BP Oil Spill

BP Oil Spill

BP (British Petroleum) is one of the world's largest investor-owned oil companies (www.bp.com). At the close of 2009, it had nearly 10,0000 employees, 19 refineries, above 24,000 service stations, and proven oil reserves of 18 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent, and it operated in over 105 nations. In 2006, BP's sales were $266 billion, with profits of $22.5 billion, compared to $19.3 billion in 2005, and $15.4 billion in 2004. It is also a major producer of solar and other renewable sources of energy. It is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but has also been a leading industry advocate of addressing climate change. BP is organized into three key segments: exploration and production; refining and marketing; and gas, power, and renewable. (Meyer and Brysac, 2008)

BP is the product of numerous mergers during the 20th century (www.bp.com). British Petroleum's retail operations were centered in Britain and Western Europe, with crude oil reserves predominantly in the Middle East until the late 1960s, when it discovered large oil fields in Alaska and the North Sea. At this time, it expanded into U.S. retailing through an ownership stake in Sohio (Standard Oil of Ohio). It bought full control of Sohio in 1987, rebranding the stations as BP and establishing its BP America division. That year, the British government completed selling its shares of BP. Amoco (Standard Oil of Indiana), a major Midwest U.S. retailer and the world's largest natural gas producer, was acquired in 1998, creating BP Amoco.

ARCO (formerly Atlantic Richfield) concentrated on the U.S. West Coast, and also held large Alaskan reserves, and British lubricant manufacturer Castrol and its parent, Burmah Oil, were acquired in 2000. That year the name was changed to BP and a new unified global brand was created, although the ARCO brand was retained on the U.S. West Coast. In 2002, BP bought Aral, a major German gasoline retailer, rebranding BP stations in several European nations under the Aral name. It also entered an $8 billion joint venture in Russia (TNK-BP) in which it has 50 percent ownership.

Under Lord John Browne, CEO 1995-2007, BP attained a reputation as an environmental leader in the oil industry. Browne publicly stated in 1997, the time to consider the policy dimensions of climate change is not when the link between greenhouse gases (GHG) and climate change is conclusively proven, but when the possibility cannot be discounted and is taken seriously by the society of which we are part. We in BP have reached that point.

BP then became the first company to withdraw from the Global Climate Coalition, an industry group opposing action on global warming. In 2007, BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of over 25 corporations and several environmental groups advocating strong governmental action to reduce GHG emissions.

BP believes that addressing climate change involves several elements: precautionary action; urgent, but informed, action over the next 50 years; sustainable GHG emission reductions at the lowest possible ...