LONDON: After the near collapse of his company following the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster and a three-year slump in oil prices, BP Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley is hardly relaxed.
“It doesn’t feel like we are in a serene time for any energy company,” Dudley said in an interview.
BP is stronger today than at any other time since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig accident.
With oil prices at their highest since late 2014 and BP shares back to levels not seen in more than 8 years, it is once again in a position to contemplate boosting dividends and acquiring, Dudley said.
Sitting in his office in BP’s central London headquarters in St James Square, Dudley, 62, said he intends to carry on leading the company into 2020 and navigate it through a phase of expansion and new uncertainty following a tumultuous eight years at the helm.
The oil and gas sector is looking to retain its relevance as economies battle climate change by weaning themselves from their dependence on fossil fuels, a major source of greenhouse gas emissions.
For BP, it is a two-speed race.
The 110-year old company is undergoing its fastest growth in recent history with new oil and gas fields from Egypt and Oman to the US Gulf of Mexico, riding a tide of higher oil prices following the 2014 downturn.
It is gradually paying off more than $65 billion in penalties and clean-up costs for the Deepwater Horizon accident which left 10 employees dead.
Regarding the danger of the company going bankrupt at the time, Dudley said: “The worst moment was when I heard that our debt was untradable back in the summer of 2010. To me that was a moment of the unthinkable was possible.”
Dudley says he no longer sees BP as an acquisition target after facing years of speculation it could be bought out.
The company is focused on increasing production and cash flow while reducing its large debt pile, after which it will consider boosting shareholder returns such as dividends although “we’re not at that point yet”, Dudley said.
Longer-term challenges also loom.
Investors are increasingly pressing energy companies to find ways to adapt to the energy transition, and Dudley is looking to strike a balance between reducing a large carbon footprint while securing revenue.
“This is the great dual challenge that the industry and BP faces: how to supply the world’s energy on multiple fronts of growing population and doing it with less emissions,” said Dudley, who was appointed to the helm of BP months after the April 2010 spill. — Reuters
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