of its petrochemical businesses into a separate entity called Innovene within the BP Group. BP sought to sell the new company possibly via an initial public offering (IPO) in the US, and filed IPO plans for Innovene with the New York Stock Exchange on 12 September 2005. On 7 October 2005 BP announced that it had agreed to sell Innovene to INEOS, a privately held UK chemical company for $9 billion, thereby scrapping its plans for the IPO.^[42]

In 2005, BP announced that it would be leaving the Colorado market.^[43] Many locations were re-branded as Conoco.^[44]

Westlake Park in the Energy Corridor area of Houston has BP America's headquarters

In 2006, when Chevron Corporation gave exclusive rights to the Texaco brand name in the US Texaco sold most of the BP gas stations in the southeast. BP has recently looked to grow its oil exploration activities in frontier areas such as the former Soviet Union for its future reserves.^[45] 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.^[46]

In 2007, BP sold its corporate-owned convenience stores, typically known as "BP Connect", to local franchisees and jobbers.^[47]

On 12 January 2007, it was announced that Lord Browne would retire as chief executive at the end of July 2007.^[48] The new Chief Executive, Tony Hayward, had been head of exploration and production. 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 gay lover. Hayward succeeded Browne with immediate effect.^[49]

On 1 October 2010, Bob Dudley replaced Tony Hayward as the company's CEO.^[50]

On 15 January 2011, Rosneft and BP announced a deal to jointly develop East-Prinovozemelsky field on the Russian arctic shelf. As part of the deal, Rosneft will receive 5% of BP's shares (worth approximately $7.8 billion, as of January 2011) and BP will get approximately 9.5% of Rosneft's shares in exchange.^[51] According to the deal, the two companies will also create an Arctic technology centre in Russia to develop technologies and engineering practices for safe arctic hydrocarbons extraction.^[52]

In February 2011, BP formed a partnership with Reliance Industries, taking a 30 percent stake in a new Indian joint-venture for an initial payment of $7.2 billion.^[53]

Corporate affairs

Governance

BP head office in St. James's, City of Westminster

The Board Members are:^[54]

• Carl-Henric Svanberg – Chairman
• Byron Grote – Chief Financial Officer
• Andy Inglis – Chief executive, Exploration and Production
• Antony Burgmans – Non-executive director, board of Mauritshuis, AEGON, Unilever
• Cynthia Carroll – Non-executive director, CEO of Anglo American, also board of De Beers
• Sir William Castell – Non-executive director chairman of The Prince’s Trust
• Paul Anderson – Non-executive director
• Robert Dudley – CEO (as of 1 October 2010)
• Iain Conn
• George David vice-chairman of the Peterson Institute for International Economics
• Ian Davis – Non-executive director
• Douglas Flint, CBE director HSBC
• Dr DeAnne Julius, director of Chatham House
• David Jackson, company secretary

Financial data

Financial data in millions of US$

Year	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
Sales	180,186	236,045	294,849	249,465	265,906	284,365	361,341	239,272
EBITDA	22,941	28,200	37,825	41,453	44,835
Net results	6,845	10,267	15,961	22,341	22,000	20,845	21,157	16,578
Net debt	20,273	20,193	21,607	16,202	16,202

Source :OpesC

Company name

Until 31 December 1998 the company was formally registered as the British Petroleum Company plc. Following a merger with Amoco the company adopted the name BP Amoco plc in January 1999, which was retained until May 2001 when the company was renamed BP p.l.c.^[55][56] In the first quarter of 2001 the company adopted the marketing name of BP, replaced its “Green Shield” logo with the Helios symbol, a green and yellow sunflower pattern, and introduced a new corporate slogan – “Beyond Petroleum”. The transition to the name and logo was managed by the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather and the PR consultants, Ogilvy PR.^[57] The Helios logo (Helios is the name of the Greek sun god), is designed to represent energy in its many forms. BP's tagline, "Beyond Petroleum", according to the company represents their focus on meeting the growing demand for fossil fuels, manufacturing and delivering more advanced products, and enabling the material transition to a lower carbon future.^[58]

A BP service station in Ohio, United States showing the previous 'Green Shield' branding

In July 2006, critics pointed to the relative lack of press coverage about a spill of 270,000 gallons of crude oil that spread into the Alaskan tundra, noting this as evidence that BP had successfully greenwashed its image, while maintaining environmentally unsound practices.^[59][60] BP also put plans on hold to market a fuel that is 85% Ethanol and 15% Butanol (E85B), so existing internal combustion engines could run on a 100% renewable fuel. The lack of follow-through was cited as another example of BP's greenwashing. (Butanol can be used in internal combustion engines, but BP has no infrastructure to produce Butanol from biomass sources).

In 2008, BP was awarded a satirical prize, the "Emerald Paintbrush" award, from Greenpeace UK. The "Emerald Paintbrush" award was given to BP in order to highlight its alleged greenwashing campaign. Critics point out that while BP advertises its activities in alternative energy sources, the majority of its capital investments continue to go into fossil fuels.^[61] BP was also one nominee for the 2009 Greenwash Awards.^[62]

By the end of July 2010, independent BP station owners reported sales down 10 to 40 percent in the quarter after the Gulf oil spill and, while some hoped BP would return to the Amoco brand once used by many of the stations, others considered that would be a gamble because BP put so much effort into the brand.^[63]

Operations

Exploration and production

BP's Exploration and Production division is responsible for the discovery, production and transportation of oil and gas to market. It operates in around 30 countries and employs more than 20,000 people.

Refining and Marketing

BP's Refining and Marketing division is responsible for the supply and trading, refining, marketing and transportation of oil, gas and petroleum products.

Air BP

A self-service Air BP fuelling station at the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport

Air BP is the aviation division of BP, providing aviation fuel, lubricants & services. It has operations in over 50 countries worldwide.

BP Shipping

BP Shipping provides the logistics to move BP's oil and gas cargoes to market, as well as marine structural assurance^[64] on everything that floats in the BP group. It manages a large fleet of vessels most of which are held on long-term operating leases. BP Shipping's chartering teams based in London, Singapore, and Chicago also charter third party vessels on both time charter and voyage charter basis.

The BP-managed fleet consists of Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), one North Sea shuttle tanker, medium size crude and product carriers, liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers, and coasters. All of these ships are double-hulled.^[65]

Castrol

Castrol is a brand of industrial and automotive lubricants which is applied to a large range of BP oils, greases and similar products for most lubrication applications.

Service stations

ampm

Main article: ampm

ampm is a convenience store chain with branches located in several US states including Arizona, California, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Washington, recently in Illinois, Indiana, Georgia and Florida, and in several countries worldwide such as Japan. In the western US, the stores are usually attached to an ARCO gas station; elsewhere, the stores are attached to BP gas stations. BP Connect stations in the US are transitioning to the ampm brand.

Aral

An Aral service station in Germany

In Germany and Luxembourg, BP operates its petrol retail chain under the name Aral after acquiring the majority of Veba Öl AG in 2001 and rebranding almost all of its BP filling stations to Aral.

ARCO

Main article: ARCO

ARCO is BP's retail brand on the US West Coast in the seven Western states of California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, and Utah. BP acquired ARCO (formerly the Atlantic Richfield Company) in 2000. ARCO is a popular "cash only" retailer, selling products refined from Alaska North Slope crude at the Cherry Point Refinery in Washington, a plant in Los Angeles, and at other contract locations on the West Coast.

BP Connect

BP Connect is BP's flagship retail brand name with BP Connect Service stations being operated around the UK, Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world. BP Connect sites feature the Wild Bean Cafe, which offers cafe-style coffee made by the staff and a selection of hot food as well as freshly baked muffins and sandwiches. The food offered in Wild Bean Cafe varies from each site. BP Connect sites usually offer table and chair seating and often an Internet kiosk. In the US, the BP Connect concept is gradually being transitioned to the ampm brand and concept. Some BP Connect sites around the UK ran in partnership with Marks & Spencer with the on-site shop being an M&S Simply Food instead of a BP Shop.

