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BP president Helge Lund announced his intention to resign after a deadly mandate during which the major oil has tried to move away from fossil fuels only to reverse the course this year.
The company said on Friday that Lund, who had been president since 2019, had informed the board of directors of his plan to “resign in due time”. The search for a successor will be led by Amanda Blanc, the principal independent director of the board of directors, added BP.
Lund’s departure comes as BP in February abandoned a radical five -year strategy to reinvent itself as a green energy company. The quarter of work followed the news that the investor activist Elliott Management had built a participation close to 5% in the company and put pressure for radical changes after a long period of underperformance.
The arrival of the American hedgehist fund was pressure on Lund, which had already become the subject of growing criticism for other shareholders.
Lund received two main responsibilities when he took over: selecting a new managing director and supervising the development of a new strategy.
His efforts on both fronts were in trouble. Lund’s choice for the CEO, Bernard Looney, was dismissed for not having fully disclosed the past relations of the board of directors with COP colleagues. The aggressive passage in renewable energies, which he supervised with Looney, was finally abandoned in February.
Lund, a former director general of the Norwegian company Equinor and Gas Company BG Group, said: “This is the right time to start the process to find my successor and allow an ordered and transparent transfer.”
Blanc said: “We are starting full research to identify the candidates for the pulpit with the credibility and the relevant experience to direct the board of directors and continue to stimulate the execution of the management strategy by management.”
