BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney has resigned with immediate effect due to failure to fully disclose “past relationships with colleagues”. He will be replaced on an interim basis by Chief Financial Officer Murray Auchincloss, the company said in an email statement Tuesday, as Bloomberg reports.
This unexpected development leaves BP without leadership at a crucial time, when the oil and gas giant is trying to persuade investors to stay with it in a costly transition to low-carbon energy. It’s also another example of how pressure for higher standards of personal behavior in the workplace, fueled by the #MeToo movement, has reached the top of the corporate world.
BP’s board of directors reviewed allegations related to Looney’s past personal relationships with colleagues in 2022, finding no violations of the company’s code of conduct, according to the statement. However, new allegations of a similar nature were recently received, after which Looney informed the company that he had not been completely transparent during the previous investigation, the company said.
“He did not provide details of all relationships and acknowledges that he was obligated to make fuller disclosure,” according to the statement. “The company has strong values and the board expects everyone in the company to behave in accordance with those values.” BP’s American depositary receipts initially rose on the news, which was first reported by the Financial Times, but were little changed at 3:05 pm in New York.
Advocate of accelerating the transition to ‘net zero’
Since taking the top job more than three years ago, Looney has been the strongest advocate among oil super-wholesalers’ CEOs for a faster shift to low-carbon energy. Even after scaling back some of the most ambitious emissions-reduction aspirations earlier this year, BP still has one of the most aggressive plans to reduce oil production and expand into electric car charging and renewable energy.
The news comes a month after the London-based company raised its dividend by 10% and said it would buy back another $1.5 billion in shares. Despite these efforts to attract investors, BP’s stock has lagged its stock since Looney became CEO. American giants Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., which have stayed much closer to their core oil and gas businesses than major European companies, have been much more attractive to investors, especially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. which caused energy prices to skyrocket.
Born in 1970 and trained as an electrical engineer at University College Dublin, Looney has been a lifelong employee of BP, rising up the chain of command from drilling engineer to head of exploration before being named CEO in 2020.