BP Express

In the Netherlands, BP is opening unmanned stations with no shops or employees. These stations are called BP Express.^[66] Some of these stations used to be 'ordinary' BP stations and others are new to the BP network. Apart from these stations, BP Express shopping does also exist in the Netherlands.

BP 2go

A BP 2go branded service station in Australia

BP 2go is a franchise brand used for independently operated sites in New Zealand and is currently being rolled out throughout Australia (although not all BP 2go stores are franchises in Australia). BP 2go sites mainly operate in towns and outer suburbs in New Zealand. BP 2go offers similar bakery food to BP Connect but in a pre-packaged form. Some BP Express sites around New Zealand and Australia that were considered too small to be upgraded to BP Connect were given the option to change to BP 2go; others were downgraded to BP Shop. Staff at some BP 2go sites wear a different style of uniform to the rest of the BP branded sites; however in company-owned and operated 2go sites in Australia the same uniform is worn across all sites.

BP Travel Centre

BP Travel Centres are large-scale destination sites located in Australia which, on top of offering the same features of a BP Connect site with fuel and a Wild Bean Cafe, also feature major food-retail tenants such as McDonald's, KFC, Nando's and recently Krispy Kreme, with a large seating capacity food court. There are also facilities for long-haul truck drivers, including a lounge, showers and washing machines all in the same building. There are 4 travel centres located in South East Queensland: two on the Pacific Highway (Coomera and Stapylton) and two on the Bruce Highway (Caboolture). A fifth travel centre was opened in 2007 at Chinderah in northern New South Wales.

Corporate social responsibility

Environmental record

A Gulf petrol station in Louisville, Kentucky using the previous BP prototype. BP purchased all Gulf stations in the southeastern United States in 1980s after Chevron, Inc. was forced to divest the stations by the United States Justice Department.

BP was named by Mother Jones Magazine, an investigative journal that "exposes the evils of the corporate world, the government, and the mainstream media",^[67] as one of the ten worst corporations in both 2001 and 2005 based on its environmental and human rights records.^[68][69] In 1991 BP was cited as the most polluting company in the US based on EPA toxic release data. BP has been charged with burning polluted gases at its Ohio refinery (for which it was fined $1.7 million), and in July 2000 BP paid a $10 million fine to the EPA for its management of its US refineries.^[70] According to PIRG research, between January 1997 and March 1998, BP was responsible for 104 oil spills.^[71] BP patented the Dracone Barge to aid in oil spill clean-ups across the world.^[72]

As of 11 February 2007, BP announced that it would spend $8 billion over ten years to research alternative methods of fuel, including natural gas, hydrogen, solar, and wind. A $500 million grant to the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to create an Energy Biosciences Institute^[73] has recently come under attack, over concerns about the global impacts of the research and privatisation of public universities.^[74]

BP's investment in green technologies peaked at 4% of its exploratory budget, but they have since closed their alternative energy headquarters in London. As such they invest more than other oil companies, but it has been called greenwashing due to the small proportion of the overall budget.^[75] BP was a nominee for the 2009 Greenwash Awards for deliberately exaggerating its environmental credentials. According to Greenpeace in 2008 BP invested $20 billion in fossil fuels, but only $1.5 billion in all alternative forms of energy.^[76]

In 2004, BP began marketing low-sulphur diesel fuel for industrial use.

Renewable energy

Solar panel made by BP Solar

BP Solar is a leading producer of solar panels since its purchase of Lucas Energy Systems in 1980 and Solarex (as part of its acquisition of Amoco) in 2000. BP Solar had a 20% world market share in photovoltaic panels in 2004 when it had a capacity to produce 90 MW/year of panels. It has over 30 years' experience operating in over 160 countries with manufacturing facilities in the US, Spain, India and Australia, and has more than 2000 employees worldwide. BP has closed its US plants in Frederick, Maryland as part of a transition to manufacturing in China. This is due in part to China's upswing in solar use and the protectionist laws that require 85% of the materials to be produced in China.^[77] Through a series of acquisitions in the solar power industry BP Solar became the third largest producer of solar panels in the world. It was recently announced that BP has obtained a contract for a pilot project to provide on-site solar power to Wal-Mart stores.^[78]

Between 2005 and 2010, BP invested about $5 billion in its renewable energy business, mainly in biofuel and wind power projects. In 2011, BP plans to invest $1 billion in renewables, roughly the same amount it invested last year.^[79]

As of 2011, BP is planning to construct a biofuel refinery in the Southeastern US and has also acquired Verenium’s cellulosic biofuels business for $98 million. In Brazil, BP holds a 50 percent stake in Tropical BioEnergia and plans to operate two ethanol refineries. In the US BP has more than 1,200 megawatts (MW) of wind-powered electricity capacity and in July 2010 it began construction of the 250 MW Cedar Creek II Wind Farm in Colorado.^[79]

Climate change

BP was a founding sponsor of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in 1971, the research unit that was at the center of the Climategate scandal in November 2009.^[80]

BP Amoco was a member of the Global Climate Coalition an industry organisation established to promote global warming scepticism but withdrew in 1997, saying "the time to consider the policy dimensions of climate change is not when the link between greenhouse gases and climate change is conclusively proven, but when the possibility cannot be discounted and is taken seriously by the society of which we are part. We in BP have reached that point.".^[81]

In March 2002, Lord Browne of Madingley declared in a speech that global warming was real and that urgent action was needed, saying that "Companies composed of highly skilled and trained people can't live in denial of mounting evidence gathered by hundreds of the most reputable scientists in the world."^[82]

BP is a sponsor of the Scripps Institution CO₂ program to measure carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.^[83]

1993–1995: Hazardous substance dumping

In September 1999, one of BP’s US subsidiaries, BP Exploration Alaska (BPXA), agreed to resolve charges related to the illegal dumping of hazardous wastes on the Alaska North Slope, for $22 million. The settlement included the maximum $500,000 criminal fine, $6.5 million in civil penalties, and BP’s establishment of a $15 million environmental management system at all of BP facilities in the US and Gulf of Mexico that are engaged in oil exploration, drilling or production. The charges stemmed from the 1993 to 1995 dumping of hazardous wastes on Endicott Island, Alaska by BP’s contractor Doyon Drilling. The firm illegally discharged waste oil, paint thinner and other toxic and hazardous substances by injecting them down the outer rim, or annuli, of the oil wells. BPXA failed to report the illegal injections when it learned of the conduct, in violation of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act.^[84]

2006–2007: Prudhoe Bay

BP's Alaska office in Anchorage

Main article: Prudhoe Bay oil spill

In August 2006, BP shut down oil operations in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, due to corrosion in pipelines leading up to the Alaska Pipeline. The wells were leaking insulating agent called Arctic pack, consisting of crude oil and diesel fuel, between the wells and ice.^[85] BP had spilled over one million litres of oil in Alaska's North Slope.^[86] This corrosion is caused by sediment collecting in the bottom of the pipe, protecting corrosive bacteria from chemicals sent through the pipeline to fight these bacteria. There are estimates that about 5,000 barrels (790 m³) of oil were released from the pipeline. To date 1,513 barrels (240.5 m³) of liquids, about 5,200 cubic yards (4,000 m³) of soiled snow and 328 cubic yards (251 m³) of soiled gravel have been recovered. After approval from the DOT, only the eastern portion of the field was shut down, resulting in a reduction of 200,000 barrels per day (32,000 m³/d) until work began to bring the eastern field to full production on 2 October 2006.^[87]

In May 2007, the company announced another partial field shutdown owing to leaks of water at a separation plant. Their action was interpreted as another example of fallout from a decision to cut maintenance of the pipeline and associated facilities.^[88]

On 16 October 2007, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation officials reported a toxic spill of methanol (methyl alcohol) at the Prudhoe Bay oil field managed by BP PLC. Nearly 2,000 gallons of mostly methanol, mixed with some crude oil and water, spilled onto a frozen tundra pond as well as a gravel pad from a pipeline. Methanol, which is poisonous to plants and animals, is used to clear ice from the insides of the Arctic-based pipelines.^[89]

2010: Texas City chemical leak

Two weeks prior to the Deepwater Horizon explosion, BP admitted that malfunctioning equipment lead to the release of over 530,000 lbs of chemicals into the air of Texas City and surrounding areas from 6 April to 16 May. The leak included 17,000 pounds of benzene (a known carcinogen), 37,000 pounds of nitrogen oxides (which contribute to respiratory problems), and 186,000 pounds of carbon monoxide.^[90][91]

2010: Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Main articles: Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Deepwater Horizon explosion

Anchor handling tugs combat the fire on the Deepwater Horizon while the United States Coast Guard searches for missing crew.

