A look at key moments in BP’s push to operate on the oil and gas industry’s frontiers
By APSunday, August 29, 2010
Key moments in BP’s push to operate on frontiers
A timeline of some key moments in BP PLC’s drive to operate on the frontiers of the oil and gas industry:
1998 — British Petroleum acquires Amoco in a $53 billion deal in December, giving the company an even bigger footprint in the U.S. where it already has licenses in the Gulf of Mexico. It adopts the name BP Amoco PLC.
1999 — Buys drilling rights in Angola, sub-saharan Africa’s second largest oil producer behind Nigeria, for unnamed price.
2000 — Acquires Arco for $27.5 billion, giving it access to Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, North America’s largest oil field.
2001 — Changes name to BP PLC, adopting the tagline “Beyond Petroleum.”
2003 — BP forms TNK-BP, a 50-50 joint venture with Russian billionaires to exploit the country’s significant reserves. Russia now accounts for a fifth of the company’s global reserves, a quarter of BP’s production and nearly a tenth of global products. The deal results in a massive exploration success.
2005 — BP sets up alternative energy business devoted to solar, wind, hydrogen and gas power.
2007 — John Browne resigns as CEO, following a personal scandal and after criticism of BP’s safety record, most notably a deadly refinery explosion in Texas in 2005 and pipeline spills in Alaska in 2006. New CEO Tony Hayward promises to focus “like a laser” on safety as he pushes for new frontiers.
2010 — In March, BP is awarded $500 million in contracts to drill wells in Iraq’s giant Rumaila oil field. On April 20, the Deepwater Horizon rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and becoming worst oil spill in U.S. history. Company withdraws from the race for Arctic oil and gas and delays plans to begin drilling off Libya and Scotland’s Shetland Isles.
