BP needs to focus on its principal task

Ever since the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico rocked BP to its foundations, the company has been anxious to recover its reputation as one of the world’s corporate leaders. The oil spill in 2010 cost it billions in compensation and fines and resulted in a temporary suspension of its licence to explore US fields. A few years earlier, Lord Browne, BP’s chief executive, resigned after details of his private life became public. Now another CEO, Bernard Looney, has quit after it emerged he had failed to disclose the extent of past personal relationships with colleagues. 

Arguably, BP has been unlucky, but there are questions of corporate governance, or lack of it, that need to be asked of the board. There is only so much reputational damage even a behemoth like BP can withstand before the financial vultures start circling looking for profitable pickings. This matters not just because BP is a flagship British business but because pensions are invested in such companies, though perhaps less so now that oil and gas giants have been turned into pariahs by climate change zealots. 

Mr Looney was trying to create a net zero company by 2050, though how that was to be achieved was never clear and he alienated many shareholders as a consequence. The corporate world is increasingly in thrall to woke pressure groups, choosing their top executives on the basis of which particular cause they espouse rather than whether they can make a profit. BP’s next chief executive needs to focus on the company’s principal task, which is extracting oil and gas. They will be needed for many decades to come, whatever the green lobby says.