Public protest in New Orleans following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

On 20 April 2010, the semi-submersible exploratory offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded after a blowout; it sank two days later, killing 11 people. This blowout in the Macondo Prospect field in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in a partially capped oil well one mile below the surface of the water. Experts estimate the gusher to be flowing at 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day (5,600 to 9,500 m³/d) of oil.^[92][93][94] The exact flow rate is uncertain due to the difficulty of installing measurement devices at that depth and is a matter of ongoing debate.^[95] The resulting oil slick covers at least 2,500 square miles (6,500 km²), fluctuating from day to day depending on weather conditions.^[96] It threatens the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Florida.

The drilling rig was owned and operated by Transocean Ltd^[97] on behalf of BP, which is the majority owner of the Macondo oil field. At the time of the explosion, there were 126 crew on board; seven were employees of BP and 79 of Transocean. There were also employees of various other companies involved in the drilling operation, including Anadarko, Halliburton and M-I Swaco.^[98]

The US Government has named BP the responsible party, and officials have committed to hold the company accountable for all clean-up costs and other damage.^[99][100] BP has stated that it would harness all of its resources to battle the oil spill, spending $7 million a day with its partners to try to contain the disaster.^[101] In comparison, BP's 1st quarter profits for 2010 were approximately $61 million per day.^[102] BP has agreed to create a $20 billion spill response fund administered by Kenneth Feinberg.^{[103][104][105]} The amount of this fund is not a cap or a floor on BP's liabilities. BP will pay $3 billion in third quarter of 2010 and $2 billion in fourth quarter into the fund followed by a payment of $1.25 billion per quarter until it reaches $20 billion. In the interim, BP posts its US assets worth $20 billion as bond. For the fund's payments, BP will cut its capital spending budget, sell $10 billion in assets, and drop its dividend.^[103][106] BP has also been targeted in litigation over the claims process it put in place for victims. A class action lawsuit was filed against BP and its initial claims administrator, the ACE, Ltd. Insurance Group company ESIS.^[107]

BP began testing the tighter-fitted cap designed to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico from a broken well for the first time in almost three months.^[108] The test began Wednesday, 14 July with BP shutting off pipes that were funnelling some of the oil to ships on the surface, so the full force of the gusher went up into the cap.^[108] Then deep-sea robots began slowly closing – one at a time – three openings in the cap that let oil pass through.^[108] Ultimately, the flow of crude was stopped.^[108] All along, engineers were and still are watching pressure readings to learn whether the well is intact.^[108] Former coast guard admiral Thad Allen, the Obama administration's point man on the disaster, said the government gave the testing go-ahead after carefully reviewing the risks.^[108] "What we didn't want to do is compound that problem by making an irreversible mistake," he said.^[108]

Stock decline and takeover speculations

Following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, BP's stock fell by 52% in 50 days on the New York Stock Exchange, going from $60.57 on 20 April 2010, to $29.20 on 9 June, its lowest level since August 1996. There were speculations in the press, guided by the commentary of Fred Lucas, Energy Analyst at J.P. Morgan Cazenove, that there would be a takeover of the company, focusing on possible bids from Exxon or Shell at a presumed price of £88 billion.^[109] In addition, BP executives held talks with a number of sovereign wealth funds including funds from Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Qatar and Singapore, for creation of a strategic partnership to avoid takeover by other major oil companies.^[110] BP has either rejected or refused to react to these overtures.

On 27 July 2010, BP announced a net loss of $16.97 billion during the second quarter of 2010, with the oil spill costing $32.2 billion up to that point.^[111] Also on 27 July 2010, BP confirmed that CEO Hayward would resign and be replaced by Bob Dudley on 1 October 2010.^[111]

Mist mountain project

There have been some calls by environmental groups for BP to halt its "Mist Mountain" Coalbed Methane Project in the Southern Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and for the UN to investigate the mining activities.^[112] The proposed 500 km² project is directly adjacent to the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.^[113]

Canadian oil sands

BP is one of numerous firms who are extracting oil from Canadian oil sands, a process that produces four times as much CO₂ as conventional drilling.^[114] The Cree First Nation describe this as 'the biggest environmental crime on the planet'.^[115]

Safety record

1965: Sea Gem offshore oil rig disaster

Main article: Sea Gem

In December 1965, while the BP oil rig Sea Gem was being moved, two of its legs collapsed and the rig capsised. Thirteen crew were killed. Sea Gem was the first British offshore oil rig.^[116]

2005: Texas City Refinery explosion

Main article: Texas City Refinery explosion

In March 2005, BP's Texas City, Texas refinery, one of its largest refineries, exploded causing 15 deaths, injuring 180 people and forcing thousands of nearby residents to remain sheltered in their homes.^[117] A large^{[clarification needed]}column filled with hydrocarbon overflowed to form a vapour cloud, which ignited. The explosion caused all the casualties and substantial damage to the rest of the plant. The incident came as the culmination of a series of less serious accidents at the refinery, and the engineering problems were not addressed by the management. Maintenance and safety at the plant had been cut as a cost-saving measure, the responsibility ultimately resting with executives in London.^[118]

The fallout from the accident continues to cloud BP's corporate image because of the mismanagement at the plant. There have been several investigations of the disaster, the most recent being that from the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board^[119] which "offered a scathing assessment of the company." OSHA found "organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation" and said management failures could be traced from Texas to London.^[117]

The company pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the Clean Air Act, was fined $50 million, and sentenced to three years probation.

On 30 October 2009, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined BP an additional $87 million—the largest fine in OSHA history—for failing to correct safety hazards revealed in the 2005 explosion. Inspectors found 270 safety violations that had been previously cited but not fixed and 439 new violations. BP is appealing that fine.^[117][120] (see #Environmental record).

2006–2010: Refinery fatalities and safety violations

From January 2006 to January 2008, three workers were killed at the company's Texas City, Texas refinery in three separate accidents. In July 2006 a worker was crushed between a pipe stack and mechanical lift, in June 2007, a worker was electrocuted, and in January 2008, a worker was killed by a 500-pound piece of metal that came loose under high pressure and hit him.^[121]

Facing scrutiny after the Texas City Refinery explosion, two BP-owned refineries in Texas City, and Toledo, were responsible for 97 percent (829 of 851) of wilful safety violations by oil refiners between June 2007 and February 2010, as determined by inspections by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of labour at OSHA, said "The only thing you can conclude is that BP has a serious, systemic safety problem in their company."^[122]

Disclosed US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks revealed that BP had covered up a gas leak and blowout incident in September 2008 at a gas field under production in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshi area of the Azerbaijan Caspian Sea. According to the cables, BP was lucky to have been able to evacuate everyone safely given the explosive potential. BP did not only hold back information to the public about the incident but even upset its partner firms in limiting the information shared. In January 2009, BP blaimed a bad cement job as the cause for the incident. The Guardian noted a striking resemblance with the later oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.^[123]

2009: North Sea helicopter accident

Main article: April 2009 North Sea helicopter crash

On 1 April 2009, a Bond Offshore Helicopters Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma ferrying workers from BP's platform in the Miller oilfield in the North Sea off Scotland crashed in good weather killing all 16 on board.^[124][125]

2010: Deepwater Horizon well explosion

Main article: Deepwater Horizon explosion

The 20 April 2010 explosion on BP's offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in the deaths of eleven people and caused the biggest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.^{[126][127][128]}

