The board and LT need to be wiped and replaced with petroleum engineers from top to bottom.
Leave the important decisions to the people who really understand the industry.
12 replies (most recent on top)
@md+1jk1s2dgg - I think I've been asked if I read all the books I can get my hands on about bp. Yes, I did actually. The job I worked at was outside of the US. It was a great learning experience about how bp did things. I read the first book after the Macondo blowout and that occurred right before I left bp.
BP is perhaps representative of the UK today as well. A small successful trading operation attached to a failing industrial base (sans innovation, run by bean counters)
Bean counters and consultants are still people, with families and bills to pay.
But don’t worry. All the bean counters and consultants are being offshored to India. Im sure that makes you happy.
Everyone who can be offshored to India, will be offshored, over the next 24 months.
Doesn’t matter where you are or what you do. If you are a Western employee, based in an office and not on a platform. Your days are numbered.
Get used to it, it’s the cold truth.
Did you really read all those books on bp after you were let go?
@ks+1jk1s2dgg The problem with “bean counters” is they don’t run oil companies. I once worked for a downstream company run by Finance people. The company’s mission statement was not anything like “to produce fuels necessary for the communities where we operate,” instead it was literally “to create shareholder value in any economic environment.” That’s a problem. They may understand shareholders, but they do not understand operations, safety, marketing or regulatory.
Bean counter from a different company here.
Engineers cost more than accountants. They also tend to have inflated egos and if you trust them to make all financial decisions you're only gonna fu-k yourself. Financial minded people might not be the ones turning the nuts and bolts byr they are the ones who are going to understand the MARKET the best.
We are ripe for the taking by a better ran competitor. In the words of the late great Ron Swanson, "Slash it! Slash it!."
@cb+1jk1s2dgg There are a lot of regulations around what a trading organization can do and say publicly, so they prefer to stay out of the limelight, quietly making money in their own corner of the company. If our CEO was from the trading arm of the company, it would become even more apparent to the public that bp makes billions of dollars on trades while oil prices sky rocketed. I guarantee consumers would have a hissy fit. I’m sure you remember the windfall profit hubbub in recent years.
Trading is by far the most successful business in bp. Main reason that the only exec that understood it was BG, the rest left it alone and thus it was successful. Long may the Helios car park be full of Ferraris.
BP's most successful and widely recognized BU is Trading, not P&O or C&P. Traders are laser-focused on performance and real gains, so why not let them run the company?
@b3+1jk1s2dgg the ironic thing is that while thousands of BP workers face an uncertain future, BL has landed on his feet with roles in four companies. He was the one who brought in GC to oversee strategy. This disastrous LT we still have were his appointees. He was like the kiss of death for this company, and was also a Lord Browne protege.
This is a very interesting statement. A few years after I was forced into early retirement, and then I landed a job that I absolutely loved and paid more, I took the time to read every book I can get my hands on about the Browne years and through GoM oil spill. In Browne's career developments, he had the idea about how to vastly increase business efficiency for bp. That was to fire engineers, and hired more financial people and consultants. And of course, it was to slash budgets for the various BUs. Of course, we see the results now in hindsight. It was Browne's dream to "run with the big dogs" of the supermajors. He did succeed in doing that for a bit until the consequences of his actions caught up with bp. When Looney pronounced the planned reduction in oil production occurred and replaced with green energy, I knew that bp was doom and I felt awful for those remaining because in the end, everyone will be worked to death to make up for the loss of ROI. There will be continuous layoffs. So, yes, until someone replace the board and LT, bp will continue to languish. Anyway, just my 3 cents.