BRITISH PETROLEM

British Petroleum

British Petroleum

Introduction

British Petroleum (BP) is one of the world's leading oil companies, and one of the United Kingdom's largest corporations. The company, which was the pioneer of the Middle Eastern oil industry, having discovered oil in Iran before World War I, is now engaged in all aspects of oil exploration, production, refining, transportation, and marketing. It has significant interest in chemicals and plastics, including a range of specialty products- mostly detergents, advanced composite materials, and advanced ceramic engineered materials. The new BP has a long and exciting history that goes back more than a century. The company is made up of four companies, each with its own proud history: BP, Amoco, ARCO and Castrol. These histories are so often intertwined, that coming together as one company makes a great deal of sense. It's the power of one.

Stakeholders

The board's governance policies regulate its relationship with shareholders, the conduct of board affairs and its relationship with the group chief executive. The policies recognize that the board has a separate and BP Logounique role as the link in the chain of authority between the shareholders and the group chief executive. In addition, they acknowledge the dual role played by the group chief executive and executive directors as both members of the board and leaders of the executive management. The policies therefore require a majority of the board to be composed of non-executive directors and delegate all aspects of the relationship between the board and the group chief executive to the non-executive directors. The policies also require the chairman and deputy chairman to be non-executive directors; throughout 2002 the posts were held by Mr Sutherland and Sir Ian Prosser respectively. Sir Ian Prosser acts as the senior independent non-executive director as required by the Combined Code on Corporate Governance. Finally, the company secretary reports to the non-executive chairman and is not part of the executive management (Griffin, Ricky W. , 2002).

Whilst consumers and investors are perhaps most likely to be the primary focus, these two groups are highly influenced by surrounding interrelated groups and channels and generally rely on these sources (not the company) for accurate information. Environmental and other similar lobbying groups are always a concern for oil companies such as BP. It was in fact a combination of such groups and media coverage that led BP to withdraw financial support from Arctic Power: a proposed oil drilling project in Alaska - a region in which oil projects will always be shadowed by the ghost of the Exxon Valdez.

BP would perhaps have benefited from having a more primary two-way communication channel with environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the WWF. They would then be able to preempt any unfavourable circumstances and can structure their PR efforts accordingly. In contrast, they can use the media to maximise any good relations with environmental bodies. The benefit of this can be seen in the 1995 situation with Shell's disused Brent Spar storage platform which Greenpeace successfully campaigned to have dismantled ...