World turns again at BP: Can oil giant's new 'drill baby drill' boss turn the old rig around? asks ALEX BRUMMER
The revolving door at the top of BP spins so fast that it is hard to keep up.
Since the departure of the priapic, zero-carbon enthusiast Bernard Looney in 2023, the oil giant has disposed of chairman Helge Lund and is now on its second chief executive.
The adage that it is the chairman’s job to sack the chief executive comes to mind.
Albert Manifold, plucked from relative obscurity by a selection group headed by Aviva’s Amanda Blanc, has rapidly wielded the axe, bringing in American Meg O’Neill to replace Canadian Murray Auchincloss.
It has not been elegant. O’Neill’s appointment emerged from Australia overnight with much hoopla about her rise to become the first woman chief executive of an oil major, her status as a gay married woman and it being the first time, since BP began drilling in 1909, that it had reached outside for managerial leadership.
The transition is not proving smooth. Auchincloss will hang around until the end of 2026 but is immediately relinquishing the reins.
Back to basics: BP is ditching its green agenda to focus on fossil fuels having hired its first female boss in its 116 year history
Carol Howle, head of trading, is taking charge until April, when O’Neill arrives. Activist investor Elliott has been in the background demanding change.
It is to Auchincloss’s credit that he stood up to intimidation over cutting capital investment on new discoveries – a core strength at BP.
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Most recent evidence comes from offshore drilling of the Bumerangue prospect in Brazil’s Santos Basin.
Sometimes, as Emma Walmsley admirably demonstrated at pharma giant GSK, removing get-rich-quick activists from the field of battle can be deeply satisfying.
It is hard to fault O’Neill’s oil patch credentials, given a background at ExxonMobil and Woodside Energy in Oz.
It is fascinating to note that she has been an acquirer, rather than seller, of assets at a time when BP has been under pressure to sell activities to run down debt, rather than buy stuff.
She offers dramatic change from the Looney era, being in the ‘drill, baby, drill’ camp and a believer in prospects for natural gas in an age of power-hungry data centres. Hammering costs and driving efficiency may be what Manifold wants.
At O’Neill’s former berth at Woodside this didn’t bolster shareholder returns, with the share price as flat as a pancake.
There are also two words which BP’s new team shouldn’t forget: Deepwater Horizon.
Divided rule
‘The Bank of England slashed rates’ pronounced Brad Holland, investment guru at JPMorgan Personal Investing, after the bank rate was modestly lowered by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.75 per cent.
Admittedly, UK rates are at their lowest for three years. The minutes from the Bank’s interest rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) hardly justify such enthusiasm.
They reveal a still-fractured MPC with the Governor Andrew Bailey using his vote to side with those wanting a reduction.
Among the four members wanting to hold rates were senior economic colleagues – deputy governor Clare Lombardelli and chief economist Huw Pill.
Both worry about the upside risk to prices. Pill fears inflation will stabilise at above-target levels because of ‘changes in price and wage-setting behaviour’.
That’s posh language for the kind of wage-price spiral to which Britain has been susceptible in the past.
As the year progressed, the economy sank deeper into the mire. The mayhem caused by Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget leaks and false narrative put the brakes on consumer and business confidence. Bailey has delivered an end-of-year fillip for homebuyers and enterprise.
It is going to take quite a change among the dissenters for bolder cuts to follow.
Great guy
Good to hear Blackstone founder Steve Schwarzman, in a CNBC interview, waxing rich on how private equity is ‘great for people’ and customers.
One wonders if former colleagues and the families of the elderly at ransacked UK care homes group Southern Cross, feel the same way.
Schwarzman didn’t win many great friends during last summer’s drought when it was reported that water was being siphoned from a waterway to fill the lake at his English country estate.
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