LONDON, March 12, 2026, 13:19 GMT
BP shares climbed to a 52-week high Thursday, with oil prices surging past $100 a barrel following attacks on tankers off Iraq. At 11:33 GMT, the stock was at 515.8 pence, having reached 517.4 pence earlier in the session. BP closed Wednesday at 514.0 pence.
BP’s decision has some weight, with the company still working to win back investors after it ditched its $750 million quarterly buyback last month to prioritize debt repayment. Net debt finished the year at $22 billion, according to BP. Oil’s rally feeds straight into upstream gains for the firm — but a surge like this tends to stoke inflation worries and pushes traders to delay rate-cut calls.
FTSE 100 slipped 0.4% at 1057 GMT, despite crude rallying over 6% for the day and now up more than 32% since March kicked off. “The longer the disruption goes on, the greater the impact on energy prices and in turn global inflation,” said Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell. Reuters
BP pulled ahead of the broader market on Wednesday, with shares gaining 2.8% as the FTSE energy index climbed 2.1%. Shell tacked on 1.9%. Over at MarketWatch, data pointed to 47 million BP shares traded—running hotter than the 50-day average of 45.8 million.
Company headlines drove some action. BP put down a $21 million offer for a Green Canyon block at Wednesday’s U.S. Gulf of Mexico lease sale, grabbing nearly half the top bids in the auction. Chevron followed with close to $11.5 million spread over three blocks. Shell and Woodside also got in on the bidding.
Goldman Sachs is changing its tune. The bank lifted its forecast for Brent in the fourth quarter to $71 a barrel, now factoring in 21 days of steeply curtailed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, plus a 30-day bounce-back period. If things get worse, Goldman figures Brent prices could run as high as $110 for March and April.
But this trade can unravel quickly. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright dismissed the idea of oil reaching $200 a barrel. The European Union, after the International Energy Agency’s move to release a record 400 million barrels from emergency reserves, said its own oil security faced no immediate risk.
Jitters linger across markets. Deutsche Bank strategists, with Jim Reid at the helm, flagged that “the problem is that investors are increasingly pricing in a more protracted conflict that causes extensive economic damage.” Their note cautioned about the risk of a stagflationary shock—weak growth, inflation refusing to budge. Reuters
BP’s overhaul remains in motion. The company announced last week it will trim its board to 10 members from 13, with Chairman Albert Manifold saying a smaller group should mean faster calls. Meg O’Neill steps in April 1 as the first outsider to hold BP’s chief executive job in over 100 years.
Wednesday brought fresh strain as activist group Follow This warned it could sue after BP excluded its climate resolution from the annual meeting notice. BP countered, saying the proposal failed legal tests, but added it’s sticking with climate reporting plans for the April 23 meeting.
