BP
BP p.l.c. is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. It is one of the oil and gas "supermajors" and one of the world's largest companies measured by revenues and profits.
It is a vertically integrated company operating in all areas of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and extraction, refining, distribution and marketing, power generation, and trading.
BP's origins date back to the founding of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909, established as a subsidiary of the Burmah Oil Company to exploit oil discoveries in Iran. In 1935, it became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and in 1954, adopted the name British Petroleum.
BP acquired majority control of Standard Oil of Ohio in 1978. Formerly majority state-owned, the British government privatised the company in stages between 1979 and 1987. BP merged with Amoco in 1998, becoming BP Amoco p.l.c., and acquired ARCO, Burmah Castrol and Aral AG shortly thereafter. The company's name was shortened to BP p.l.c. in 2001.
As of 2024, BP had operations in 61 countries, produced around 2.4 million barrels per day (380,000 m3/d) of oil equivalent, and had total proven reserves of 6.25 billion barrels (994,000,000 m3) of oil equivalent. The company has around 21,200 service stations worldwide, which it operates under the BP brand (worldwide) and under the Amoco brand (in the U.S.) and the Aral brand (in Germany). Its largest division is BP America in the United States.
BP is the fifth-largest investor-owned oil company in the world by 2024 revenues (after ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and TotalEnergies). BP had a market capitalisation of US$98.36 billion as of 2022, placing it 122nd in the world, and its Fortune Global 500 rank was 33rd in 2024 with revenues of US$194.6 billion. The company's primary stock listing is on the London Stock Exchange, where it is a member of the FTSE 100 Index.
BP has been directly involved in several major environmental and safety incidents. Among them were the 2005 Texas City refinery explosion, which caused the death of 15 workers and which resulted in a record-setting OSHA fine; Britain's largest oil spill, the wreck of Torrey Canyon in 1967; and the 2006 Prudhoe Bay oil spill, the largest oil spill on Alaska's North Slope, which resulted in a US$25 million civil penalty, the largest per-barrel penalty at that time for an oil spill.
BP's worst environmental catastrophe was the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest accidental release of oil into marine waters in history, which leaked about 4.9 million barrels (210 million US gal; 780,000 m3) of oil, causing severe environmental, human health, and economic consequences and serious legal and public relations repercussions for BP, costing more than $4.5 billion in fines and penalties, and an additional $18.7 billion in Clean Water Act-related penalties and other claims, the largest criminal resolution in US history. Altogether, the oil spill cost the company more than $65 billion.
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