Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images
Looney resigned Tuesday “effective immediately” as an investigation into his relationships with colleagues remained ongoing.
New York CNN –
BP CEO Bernard Looney has resigned after admitting he had not been “fully transparent” about “historic relationships with colleagues,” the oil giant said in a statement on Tuesday.
Murray Auchincloss, the company’s CFO, will serve as interim CEO.
“In May 2022, the Board, with the assistance of outside legal counsel, received and reviewed allegations relating to Mr. Looney’s conduct regarding personal relationships with corporate colleagues. The information came from an anonymous source,” the statement said. During that review, Looney disclosed “a small number of historical relationships with colleagues prior to his appointment as CEO,” but no violation of the company’s code of conduct was found.
More allegations of a similar nature have recently been received, BP said, and the company has launched an investigation that is ongoing.
“Mr Looney advised the company today that he now accepts that he was not fully transparent in his previous disclosures,” the statement said. “He did not provide details of all relationships and accepted that he was required to make fuller disclosure.”
Looney, 53, spent almost four years at the helm of BP (BP) but began working at the London-based oil and gas company in 1991 at the age of 21. Looney spent his entire career at BP and was promoted to chief executive officer in July 2020, where he led efforts to transform it into an integrated energy company with a focus on reducing emissions.
Shares of the stock closed 1.3% lower on Tuesday.
Looney came into the role with big plans to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and spend billions on renewable energy.
“To achieve climate goals, it is critical to engage companies that need to reduce the most carbon emissions,” Looney wrote in a 2021 CNN opinion piece with Christiana Figueres, the former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “They must be part of the transition to lower and zero-carbon solutions if there is to be any chance of fulfilling the promise of the Paris Agreement. More and more companies want to do their part and expectations worldwide are high.”
Under his leadership, BP became the only major oil company to aim to reduce oil and gas production this decade. Shareholders weren’t too happy with the decision and BP shares fell behind rivals such as Shell (SHEL), Chevron (CVX) and Exxon Mobil (XOM).
Recently, Looney has rolled back some of those targets and increased spending on crude oil and natural gas.
BP missed profit expectations last quarter but increased its dividend by 10% and announced plans to buy back $1.5 billion more shares. Shares of the stock are up about 12.6% so far this year.
Looney grew up on a small dairy farm near Kenmare, Ireland and was the first in his family to attend college. Both parents left school at the age of 11.
“We had 14 cows and it was essentially subsistence farming,” he told the Irish Independent newspaper in 2018. He added that he still enjoys following Traktor accounts on Instagram.
Looney then studied electrical engineering in Dublin and received a degree in business administration from Stanford University.
He started as a drilling engineer at BP and led the company’s North Sea operations at BP The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in $70 billion in penalties for the company and the largest oil spill ever in the United States.
Looney worked in Houston for 60 days after the accident, trying to plug the well and prevent crude oil from spilling into the Gulf. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, four million barrels of oil were ultimately able to flow from the damaged well. Looney described this period as the most challenging of his career.