LONDON, May 9, 2026, 15:08 BST
- BP’s new chief executive is putting a June start date on a shift back to two core units: upstream and downstream.
- The company is also selling part of its stakes in two UK carbon capture projects, just as construction gets under way.
- Debt, capital discipline and investor pressure are now the centre of the BP story, not a broad renewables build-out.
BP CEO Meg O’Neill has told staff a company-wide reorganisation will start in June, moving the British oil major back toward a simpler structure built around upstream and downstream operations, according to people familiar with the call.
Upstream means finding and producing oil and gas. Downstream covers refining, fuel sales and related customer businesses. The change matters because it turns BP’s strategic reset into an operating plan under O’Neill, who took over on April 1 as the company’s fifth chief executive since 2020.
BP is trying to show investors that its return to oil and gas is more than a slogan. In April, O’Neill and CFO Kate Thomson told investors BP had made $3.2 billion in underlying replacement cost profit in the first quarter, a measure the company uses for net income after stripping out some inventory and accounting effects. Net debt rose to $25.3 billion, keeping balance-sheet repair high on the list.
The reshuffle lands in the same week BP said it would sell parts of its equity in Net Zero Teesside Power and the Northern Endurance Partnership, two large carbon capture and storage projects in northern England. Carbon capture is a way of trapping carbon dioxide from power plants or industrial sites and storing it underground, rather than releasing it into the air.
BP did not say how much of either stake it wants to sell, or name potential buyers. The company said the projects had reached major milestones, including financial close and the start of construction, making it the “right time” to sell part of its equity and bring in more partners. Reuters
The projects still sit in a live peer network. Equinor is BP’s partner in Net Zero Teesside Power, while Equinor and TotalEnergies are partners in the Northern Endurance Partnership. Shell was once part of the Northern Endurance project but left in 2023.
Net Zero Teesside Power says construction is under way and start-up is expected in 2028. The project aims to be the world’s first gas-fired power station fitted with carbon capture and storage, with capacity equal to the average annual power needs of more than 1 million UK homes.
The Northern Endurance Partnership is designed to move and store captured CO2 from Teesside and the Humber under the North Sea. Its infrastructure is expected to transport and permanently store up to an initial 4 million tonnes of CO2 a year, according to the East Coast Cluster project website.
O’Neill has framed the task in plain financial terms. “Now, we have to capitalize on the opportunity that exists across our portfolio,” she said in BP’s first-quarter results statement, adding that the company needed to simplify work, unlock growth and improve returns. bp global
Analysts are watching the debt line as much as the strategy language. Morningstar analyst Allen Good wrote after BP’s results that faster debt reduction would help remove an overhang on the stock, while noting that BP’s heavier debt burden remained a drag even as its strategy became more closely aligned with oil-and-gas peers.
There are other moving parts. The United States has extended a licence allowing BP to keep operating the Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan with Iranian and Russian partners, BP said on Thursday. “Shah Deniz remains compliant with sanctions,” the company said. Reuters
The risk is that BP’s reset still depends on execution. Asset sales may not land at attractive prices, carbon capture projects face construction and policy risk, and oil-price strength that helped recent trading profits can turn quickly. BP has also suspended share buybacks while it works on debt, so investors looking for faster cash returns may have to wait.
