BP slashes management team in half amid green energy push

BP is cutting the size of its top management team by more than half as part of new boss Bernard Looney’s plan to make the oil giant a net zero emissions company.

The FTSE 100 giant will cut its leadership positions to roughly 120 from 250 with many veteran executives set to leave in the coming months, Reuters reported, citing company sources.

In an email to staff last week Looney named more than 100 so-called tier two managers who will lead the 11 new divisions he created in February to “reinvent” BP.

“We expect the reinvented bp to be smaller and nimbler. We have already started by removing a layer of management at Tier 1 and 2,” Looney wrote.

BP has confirmed the new structure, which means that in some cases an entire management level will be stripped out of the company.

The announcement marked Looney’s first 100 days in the role, which have been dominated by a collapse in oil prices due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In April the oil major said its underlying profit had plummeted by two-thirds in the first quarter as global demand dried up.

The firm cut capital spending by a quarter to $12bn (£9.8bn) and said it would make $2.5bn in cost savings by the end of next year.

But Looney has stuck to his guns on the energy transition strategy, which aims to make BP a net zero emissions company by 2050 or sooner.

The company has maintained its planned $500m investment in renewables and low-carbon technology amid expectations of a slow recovery in oil demand.

BP, which employs more than 70,000 people, has not provided any details about planned job cuts, but has said that any redundancies would be frozen for three months in the wake of the pandemic.

In his email to staff Looney said he would provide more information about the redundancy freeze next month.

Read the latest issue of the OGV Energy magazine HERE.