Business

Bernard Looney resigns as BP chief over ‘past relationships with colleagues’

Executive who joined company in 1991 aged 21 has led UK oil major since 2020

Bernard Looney has resigned as CEO of BP. Photograph: Arun Sankar/AFP via Getty Images

Tue Sep 12 2023 - 19:28

Bernard Looney has resigned as chief executive of BP after failing to disclose the extent of past personal relationships with colleagues, the company has said.

Mr Looney (53) is to be replaced by Murray Auchincloss, the oil major’s chief financial officer, “on an interim basis”, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

Mr Looney told the company on Tuesday that “he was not fully transparent in his previous disclosures”, BP said. “He did not provide details of all relationships and accepts he was obligated to make more complete disclosure.”

Mr Looney did not respond to requests for comment.

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The departure is set to rock the 113-year-old energy group, which is one of most recognised names in British business. Mr Looney joined BP in 1991 aged 21 and has spent his entire career at the company. The Irish citizen was appointed chief executive in 2020 to transform the oil producer into an integrated energy company and navigate the energy transition.

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BP said its board in May 2022 received and investigated “allegations” relating to Mr Looney’s “conduct in respect of personal relationships with company colleagues”.

During the review, the executive disclosed past relationships prior to becoming CEO and the investigation did not find any breach of conduct. However, “further allegations of a similar nature were received recently, and the company immediately began investigating with the support of external legal counsel,” it said, adding the process is “ongoing”.

The abrupt departure follows other corporate resignations in recent years linked to executives’ personal relationships with employees.

Since his appointment, Mr Looney had overhauled BP’s strategy by spearheading an attempt by parts of the oil industry to transition to providing cleaner forms of energy.

Mr Looney’s commitments to cut the company’s emissions to net zero by 2050 have gone further than BP’s rivals. At the same time, he had pledged to increase investments in low-carbon projects tenfold and to build or acquire 50GW of renewable power by 2030.

As a leader he had sought to present a more approachable persona than some previous executives.

“Those days where the boss was the hero and the boss knew everything and just seemed impervious to anything . . . I think those days are over,” Mr Looney told the Financial Times in an interview in February 2022.

Mr Looney grew up on a dairy farm in the west of Ireland and was the first person in his family to go to university.

After building its energy strategy around Mr Looney in recent years, his departure will leave the board scrambling to find a permanent replacement at a time when investors remain sceptical about some aspects of the company’s plans.

Mr Looney grew up in Ashgrove, near Kenmare, but now lives in London, where he has spent most of his career. He joined BP in 1991 as a drilling engineer and worked in operational roles in the North Sea, Vietnam and the Gulf of Mexico, including as a drilling engineer on the discovery of the giant Thunder Horse field.

The executive received a total pay package of £10.03 million (€11.7 million) for 2022, according to BP’s annual report. That included a base salary of £1.27 million, an annual bonus of £2.37 million paid in cash and shares, and a long-term share award worth £6.01 million for performance over the past three years.

The package, which far exceeded the £4.46 million Mr Looney received in 2021, could have been even higher. The company’s remuneration committee said it had “exercised its discretion” to reduce the annual bonus and long-term share award by a combined £746,000, in part due to four deaths at BP facilities during the year.

It also exceeded the £9.7 million that BP’s larger rival, Shell, paid last year to Ben van Beurden, who stepped down at the end of December after nine years in the top job. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2023

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