Political record

2007: Propane price manipulation

Four BP energy traders in Houston were charged with manipulating prices of propane in October 2007. As part of the settlement of the case, BP paid the US government a $303 million fine, the largest commodity market settlement ever in the US. The settlement included a $125 million civil fine to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, $100 million to the Justice Department, $53.3 million to a restitution fund for purchasers of the propane BP sold, and $25 million to a US Postal Service consumer fraud education fund.^[129][130]

2008: Oil price manipulation

In May 2010, the Supreme Court of Arbitration of the Russian Federation agreed in support of the country’s antimonopoly service’s decision to a 1.1 billion Ruble fine ($35.2 million) against TNK/BP, a 50/50 joint venture, for abusing anti-trust legislation and setting artificially high oil products prices in 2008, TNK and BP declined comment.^[131]

Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline

BP has been criticised for its involvement with Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline due to human rights, environmental and safety concerns.^[132]

Colombian pipeline

In July 2006, a group of Colombian farmers won a multi-million pound settlement from BP after the company was accused of benefiting from a regime of terror carried out by Colombian government paramilitaries to protect the 450-mile (720 km) Ocensa pipeline.^[133]

Contributions to political campaigns

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, BP is the United States' hundredth largest donor to political campaigns, having contributed more than US$5 million since 1990, 72% and 28% of which went to Republican and Democratic recipients, respectively. BP has lobbied to gain exemptions from US corporate law reforms.^[134] Additionally, BP paid the Podesta Group, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm, $160,000 in the first half of 2007 to manage its congressional and government relations.^[135]

In February 2002, BP's chief executive, Lord Browne of Madingley, renounced the practice of corporate campaign contributions, noting: "That's why we've decided, as a global policy, that from now on we will make no political contributions from corporate funds anywhere in the world."^[136]

Despite this, in 2009 BP used nearly US$16 million to lobby US Congress, breaking the company's previous record (from 2008) of US$10.4 million.^[137]

See also

	London portal
	Companies portal
	Energy portal

• Oil fields operated by BP
• Shell-Mex and BP
• BP Solar
• BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team
• Deepwater Horizon oil spill

