BP Gets an Unwanted Partner

Since taking over as BP’s interim CEO early last year, Murray Auchincloss has been trying to keep disappointed investors at bay with fairly minor tweaks to the lurch to renewables investments implemented by fired CEO Bernard Looney when he took over just before the COVID pandemic hit in 2020.

Looney’s failed gambit into a business plan based largely on virtue signaling and unprofitable ventures left the company lagging far behind peers like Shell, Chevron, and ExxonMobil in the world of major, integrated oil companies. Despite those struggles directly attributable to Looney’s failure to grasp the fact that BP always has been and remains a huge oil company and not a social program, the Board chose to bring in Auchincloss, who was viewed as a largely status quo type of hire.

Auchincloss has implemented a series of measures over the last year designed to lessen BP’s financial exposure to its array of loss-leading wind and solar investments while maintaining the company’s virtue signaling opportunities. But, while that strategy apparently satisfies the Board of Directors, it hasn’t done a lot to curtail the rising dissatisfaction from major investors.