Short answers, pulled from the story.
BP traces its origins to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which was incorporated on the 14th of April 1909 as a subsidiary of Burmah Oil Company. It became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1935, adopted the name British Petroleum in 1954, and shortened its name to BP p.l.c. in 2001.
The Deepwater Horizon explosion on the 20th of April 2010 triggered the largest accidental release of oil into marine waters in history, with approximately 4.9 million barrels of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. The disaster cost BP more than $65 billion in total, including $18.7 billion in Clean Water Act-related penalties, which constituted the largest criminal resolution in United States history.
In the first quarter of 2001, BP replaced its Green Shield logo with a green and yellow sunflower symbol called the Helios and launched the slogan Beyond Petroleum, backed by a $200 million marketing campaign. Critics, including Greenpeace and energy analyst Antonia Juhasz, accused the company of greenwashing, noting that BP's green technology investment peaked at roughly 4% of its exploratory budget while fossil fuel spending remained far larger.
After Iran nationalised its oil industry in April 1951, displacing BP's predecessor the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Prime Minister Churchill asked President Eisenhower for help in removing nationalist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq. The CIA operated under code name Operation Ajax and British intelligence under Operation Boot, staging a coup in August 1953 that installed pro-Western general Fazlollah Zahedi as prime minister and strengthened the Shah's power.
The United States accounts for nearly one-third of BP's operations, where BP America is headquartered in Houston. In Azerbaijan, BP operates the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli fields, which supply 80% of the country's oil production. In Oman, BP holds a 60% interest in Block 61, the largest tight gas development in the Middle East, with a production capacity of 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day.
Meg O'Neill became BP's chief executive on the 1st of April 2026, joining from Woodside Energy. She is both the first external hire and the first woman to lead a major global oil producer in this role. Her mandate is to streamline BP's executive structure and accelerate oil and gas production growth.