References

1. ^ "Executive Compensation at BP". http://www.neumann-compensation.com/managers/company/bp-plc/. Retrieved 12 Jul. 2010. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} "Annual Results 2011" (PDF). BP. 2 February 2010. http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:BP&fstype=ii. Retrieved 11 Jun. 2010. 
3. ^ "BP plc 2009 Securities and Exchange Commission Form 20-F" (PDF) (Press release). BP plc. 2010. http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/STAGING/global_assets/downloads/I/BP_20-F_2009.pdf. Retrieved 11 Jun. 2010. 
4. ^ "Across Atlantic, Much Ado About Oil Company’s Name". The New York Times. 12 Jun. 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/us/politics/13bp.html. Retrieved 17 Jun. 2010. 
5. ^ "Global 500 – Full List". Fortune. 26 July 2010. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2010/full_list/. Retrieved 30 August 2010. 
6. ^ Steigerwald, Bill (10 Jun. 2008). "It's about time oil started defending itself". Townhall.com. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/BillSteigerwald/2008/06/10/its_about_time_big_oil_started_defending_itself. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
7. ^ "Key facts and figures". BP p.l.c.. http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9021229&contentId=7039276. Retrieved 30 August 2010. 
8. ^ "Group results – Third quarter 2010". BP p.l.c.. http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/STAGING/global_assets/downloads/B/bp_third_quarter_2010_results.pdf. Retrieved 6 November 2010. 
9. ^ "Two Westlake Park, Houston, TX : Hines Interests". Hines Interests. http://www.hines.com/property/detail.aspx?id=1463. Retrieved 11 Jun. 2010. 
10. ^ "BP in the United States". BP p.l.c.. http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=488&contentId=2000734. Retrieved 27 August 2010. 
11. ^ "Key facts and figures". BP p.l.c.. http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9021229&contentId=7039276. Retrieved 27 August 2010. 
12. ^ "BP.com: History of BP – Post war". http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9014443&contentId=7027523. Retrieved 3 Jul. 2010. "In 1954, the board changed the company’s name to The British Petroleum Company" 
13. ^ Tharoor, Ishaan (2 Jun. 2010). "A Brief History of BP". TIME magazine. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1993361,00.html. Retrieved 3 Jul. 2010. "In 1954, in an attempt perhaps to move beyond its image as a quasi-colonial enterprise, the company rebranded itself the British Petroleum Company" 
14. ^ "BP tackles climate change threat with £200m boost for energy efficiency". London: The Telegraph. 25 October 2005. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2954970/BP-tackles-climate-change-threat-with-200m-boost-for-energy-efficiency.html. Retrieved 9 February 2011. 
15. ^ "BP to invest $1 bln plus in alt energy this year". Reuters. 13 April 2010. http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/04/13/bp-altenergy-idUSN1310080220100413. Retrieved 9 February 2011. 
16. ^ "FTSE All-Share Index Ranking". stockchallenge.co.uk. http://www.stockchallenge.co.uk/ftse.php. Retrieved 26 December 2011. 
17. ^ ^{a b c} "Australian Dictionary of Biography". Adb.online.anu.edu.au. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080230b.htm. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
18. ^ Myers, Kevin (3 September 2009). "The greatest 20th century beneficiary of popular mythology has been the cad Churchill". Irish Independent. http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/the-greatest-20th-century-beneficiary-of-popular-mythology-has-been-the-cad-churchill-1876680.html. 
19. ^ Yousof Mazandi, United Press, and Edwin Muller, Government by Assassination (Reader's Digest September 1951).
20. ^ "Britain Fights Oil Nationalism". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-chapter1.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
21. ^ ^{a b} "BP: History at Funding Universe". Fundinguniverse.com. http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-British-Petroleum-Company-plc-Company-History.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
22. ^ Sztucki, Jerzy (1984). Interim measures in the Hague Court. Brill Archive. p. 43. ISBN 9789065440938. http://books.google.com/books?id=3yDlnBv6Y8cC&lpg=PA43&ots=3VRY_7MGuX&dq=AIOC%20hague%20iran&pg=PA43. 
23. ^ ^{a b} "How a Plot Convulsed Iran in '53 (and in '79)". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-intro.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
24. ^ "New York Times article, 1953". Partners.nytimes.com. 20 Aug. 1953. http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/082053iran-army.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
25. ^ Kinzer, All the Shah's Men, (2003), pp. 195–6.
26. ^ Everest, Larry. "Background to Confrontation". Revcom.us. http://revcom.us/a/090/iran-pt2-en.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
27. ^ "Natural Gas and Alaska's Future: The Facts page 22" (PDF). http://www.investfairbanks.com/Projects/PDFs/Vol.1_The_Facts.pdf. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
28. ^ "BP dossier". Sea-us.org.au. 21 Nov. 1999. http://www.sea-us.org.au/gulliver/bp.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
29. ^ ^{a b} "Sohio timeline". Dantiques.com. 1 Jun. 1913. http://www.dantiques.com/sohio/timeline.htm. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
30. ^ "TNK appoints Sir Peter Walters". Prnewswire.co.uk. 13 Jun. 2002. http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=86627. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
31. ^ Poole, Robert W.. "Privatisation". Econlib.org. http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Privatization.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
32. ^ Steve Lohr (19 November 1987). "Kuwait Has 10% Of B.P.; Price Put At $900 Million". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/19/business/kuwait-has-10-of-bp-price-put-at-900-million.html?sec=&spon=. Retrieved 11 Jun. 2010. 
33. ^ "Britain drops a barrier to BP bid". New York Times. Associated Press. 5 Feb. 1988. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE7DF1F30F936A35751C0A96E948260. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
34. ^ "Organising for performance: how BP did it". Gsb.stanford.edu. http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0502/feature_bp.shtml. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
35. ^ "Company Profile". chevron.com. http://www.chevron.com/about/leadership/. Retrieved 5 May 2010. 
36. ^ "Royal Academy of Engineering". Raeng.org.uk. http://www.raeng.org.uk/about/fellowship/fame/browne.htm. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
37. ^ "BP and Amoco in oil mega-merger". BBC News. 11 Aug. 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/the_company_file/149139.stm. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
38. ^ ^{a b} "BP Parent Company Name Change Following AGM Approval". BP.com. 1 May 2001. http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=2001578. Retrieved 11 Jun. 2010. 
39. ^ Brierley, David (4 Apr. 1999). "BP strikes it rich in America". The Independent (London). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/bp-strikes-it-rich-in-america-1084972.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
40. ^ "BP Amoco Agrees Recommended Cash Offer To Buy Burmah Castrol For £3 ($4.7) Billion". BP.com. 14 March 2000. http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=2000691. Retrieved 11 Jun. 2010. 
41. ^ Life: The Observer Magazine – A celebration of 500 years of British Art – 19 March 2000
42. ^ "BP sells chemical unit for £5bn". BBC News. 7 Oct. 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4321046.stm. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
43. ^ Raabe, Steve (2 Jun. 2005). "BP puts 100 gas stations up for sale in Colorado.(British Petroleum Company PLC)". Accessmylibrary.com. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/premium/0286/0286-8415795.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
44. ^ "Gas station signs of change". Nl.newsbank.com. 18 Nov. 2005. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=RM&p_theme=rm&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=10DF72B65CF64A98&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
45. ^ "Penny Shares Online: BP(BP.)". 10 July 2006. Archived from the original on 7 August 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070807121434/http://www.pennysharesonline.com/company/B/BP-BP..asp. Retrieved 11 Jun. 2010. 
46. ^ "BP Set to Leave Russia Gas Project" by Guy Chazan and Gregory White, Wall Street Journal, 22 June 2007 p. A3.
47. ^ "BP to Sell Most Company-Owned, Company-Operated Convenience Stores to Franchisees" (Press release). BP. 15 Nov. 2007. http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7038464. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
48. ^ "BP CEO set to retire". Findarticles.com. 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5322/is_200702/ai_n21282860. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. ^{[dead link]}
49. ^ Ian Cobain and Clare Dyer (2 May 2007). "BP's Browne quits over lie". Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/may/02/media.pressandpublishing. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
50. ^ Young, Sarah; Falloon, Matt Falloon (30 September 2010). "New BP CEO says hopes to restore dividend in 2011". Reuters. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2010/09/30/uk-bp-dividend-idUKTRE68T3WR20100930. Retrieved 30 January 2011. 
51. ^ "BP and Russia in Arctic oil deal". BBC News. 14 January 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12195576. 
52. ^ "Rosneft and BP Form Global and Arctic Strategic alliance". Rosneft. 14 January 2011. http://www.rosneft.com/news/pressrelease/15012011.html. 
53. ^ "BP announces $7.2B partnership with India's Reliance". New York Post. 21 February 2011. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/bp_announces_partnership_with_india_yE2nehOk1lvfc7TbYVHo0I?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=. 
54. ^ "The Board". BP. http://www.bp.com/managedlistingsection.do?categoryId=9021801&contentId=7040608. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
55. ^ UK Companies House website
56. ^ P.R. WEEK, US EDITION, 17 April 2000, P23.
57. ^ “Charlex creates BP spot” www.charlex.com/news/BP/BP.press.html
58. ^ "Beyond petroleum". BP. http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9028308&contentId=7019491. Retrieved 6 May 2010. 
59. ^ Monbiot, George (13 June 2006). "Behind the spin, the oil giants are more dangerous than ever". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1796114,00.html. Retrieved 26 April 2010. 
60. ^ "Edinburgh Evening News". Edinburghnews.scotsman.com. http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/business.cfm?id=2148262005. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
61. ^ "BP wins coveted 'Emerald Paintbrush' award for worst greenwash of 2008". Greenpeace.org.uk. 22 December 2008. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/bps-wins-coveted-emerald-paintbrush-award-worst-greenwash-2008-20081218. Retrieved 1 May 2010. 
62. ^ "BP – nominated for green spin on the activities of the company". Climategreenwash.org. http://www.climategreenwash.org/bp. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
63. ^ Weber, Harry (30 July 2010). "Time to scrap BP brand? Gas-station owners divided". News & Observer. Associated Press. http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/07/30/604377/us-gas-stations-stay-bp-or-change.html. Retrieved 30 July 2010. ^{[dead link]}
64. ^ "Marine Assurance". Bp.com. 1 January 2008. http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9019836&contentId=7036987. Retrieved 17 July 2010. 
65. ^ "BP Shipping Fleet". Bp.com. http://www.bp.com/managedlistingsection.do?categoryId=9019823&contentId=7036789. Retrieved 17 July 2010. 
66. ^ "Bespaar tijd en geld" (in Dutch). BP Europa SE – BP Nederland. http://www.bpexpress.nl. Retrieved 6 May 2010. 
67. ^ "Smart, Fearless Journalism". Mother Jones. http://motherjones.com/. Retrieved 17 July 2010. 
68. ^ "Ten Worst Corporations of 2000". Motherjones.com. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2001/01/fotc33.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
69. ^ "The 10 Worst Corporations of 2005". Multinationalmonitor.org. 14 Oct. 2005. http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2005/112005/mokhiber.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
