BP PLC

Open full sized image

BP traces its origins to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, founded in 1909.

© Richard O'Donoghue/stock.adobe.com

BP PLC is a British energy company and one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers. Headquartered in London, the company operates in more than 60 countries and is engaged in petroleum and natural gas exploration, production, refining, transportation, marketing, and retailing, as well as petrochemicals and lubricants. Its brands include BP, Aral, ARCO, and am/pm. As of 2025, BP employed 93,700 workers worldwide.

BP was initially registered on April 14, 1909, as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, Ltd. It was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Ltd., in 1935, and became the British Petroleum Company Limited in 1954. The name British Petroleum Company PLC was adopted in 1982. After merging with Amoco in 1998, the company took the name BP Amoco before assuming the name BP PLC in 2001.

The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was formed to take over and finance an oil-field concession—an exclusive exploration and drilling agreement—granted by the Iranian government to English investor William Knox D’Arcy. The first successful oil wells were drilled at Masjed Soleymān, and crude oil was piped to a refinery built at Ābādān, from which the first cargo of oil was exported in March 1912.

Other Iranian fields and refineries were built, and by 1938, Ābādān was home to the world’s largest refinery. The concession was revised in 1933 and then suspended in 1951–53 during the oil nationalization crisis led by Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. It was later renewed under a consortium agreement involving several international oil companies.

In 1914 the British government became the company’s principal stockholder and remained so. Effective January 1, 1955, British Petroleum became a holding company. Beginning in 1977, the British government reduced its ownership of British Petroleum by selling shares to the public, and in the late 1980s the government fully privatized British Petroleum by selling its remaining shares. The company’s full privatization cleared the way for British Petroleum to acquire Britoil PLC, an independent producer in the North Sea.

British Petroleum developed oil fields and built refineries in numerous countries, including significant interests in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay and the United Kingdom’s sector of the North Sea. There, the company made the region’s first commercial natural gas discovery in 1965 and discovered a major oil field in 1970.

Beginning in 1970, BP merged its assets in the U.S. with those of the Standard Oil Company (Ohio), in which BP acquired a controlling interest. In 1987, BP acquired the remainder of the Standard Oil Company for almost $8 billion. In merging with U.S. oil giant Amoco Corporation in 1998, the newly created BP Amoco became one of the largest petroleum concerns in the world.

Two years later, BP acquired Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) and British oil, gas, and lubricants company Burmah Castrol. In 2001, the company changed its name to BP PLC.

Open full sized image

Fireboat response crews attempt to extinguish the blaze aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, April 21, 2010.

U.S. Coast Guard

In 2010, the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean and leased by BP, exploded and collapsed, causing a rupture in the riser pipe of an ultra-deepwater oil well nearly 1 mile (1.6 km) beneath the Gulf’s surface. An estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico—the largest marine oil spill in history.

The company subsequently paid billions of dollars in damages to individuals and businesses affected by the spill. In 2012, BP agreed to pay more than $4.5 billion in fines and penalties to the U.S. government and to plead guilty to 14 criminal charges. In 2015, as part of a civil trial, it agreed to pay some $20 billion.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, BP expanded into renewable energy businesses including solar and wind power and promoted a lower-carbon corporate strategy through its “Beyond Petroleum” campaign. Over time, however, the company scaled back several of those efforts, including the closure of its solar energy business in 2012.

Beginning in 2020, BP increased investments in renewable energy and lower-carbon technologies while reducing some long-term oil and gas production targets. By the mid-2020s, however, the company had renewed its emphasis on fossil-fuel production after weaker returns from some renewable ventures and pressure from investors to improve profitability.

In 2025, BP increased planned investment in oil and gas while reducing spending on renewable energy projects. CEO Murray Auchincloss said the company had moved “too far, too fast” away from fossil fuels.

BP underwent a series of leadership changes in the 2020s amid debates over the company’s long-term strategy and financial performance. CEO Bernard Looney resigned in 2023 after failing to fully disclose personal relationships with colleagues. Murray Auchincloss succeeded him and accelerated BP’s renewed emphasis on oil and gas production.

Auchincloss stepped down in 2025, and Meg O’Neill became CEO in April 2026 as BP continued to scale back parts of its renewable energy strategy. The next month, the company removed Chair Albert Manifold after the board cited “serious concerns” related to governance standards, oversight, and conduct. Ian Tyler was appointed interim chair while BP searched for a permanent replacement.