"LIES!" What the hell is going on at BP?

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]What the hell is going on at BP, one of Britain's biggest, most important companies, 80 billion pound valuation.

[00:00:07]It's been through a bit of a ringer in recent years with a number of high-profile moves and a big strategy change, but this week was dramatic, even by BP's standards. I'm joined by Ali Lyons, City A.M.'s chief reporter. Ali's been covering this story in all the various twists and turns. Ali, set the scene for us. We'll come on to the crisis and the sacking of their chairman. But this is the latest in a string of governance moves at BP, isn't it?

[00:00:32]>> It's been a bit of a revolving door at the top of BP. They've gone through five chief executives since the pandemic and three chairs. So there's very little consistency in personnel.

[00:00:44]But there's also very little consistency in the direction of travel.

[00:00:49]In 2020, 2021, at the height of the sort of net zero drive, BP was really at the forefront, setting itself the most ambitious uh transition targets of almost any oil major, in fact of any oil major.

[00:01:06]>> the beyond petroleum years?

[00:01:07]>> Beyond petroleum uh overseen by uh the then ousted chief executive Bernard Looney, um committed BP to becoming net zero by 2050, far faster than their US rivals, but even even Shell in the UK. Um and uh since then we've seen four other chief executives uh come through the door, all expressing slowly more uh sort of faster appetites to reverse those pledges. Um and then we've this this latest move comes just at a time when everyone thought that they were getting back on track. So it feels more unforced than some of the others.

[00:01:50]>> So they've tried to undo some of their overly enthusiastic net zero nonsense as some analysts might perceive.

[00:01:59]>> And and and fall in love with oil and gas again.

[00:02:03]Other companies in this sector like Shell have done that much more successfully. So, they're still trying to play catch up in that regard. But let's talk about the drama of this week and the announcement at about midday in a very unusual statement to the stock market from the board of BP on Tuesday saying what?

[00:02:21]>> Uh so, yeah, on a sort of slightly sleepy post post bank holiday Tuesday morning while I was scratching around for stories to to work on, suddenly this statement appeared in my inbox from BP.

[00:02:32]Very unusual saying that they had fired chair their chair, a guy by the name of Albert Manifold with immediate effect um over concerns about his behavior uh and also sort of ongoing governance issues that had been sort of reported to them by the executive team that are understood to have gone right up to his behavior towards really senior executive staff. Uh there had been not really many rumors that this had been happening in the in the run up to this or >> No, it wasn't something that the city was was talking about. There was no Normally when somebody's got a reputation in this regard, it does kind of leak out and you sort of wait for these moments to catch up with them. But this was out of the blue.

[00:03:16]>> It was out of the blue. There had been one little flash point a couple of sort of three or four weeks ago ahead of its AGM whereby Albert Manifold was accused of ignoring a sort of vote tabled by a sort of activist shareholder on some climate commitments that they were trying to get the company to sign up to.

[00:03:40]Manifold was seen as sort of pushing through his own agenda and saying that there had been some clerical error with their paperwork and so he wasn't wasn't going to accept their vote at the AGM.

[00:03:50]>> But that's the strategy that they're now pursuing, right? You know, they'll they'll do what they can and what they want to do and what they have to do in regards to climate requirements and objectives, but it's it's not the new it's not the strategy that it was 5 years ago. So, we hadn't heard much about him as a personality other than the fact that he was of course known to be a robust individual and one assumes that's part of the reason why he was put in place as chair of BP in the first place.

[00:04:14]>> Yes, BP was seen as a slightly sort of sleepy dare I say sclerotic sort of big beast that analysts and investors, including their biggest shareholder, activist investor Elliott, um felt was ripe to be shaken up with a bit of what Elliott would probably call sort of American gung-honess.

[00:04:39]Um and a lot of people had basically said that he'd been doing a long doing a pretty good job. He was the chair responsible for appointing Meg O'Neill.

[00:04:50]Um who has come in and split the the company into two massive or two distinct divisions, upstream and downstream, really simplifying the business.