70. ^ "bp: Beyond Petroleum?". Uow.edu.au. http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/sbeder/bp.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
71. ^ "SaveTheArctic.com". SaveTheArctic.com. http://savethearctic.com/arctic.asp?id2=3865&id3=arctic&. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
72. ^ GB application 1435945, British Petroleum CO, "Oil Clean-Up Method", published 12 May 1976 
73. ^ "Main Home". Energy Biosciences Institute. 27 Jul. 2006. http://www.energybiosciencesinstitute.org/. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
74. ^ "Stop BP-Berkeley". Stop BP-Berkeley. http://www.stopbp-berkeley.org/. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
75. ^ "BP Funnels Millions into Lobbying to Influence Regulation and Re-Brand Image". Interviewer: Amy Goodman, Guest: Antonia Juhasz. Amy Goodman's Weekly Column. Democracy Now. 5 May 2010.
76. ^ Carbon Scam: Noel Kempff Climate Action Project and the Push for Sub-national Forest Offsets Sub-prime carbon brought to you by AEP, BP, and Pacificorp, Greenpeace 10/2009 pages 4–5
77. ^ "Solar Completes Manufacturing Restructuring With Closure of Frederick, MD Factory | Press". BP. 26 March 2010. http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7059551. Retrieved 17 July 2010. 
78. ^ "BP Solar to provide PV solar systems to Wal-Mart in California". Ecoseed.org. 23 April 2009. http://ecoseed.org/en/general-green-news/green-business-news/latest-deals-a-ventures/1760-bp-solar-to-provide-pv-solar-systems-to-wal-mart-in-california. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
79. ^ ^{a b} Murray, Terrence (1 February 2011). "BP Plans $1B Wind, biofuel Investments For 2011". IB Times. http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/20110201/bp-plans-1b-wind-biofuel-investments-for-2011.htm. 
80. ^ Michael Sanderson (2002). The History of the University of East Anglia. Hambledon and London. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=50HjSi5o8J0C&pg=PA285#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 15 Oct. 2010. 
81. ^ "Global Climate Coalition". Sourcewatch. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Global_Climate_Coalition. Retrieved 11 Jun. 2010. 
82. ^ mindfully.org (13 Feb. 2001). "How green is BP?". Mindfully.org. http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/BP-How-Green8dec02.htm. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
83. ^ "Scripps Institution". Scrippsco2.ucsd.edu. http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/introduction/introduction.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
84. ^ "BP Exploration [Alaska Pleads Guilty To Hazardous Substance Crime Will Pay $22 Million, Establish Nationwide Environmental Management System"]. United States Environmental Protection Agency. 23 September 1999. http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/016bcfb1deb9fecd85256aca005d74df/5d61856989631e20852567f6004bbbff?OpenDocument. Retrieved 11 Jun. 2010. 
85. ^ Mark Tran (19 July 2006). "BP shuts leaking Alaskan wells". The Guardian (London). http://money.guardian.co.uk/businessnews/article/0,,1824145,00.html. 
86. ^ "Alaska Oil Spill Fuels Concerns Over Arctic Wildlife, Future Drilling". News.nationalgeographic.com. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0320_060320_alaska_oil.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
87. ^ "Alaska Update". BP. 2 October 2006. http://usresponse.bp.com/go/doc/1249/132386/. 
88. ^ Andrew Clark in New York (1 May 2007). "BP accused of 'draconian' cost cuts prior to Alaskan pipeline spill". Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/may/01/energy.business. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
89. ^ "Methanol and crude spill from Prudhoe Bay pipeline". Associated Press. 2 News KTUU.com. 16 October 2007. Archived from the original on 13 November 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071113155521/http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=7221594. Retrieved 11 Jun. 2010. 
90. ^ By T.J. Aulds (5 June 2010). "The Galveston County Daily News". Galvestondailynews.com. http://galvestondailynews.com/story/157738/. Retrieved 17 July 2010. 
91. ^ "BP Texas Refinery Had Huge Toxic Release Just Before Gulf Blowout". ProPublica. http://www.propublica.org/article/bp-texas-refinery-had-huge-toxic-release-just-before-gulf-blowout. Retrieved 17 July 2010. 
92. ^ "Oil estimate raised to 35,000–60,000 barrels a day". CNN. 15 Jun. 2010. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/06/15/oil.spill.disaster/index.html. Retrieved 15 Jun. 2010. 
93. ^ . http://howmanygallonsspilled.com/. Retrieved 17 Jun. 2010. 
94. ^ Macdonald, Ian; Amos, John; Crone, Timothy; Wereley, Steve (21 May 2010). "The Measure of an Oil Disaster". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/opinion/22macdonald.html. Retrieved 1 Jun. 2010. 
95. ^ Gillis, Justin (18 May 2010). "Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html. Retrieved 18 May 2010. 
96. ^ Bigg, Matthew (3 May 2010). "Progress toward Gulf oil well cap". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6424KO20100503. Retrieved 13 May 2010. 
97. ^ "BP vows to pay all costs of oil spill cleanup". CBC (CBC News services). 3 May 2010. http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/05/03/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill.html. Retrieved 10 May 2010. 
98. ^ Daily Mail special investigation article: Why is BP taking ALL the blame? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1287226/GULF-OIL-SPILL-Whys-BP-taking-blame.html
99. ^ "Salazar: Oil spill 'massive' and a potential catastrophe". CNN. 2 May 2010. http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/02/salazar-oil-spill-massive-and-a-potential-catastrophe/. Retrieved 1 May 2010. 
100. ^ "Guard mobilized, BP will foot bill". Politico (Capitol News Company LLC). 1 May 2010. http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0410/cabinetlevel_oil_spill_meet_bcb87e48-b21e-4b72-8716-3d3a87ac7ffa.html. Retrieved 1 May 2010. 
101. ^ White, Ronald D. (30 April 2010). "For BP, oil spill is a public relations catastrophe". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/30/business/la-fi-gulf-bp-20100501. Retrieved 1 May 2010. 
102. ^ "First quarter 2010 results". British Petroleum (BP p.l.c.). 27 April 2010. http://www.bp.com/extendedgenericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7061409. Retrieved 19 May 2010. 
103. ^ ^{a b} Brenner, Noah (17 Jun. 2010). "Hayward says spill 'never should have happened'". Upstream Online (NHST Media Group). http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article218091.ece. Retrieved 17 Jun. 2010. 
104. ^ "White House: BP Will Pay $20B Into Gulf Spill Fund". NPR. 16 Jun. 2010. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127879786. 
105. ^ Weisman, Jonathan; Chazan, Guy (16 Jun. 2010). "BP Halts Dividend, Agrees to $20 Billion Fund for Victims". The Wall Street Journal (Dow Jones & Company). http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575310571698602094.html. Retrieved 16 Jun. 2010. 
106. ^ "BP to fund $20bn Gulf of Mexico oil spill payout". BBC News. 16 Jun. 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10335114.stm. Retrieved 16 Jun. 2010. 
107. ^ "STATE OF ALABAMA et al v. BP, PLC et al". ACE Insurance Litigation Watch. 28 June 2010. http://ace-insurance-litigation.com/ace-ina-litigation/case/state-alabama-et-al-v-bp-plc-et-al. 
108. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} "BP turns to next attempt after top kill fails". Associated Press. 14 July 2010. 
109. ^ Mason, Rowena (29 Jun. 2010). "Exxon or Shell should buy BP for £88bn, says analyst". The Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7862274/Exxon-or-Shell-should-buy-BP-for-88bn-says-analyst.html. Retrieved 6 Jul. 2010. 
110. ^ "'BP seeking strategic partners'". Upstream Online (NHST Media Group). 6 Jul. 2010. http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article220110.ece. Retrieved 6 Jul. 2010. 
111. ^ ^{a b} "BP Launches Image Overhaul, Ditches CEO". CNBC.com. 27 July 2010. http://www.cnbc.com/id/38423142. Retrieved 19 December 2010. 
112. ^ Earthjustice Asks UN & International Joint Commission to Address Mining and Gas Drilling Threats To Glacier National Park^{[dead link]}
113. ^ Citizens concerned about project
114. ^ The tactics of these rogue climate elements must not succeed.
115. ^ Cree aboriginal group to join London climate camp protest over tar sands.
116. ^ "The Story of the Sea Gem, the first rig to discover North Sea Gas in the UK sector". Dukes Wood Oil Museum. http://www.dukeswoodoilmuseum.co.uk/sea_gem.htm. Retrieved 13 June 2010. 
117. ^ ^{a b c} ""Gulf oil spill: BP has a long record of legal, ethical violations" 8 May 2010 by McClatchy Washington Bureau". Mcclatchydc.com. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/08/93779/bp-has-a-long-record-of-legal.html#ixzz0nZaTzdqN. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
118. ^ "Baker Panel Report". http://www.bp.com/bakerpanelreport. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
119. ^ "U.S. Chemical Safety And Hazard Investigation Board Investigation Report on the BP Refinery Explosion and Fire of 23 March 2005 and BP's Safety Culture" (PDF). http://www.csb.gov/assets/document/CSBFinalReportBP.pdf. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
120. ^ Associated Press, "BP fined record $87 million for safety breaches", 31 October 2009.
121. ^ Mark Collette (17 January 2008). "Attorney: Equipment failed in BP death". The Daily News. http://www.galvnews.com/story/112980/. Retrieved 11 Jun. 2010. 
122. ^ J. Morris and M.B. Pell (16 May 2010). "Renegade Refiner: OSHA Says BP Has "Systemic Safety Problem"". The Center for Public Integrity. http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry/2085/. Retrieved 11 Jun. 2010. 
123. ^ Tim Webb (16 Dec. 2010). "WikiLeaks cables: BP suffered blowout on Azerbaijan gas platform". The Guardian (UK). http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/15/wikileaks-bp-azerbaijan-gulf-spill. Retrieved 16 Dec. 2010. 
124. ^ Times of London, Helicopters grounded by BP as hope ends for sixteen lost in crash, Melanie Reid, 2 April 2009, accessed 1 June 2010, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6025461.ece
125. ^ Times of London, All 16 on board North Sea Helicopter killed in crash, 2 April 2009, David Byers, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6020787.ece
126. ^ Estimates Suggest Spill Is Biggest in U.S. History
127. ^ ""Bird Habitats Threatened by Oil Spill" from National Wildlife". National Wildlife Federation. 30 Apr. 2010. http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Birds/Archives/2010/Oil-Spill-Birds.aspx. Retrieved 3 May 2010. 
128. ^ Gulf Oil Slick Endangering Ecology (web streaming). CBS Broadcasting. 30 Apr. 2010. http://wcco.com/video/?id=78277. Retrieved 1 May 2010. 
129. ^ Houston Chronicle, Four BP traders charges with price manipulation, 25 Oct 2007, accessed 28 May 2010, http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/5245852.html
130. ^ US Dept of Justice, BP to pay More than $373 million in environmental crimes, fraud cases, 25 Oct 2007 press release, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2007/October/07_ag_850.html
131. ^ Platts, Russian supreme court backs antitrust fines against TNK-BP, 26 May 2010, accessed 1 June 2010, Nadia Rodova, http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews.aspx?xmlpath=RSSFeed/HeadlineNews/Oil/8751289.xml
132. ^ "The Baku Ceyhan Pipeline: BP's Time Bomb". Gnn.tv. http://www.gnn.tv/articles/1512/The_Baku_Ceyhan_Pipeline_BP_s_Time_Bomb. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
133. ^ Verkaik, Robert (22 Jul. 2006). "BP pays out millions to Colombian farmers". The Independent (London). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bp-pays-out-millions-to-colombian-farmers-408816.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
134. ^ "BP". The Center For Responsive Politics. http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.asp?ID=D000000091&Name=BP. 
135. ^ "BP". The Center for Responsive Politics. http://opensecrets.org/lobbyists/clientsum.asp?year=2007&txtname=BP. 
136. ^ Terry Macalister and Michael White (16 April 2002). "BP stops paying political parties". Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4365524,00.html. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2010. 
137. ^ Juhasz, Antonia (2 May 2010). "BP spends millions lobbying as it drills ever deeper and the environment pays". The Observer (UK). http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/may/02/bp-deepwater-horizon-oil-spills. Retrieved 6 May 2010. 

