The sudden departure of BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney will create further skepticism that oil companies can lead the transition to greener, low-carbon energy.
Environmental activists may have doubted that Big Oil was ever interested in cutting carbon emissions and working toward net zero. But Looney was certainly paying attention to concerns about climate change and, unlike his peers at American rivals Exxon and Chevron , tried to set the company on a different path.
That may have seemed reasonable, and perhaps even commercially savvy, when Looney took the reins in 2020 and oil prices were plummeting. But he faced a backlash when crude prices spiked last year, boosted by the emergence from the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. BP is still behind. It trades at 7.1 times forward earnings, compared with 13.1 for Exxon, 11.9 for Chevron, and 7.8 for European rival Shell , which has also backed away from environmental goals.