Meg O’Neill, CEO of Australian oil and gas producer Woodside Energy, will replace Murray Auchincloss as CEO of the British major BP.
O’Neill, a former ExxonMobil executive, will be the first woman to lead any of the world’s top oil companies and the first outsider to take the reins at BP. Her appointment is a sign of the pressure that activist hedge fund Elliott Management has brought to bear on BP’s board to give up its ill-fated push into renewable energy — which Auchincloss had worked to unwind following his ascension to the top job two years ago — and refocus on the core business of drilling for oil and gas.
O’Neill, who will be BP’s fourth CEO in the past six years, had recently pushed Woodside into the LNG business, investing nearly $20 billion in US LNG projects and acquisitions. She was also a close adviser to former Exxon CEO, and secretary of state during US President Donald Trump’s first term, Rex Tillerson.
Auchincloss had led a campaign for BP to divest up to $20 billion in assets by 2027, including its US wind energy business and its Castrol lubricants unit, which had helped keep BP’s share price up this year despite a drop in oil prices.