Further reading

• Ferrier, R.W. (1982). The History of the British Petroleum Company: The Developing Years 1901–1932. vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521246474. 
• Bamberg, James H (1994). The History of the British Petroleum Company: The Anglo-Iranian Years, 1928–1954. vol. II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521259509. 
• Bamberg, James H (2000). The History of the British Petroleum Company: British Petroleum and Global Oil, 1950–1975: The Challenge of Nationalism. vol. III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521259517. 
• Meyer, Karl E; Brysac, Shareen (2008). Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 97803930619944. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: BP

Official

• Official website
• BP's Corporate History
• BP Solar
• BP Whiting Refinery Information
• Statistical Review of World Energy
• BP's YouTube page

Other

• BP companies grouped at OpenCorporates
• Company details, list of subsidiaries, and major shareholders

v d e BP Divisions Air Alaska Amoco Ampm Aral ARCO Australia BP Connect Britoil Burmah Canada Castrol Iraq National Shell-Mex and BP Ohio Prudhoe Bay Russia Solar Shipping Facilities Oil fields Amoco Building (Chicago) Amoco Building (New Orleans) ARCO Tower Atlantis PQ Deepwater Horizon Helios House Kingsbury Iolair Mad Dog Northstar Richfield Tower Sangachal Sea Quest Seillean Sullom Voe Thunder Horse Sponsorships ARCO Arena BP Ford World Rally Team BP National Championships BP Natural World Book Prize BP Pedestrian Bridge BP Portrait Award BP Professor of Organic Chemistry BP Top 8 BP Ultimate Acropolis Rally People Robert Anderson Sylvia Baca Baron Browne Robert Dudley William Fraser William D'Arcy Tony Hayward Robert Horton Doug Suttles Carl-Henric Svanberg Controversies Abadan crisis Amoco Milford Haven Deepwater Horizon explosion Deepwater Horizon spill Invasion of Iran Iranian coup Torrey Canyon Prudhoe Bay spill Texas City explosion Other Anglo-Persian Oil Company BP America Production Co. v. Burton BP Structure Burmah Oil Co. v Lord Advocate D'Arcy Concession Llandarcy North Sea crash Opal United Kingdom v. Iran Annual revenue  $246.1 billion USD (2009) Employees 92,000 (2009) Stock symbol LSE: BP Website BP.com Category Commons

