Looney to succeed Dudley as BP chief

Oct. 4, 2019
Bernard Looney will become group chief executive and a director of BP PLC in February, succeeding Bob Dudley, who will retire at the end of March.

Bernard Looney will become group chief executive and a director of BP PLC in February, succeeding Bob Dudley, who will retire at the end of March.

Looney is now chief executive, upstream, responsible for worldwide exploration, development, and production. He joined BP in 1991 as a drilling engineer and has held operating positions in the North Sea, Vietnam, and the Gulf of Mexico.

After working with BP Alaska, he became head of the group chief executive’s office and worked for John Browne and Tony Hayward, Dudley’s predecessor.

An electrical engineering graduate of University College Dublin, Looney holds a master’s degree in management from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Dudley has worked 40 years with BP and Amoco Corp., which BP acquired in 1998. He was appointed group chief executive in October 2010, when the company was reeling from the Macondo disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in April of that year.

Among earlier roles, he served as president and chief executive officer of the Russian joint venture TNK-BP during 2003-08.

Lamar McKay is departing his position as deputy group chief executive to serve as chief transition officer.