[00:05:02]Um and so, yeah, no, there there not been a huge amount of of rumors about things going badly or or that things were not going in the right direction.

[00:05:13]>> Okay, let's let's bring it up to date.

[00:05:15]So, on Tuesday the board put out this statement, which you have to say was an unusual statement even in the words it opted for. It accused the chair of failures regarding his conduct, governance, and oversight. And when somebody's accused of conduct issues these days, I mean that certainly sets hairs running. Um he didn't say anything until the following day, a short statement in which he said, "I deny this." And then we heard over the course of yesterday that he's taking some legal advice.

[00:05:45]Um and today, just in the last few hours, he put out a much more substantial statement.

[00:05:50]>> Yes, and I think that the thing that sparked the more substantial statement, A, was probably the fact that he left a bit uh out there with his very concise uh immediate reaction uh released yesterday, or I should say on Wednesday.

[00:06:06]Um But, and then in the intervening period, there was a lot of on-background briefing from the people who made the decisions.

[00:06:15]>> Anonymous anonymous sources accusing him of of bullying and belittling, etc. >> Volcanic behavior was the exact words.

[00:06:24]>> And uh and he's not happy about that.

[00:06:26]>> not happy. He called them, quote on quote, lies uh in this more expansive statement that we got through uh on Thursday. Um and he said, "I dispute entirely this characterization of my conduct." Um and that he had been robust in his uh sort of attempts to shake up BP, but that never expanded into behavioral issues that warranted uh any kind of recourse.

[00:06:54]>> Or sacking. And he says in this in this very long statement issued today that in his entire career, he's never had any allegations or concerns about his behavior raised against him. Um he makes a great play about the fact that he's not in it for the glory. I think he's paid about a million quid a year, so maybe he's in it for that. But he But he does say, "Look, I sit in a small corner office. I don't use the chauffeur. I don't fly private airplane. I I have my lunch in the little cafe. You know, he basically says, 'I'm just an I'm just trying to do the right thing here.'"

[00:07:24]It's quite an interesting level of color in the statement, but you're right, the bulk of it was, "This is lies, and this is outrageous, and he doesn't want his reputation to be pulled apart by this."

[00:07:33]What Excuse me, what's it done to BP's share price over the last few days?

[00:07:37]>> Uh the shareholders have not reacted well to it, I think it's it's safe to say.

[00:07:41]Whether that is a uh vote on him as an individual or just them being exhausted by the psychodrama that's >> go, "Oh, BP's doing it again."

[00:07:52]>> this company, exactly.

[00:07:55]That's There's probably an element of of both of those, but it's down 10% since Manifold's uh announcement or Manifold's firing was first announced.

[00:08:06]And what remains to be seen whether the next chair can recover that. There was the embers of a recovery in its last update.

[00:08:17]And everyone I sort of have spoken to having reported on BP quite a bit over the past uh 6 to 7 months has said that it looks like finally they're paying down their debts. They are focusing on the more productive elements of their business. They're selling off unproductive aspects like potentially their North Sea operations.

[00:08:40]Um and things are on the right path.

[00:08:41]Whether Manifold's replacement can continue that remains to be seen, but it's not been a good week for BP.

[00:08:50]>> No. And I suppose just finally, it's interesting to note that these two sides are now at war. And they're at war quite publicly with each other.

[00:08:59]And you look back at Manifold's statement, he's very clear that he doesn't consider his behavior to have approached anything like levels that would trigger a sacking. But for the board unanimously to fire the chairman and to put out a statement with allegations about his conduct and behavior, you would assume that they feel they're on pretty firm legal ground.

[00:09:22]Maybe Manifold himself, some people might say, has just become the victim of an environment in which, you know, being a bit robust, being a bit shouty, being a bit tough is not really acceptable anymore. But they are at war with each other. And so we'll follow this story as it as it continues.

[00:09:37]Ali, thanks for talking us through it.