BP Appoints O'Neill as New CEO

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00:00Tell us then, David, about what we know about Meg O'Neill and what she's achieved at Woodside.

00:06Morning. Well, yeah, Meg O'Neill may be an unfamiliar name to people in Europe,

00:12to many in the market, in London and those around BP, but she's an incredibly well-known figure

00:18in Asia and particularly in Australia. Now, a really experienced veteran fossil fuels executive,

00:2420-plus years at Exxon, and a real focus on engineering and operations. She became the CEO

00:31of Woodside, Australia's biggest oil and gas company in 2021. And since then, her tenure's

00:37really been marked by operational excellence and ambition. She led a multi-billion acquisition

00:44of oil and gas assets from BHP. She even launched a pretty audacious attempt to acquire the biggest

00:52Australian rival, ultimately walking away when the deal didn't represent value. But what we've seen

00:59is that combination of a really steady hand, somewhat ambitious, and also a really trenchant

01:07defender of the role of fossil fuels, consistently talking about the fact that oil, and particularly

01:12natural gas, in her view, likely to be needed for many, many decades to come.

01:17Okay. In the face of the climate crisis, of course, what is going to be top of her entry

01:22then, David, when she takes the helm at BP?

01:27Yeah, quite well. I mean, I know the announcement itself may have been something of a surprise,

01:31but I think as investors and others look at Meg O'Neill's track record, they'll see the logic

01:36here for BP. You know, if this is a company that is aiming to really reset strategy, to accelerate

01:43those plans to return to its roots, to get, you know, to get back a focus on natural gas, on oil,

01:50you know, having sort of stepped away from that pivot under Bernard Looney towards renewables,

01:56you can see why Meg O'Neill is appealing. As I said, she's very focused on the role of fossil fuels,

02:01and she's proven herself very good at getting more out of existing assets and really thinking carefully

02:08about where to add new assets. She's also someone who's done a lot in a short space of time as the

02:15Woodside CEO, you know, and if BP and investors like Elliot, if their complaint is that strategy

02:21isn't moving fast enough, then perhaps that's why O'Neill is a good fit.