Links to related articles v d e FTSE 100 companies of the United Kingdom   → FTSE 250 As of 19 December 2011: Admiral Group Aggreko AMEC Anglo American Antofagasta ARM Holdings Ashmore Group Associated British Foods AstraZeneca Aviva BAE Systems Barclays BG Group BHP Billiton BP British American Tobacco British Land Company British Sky Broadcasting BT Group Bunzl Burberry Group CRH Cairn Energy Capita Group Capital Shopping Centres Group Carnival Centrica Compass Group Diageo Essar Energy Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Experian Evraz Fresnillo G4S GKN GlaxoSmithKline Glencore International Hammerson Hargreaves Lansdown HSBC ICAP IMI Imperial Tobacco InterContinental Hotels Group International Airlines Group International Power Intertek Group ITV Johnson Matthey Kazakhmys Kingfisher Land Securities Group Legal & General Lloyds Banking Group Man Group Marks & Spencer Meggitt Wm Morrison Supermarkets National Grid Next Old Mutual Pearson Petrofac Polymetal International Prudential Randgold Resources Reckitt Benckiser Reed Elsevier Resolution Rexam Rio Tinto Group Rolls-Royce Group The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Royal Dutch Shell RSA Insurance Group SABMiller Sage Group J Sainsbury Schroders Serco Group Severn Trent Shire Smith & Nephew Smiths Group SSE Standard Chartered Standard Life Tate & Lyle Tesco Tullow Oil Unilever United Utilities Vedanta Resources Vodafone Weir Group Whitbread Wolseley WPP Xstrata v d e Energy in the United Kingdom   Companies Coal Anglo American · Asia Energy · B9 Coal · BHP Billiton · Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation · Rio Tinto Group · UK Coal · Xstrata Oil and gas Integrated BG Group · BP · Royal Dutch Shell Distribution and supply Bayford & Co · Greenergy · Murco Petroleum · Scottish Fuels Exploration and production Afren · BHP Billiton · Cairn Energy · Centrica · Chevron UK1 · Dana Petroleum · Desire Petroleum · Emerald Energy · EnQuest · Essar Energy · Falkland Oil and Gas · Hardy Oil and Gas · JKX Oil & Gas · Melrose Resources · Perenco · Premier Oil · Regal Petroleum · Rockhopper Exploration · Salamander Energy · SOCO International · Star Energy · Statoil UK1 · Total UK1 · Tullow Oil · Xtract Energy Support Abbot Group · AMEC · Ensco · Expro International Group · Hunting · M. W. Kellogg1 · Petrofac · Qserv · Score Group · Weir Group · WesternGeco1 · Wood Group Utilities Generation and  supply Integrated Centrica · EDF Energy1 · E.ON UK1 · RWE npower1 · Scottish Power1 · SSE Electricity generation Drax Group · Falck Renewables · Horizon Nuclear Power1 · International Power · Vedanta Resources · Wind Prospect Supply Ecotricity · ESB International · Firmus Energy · First Utility · Good Energy · Green Energy · Ovo Energy · Phoenix Natural Gas · Telecom Plus Distribution Electricity  Electricity North West1 · Northern Powergrid1 · SP Energy Networks1 · SSE Power Distribution · UK Power Networks1 · Western Power Distribution1 Gas Firmus Energy · National Grid · Northern Gas Networks · Phoenix Natural Gas · Scotia Gas Networks · Wales & West Utilities1 Transmission Electricity  National Grid2 · Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission · SP Energy Networks1 Gas National Grid Other Aggreko · APX-ENDEX · Aquamarine Power · Ecogen · Energyhelpline · Energylinx · EnServe (British Power International) · Geothermal Engineering · Mark Group · Wavegen Companies with headquarters and/or registered office in the UK but no applicable energy operations within the country shown in italics 1Ultimate parent company is not UK-based 2Integrated in the United States, no generation or supply activities in the UK   Energy sources Coal Coal Authority · Coal-fired power stations · Coal mines · Coal mining regions · Confederation of UK Coal Producers · Greenhouse gas emissions · History (Miners' strike · National Coal Board) · Open-pit coal mining Electricity Association of Electricity Producers · BritNed · East–West Interconnector · Energy switching services · Economy 7 · Economy 10 · Electricity billing (Data collector · Meter operator · Meter Point Administration Number · Meter serial number) · Green electricity · GTMA · HVDC Cross-Channel · HVDC Moyle · HVDC Norway–UK · Isle of Man to England Interconnector · National Grid (Control of the National Grid · National Grid Reserve Service · Registered power zone · TV pickup) · New Electricity Trading Arrangements · Power stations · Timeline of the electricity supply industry Nuclear Advanced gas-cooled reactor · Franco–British Nuclear Forum · Magnox · National Nuclear Laboratory · Nuclear Decommissioning Authority · Nuclear Liabilities Fund · Nuclear power stations · Office for Nuclear Regulation · Sellafield · United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Oil and gas BBL Pipeline · Dash for Gas · Forties pipeline system · Fuel protests · Gas infrastructure · Greenhouse gas emissions · Hydrocarbon oil duty · National Transmission System · Natural gas fields · Natural gas-fired power stations · North Sea oil · Oil & Gas UK · Oil fields · Oil-fired power stations · Oil infrastructure · Oil refineries · Petroleum revenue tax Renewables Biofuels Biodiesel · Biofuel power stations · National Non-Food Crops Centre · Renewable Fuels Agency · Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation Geothermal Geothermal power stations Hydroelectricity Hydroelectric power stations · Severn Barrage · Wave farms Solar power Wind power List of offshore wind farms · List of onshore wind farms · North Sea Offshore Grid · Wind power in Scotland · Wind turbines   Government and regulation Organisations The Carbon Trust · Cenex · Committee on Climate Change · Consumer Focus · Department of Energy and Climate Change · Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs · Energy Saving Trust · Environment Agency · Office of Gas and Electricity Markets · Sustainable Development Commission Legislation and initiatives Carbon Emission Reduction Target · Climate Change Act 2008 · Climate Change Agreement · Climate Change Levy · Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Act 2006 · CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme · Display Energy Certificate · Energy Performance Certificate · Fossil Fuel Levy · Low Carbon Building Programme · National Industrial Symbiosis Programme · Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation · Planning Act 2008 · Renewable Heat Incentive · Renewables Obligation · United Kingdom Climate Change Programme   Non-governmental organisations Charities and pressure groups Ashden Award · BioRegional · Campaign against Climate Change · Centre for Alternative Technology · National Energy Action · Stop Climate Chaos · Tyndall Centre Industry and professional bodies Combined Heat and Power Association · Energy Institute · Energy Networks Association · Energy Retail Association · Green Power Forum · RenewableUK · Utilities Intermediaries Association Research Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology · Energy Technologies Institute · Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research · NaREC · Oil Depletion Analysis Centre · UK Energy Research Centre   Energy conservation Association for the Conservation of Energy · British Energy Efficiency Federation · Close the Door campaign · Code for Sustainable Homes · Double Glazing & Conservatory Ombudsman Scheme · EcoHomes · Energy efficiency in British housing · Energy Saving Trust (Energy Saving Trust Recommended) · Greenhouse gas emissions · HTB · National Home Energy Rating Category ·  Commons v d e Petroleum industry Petroleum · Primary energy Benchmarks Argus Sour · Bonny Light · Brent · Dubai · Indonesian · Isthmus-34 Light · Japan Cocktail · OPEC Reference Basket · Tapis · Urals · West Texas Intermediate Companies and organisations Major petroleum companies Supermajors BP · Chevron · ConocoPhillips · ExxonMobil · Royal Dutch Shell · Total National oil companies ADNOC · CNOOC · CNPC · Iraq National Oil Company · Indian Oil Corporation · Kuwait Petroleum Corporation · Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation · NIOC · ONGC · Orlen · PDVSA · Pertamina · Petrobras · Petronas · Qatar Petroleum · Rosneft · Saudi Aramco · Sonangol · Sonatrach Other Anadarko · Apache · BG Group · Cenovus Energy · Eni · Galp Energia · Gazprom · Hess · Husky Energy · Imperial Oil · Lukoil · Marathon Oil · Nippon Oil · Occidental · OMV · PetroChina · Reliance Industries · Repsol YPF · Sinopec · Statoil · Suncor Energy · Surgutneftegas · TNK-BP Major services companies AMEC · Baker Hughes · CGGVeritas · CH2M HILL · China Oilfield Services · Enbridge · Ensco · GE Oil & Gas · Halliburton · National Oilwell Varco · Petrofac · Saipem · Schlumberger · Technip · TransCanada · Transocean · Weatherford · Wood Group Other International Association of Oil & Gas Producers · International Energy Agency · International Petroleum Exchange · OPEC · Society of Petroleum Engineers · World Petroleum Council Data Natural gas Consumption · Production · Reserves · Imports · Exports · Price Petroleum Consumption · Production · Reserves · Imports · Exports · Price (Price of gasoline and diesel) Exploration and production Exploration Core sampling · Geophysics · Integrated asset modelling · Petroleum engineering (Reservoir simulation · Seismic to simulation) · Petroleum geology · Petrophysics · Reflection seismology (Seismic inversion) · Seismic source Drilling Blowouts · Completion (Squeeze job) · Differential sticking · Directional drilling (Geosteering) · Drilling engineering · Drilling fluid · Drilling fluid invasion · Drill stem test · Lost circulation · Measurement · Tracers · Underbalanced drilling · Well logging Production Agreements (Concessions · Production sharing agreements) · Artificial lift (Pumpjack · Submersible pump (ESP) · Gas lift) · Downstream · Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) (Steam injection · Gas reinjection) · Midstream · Petroleum product · Pipeline transport · Refining · Upstream · Water injection · Well intervention · XT History 1967 Oil Embargo · 1973 oil crisis · 1979 energy crisis · 1980s oil glut · 2000s energy crisis · Founders · History of petroleum · Nationalization · Seven Sisters · Standard Oil · Oil market timelines Provinces and fields List of natural gas fields · List of oil fields · East Texas · Gulf of Mexico · Niger Delta · North Sea · Persian Gulf · Prudhoe Bay Oil Field · Russia · Venezuela · Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin Other Acronymns · Peak oil (Mitigation · Timing) · People · Petrocurrency · Petrodollar · Shale gas · Swing producer · Unconventional oil (Heavy crude oil · Oil sands · Oil shale) Category ·  Commons v d e Deepwater Horizon oil spill Companies and organisations Owners Anadarko Petroleum Corporation BP Mitsui Oil Exploration Co. Major contractors Cameron International Corporation Halliburton Nalco Holding Company Transocean Wild Well Control Other Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Flow Rate Technical Group Gulf Coast Restoration Organization Minerals Management Service National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling Unified Command United States Coast Guard Worst Case Discharge Events Deepwater Horizon explosion Efforts to stem the spill April May June July August People BP Bob Dudley Tony Hayward Doug Suttles Carl-Henric Svanberg Darryl Willis MMS S. Elizabeth Birnbaum Michael R. Bromwich Chris Oynes U.S. Coast Guard Thad Allen Mary Landry James A. Watson Paul F. Zukunft Other Kenneth Feinberg Places Macondo Prospect Mississippi Canyon Perdido Pass Reactions and impact Environmental Endangered species at risk Wildlife refuges at risk Socio-economic 2010 United States deepwater drilling moratorium Economic and political consequences Litigation Vessels Drilling Deepwater Horizon Relief ships/rigs Development Driller III Discoverer Clear Leader Discoverer Enterprise GSF Development Driller II Helix Producer 1 Loch Rannoch Mighty Servant 3 Overseas Cascade Q4000 Seacor Lee Toisa Pisces A Whale Pacific Responder California Responder Other Coon 2: Hindsight Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC v. Salazar Spillcam Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE Category Commons

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)