(Oil Price) – BP chair Helge Lund has informed the board that he would be stepping down from the role “most likely during 2026,” as activist investor Elliott continues to demand more changes at the UK-based supermajor.
BP’s board of directors has initiated a succession process to select a new Chair after Helge Lund informed the board of his intention to step down in due course, the company said on Friday.
“It is intended that the successful candidate will join the board and work together with Helge to ensure an orderly transition ahead of taking on the role of Chair, at which point Helge will step down from the board, most likely during 2026,” BP added.
The announcement is seen as a victory for Elliott Management, the activist investor pushing for changes at BP.
Elliott has accumulated nearly 5% in the supermajor and signaled it would be pushing for changes in strategy, and even for board reshuffles, to address the undervalued shares of the company.
In a major reset back to oil and gas, BP said in February that it would increase its investment in upstream oil and gas to $10 billion per year while slashing spending on clean energy by more than $5 billion a year.
“Having fundamentally reset our strategy, bp’s focus now is on delivering the strategy at pace, improving performance and growing shareholder value,” Helge Lund said today, commenting on the announcement that he plans to step down.
“Now is the right time to start the process to find my successor and enable an orderly and seamless handover.”
Norwegian national Lund became BP chair in 2019. Before that, he was president and CEO at Equinor (then Statoil) between 2004 and 2014, and chief executive of BG Group from 2015 to 2016, when it merged with Shell.
Dame Amanda Blanc, who leads the BP chair succession process in her capacity as Senior Independent Director, said, “We are starting a comprehensive search to identify Chair candidates with the credibility and relevant experience to lead the board and continue driving management’s safe execution of the reset strategy.”
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
