BP names Meg O’Neill CEO, making her the first-ever woman CEO of a Big Oil giant

O’Neill is a Colorado native and Exxon Mobil veteran who grew Australia’s Woodside into a much bigger global natural gas player with expansions into the U.S. She is taking over the British energy behemoth at a time when it has fallen behind the other global oil and gas supermajors and was even a potential takeover target earlier this year by rival Shell.

Current BP CEO Murray Auchincloss is stepping down immediately on Thursday but will serve in an advisory role through all of 2026, BP announced. Auchincloss was hardly considered the top candidate to lead BP, but the former chief financial officer was thrust into the role in late 2023 when then-CEO Bernard Looney was abruptly forced to resign over relationships with colleagues.

Since then, Auchincloss has led a “hard reset” to cut costs, double down on fossil fuels, and take several steps back from its ambitious renewable energy goals. BP was targeted by activist investor Elliott Investment Management, which took a nearly 5% stake in the company early this year, as the Shell merger rumors escalated.

The writing may have been on the wall for Auchincloss when a new outsider chairman took over in the beginning of October, former CRH building materials leader Albert Manifold. And now there will be an outsider chief executive as well. Auchincloss confirmed as much in a statement: “When Albert became chair, I expressed my openness to step down were an appropriate leader identified who could accelerate delivery of BP’s strategy.”

O’Neill will take over as CEO on April 1. In the meantime, Carol Howle, current executive vice president of supply, trading, and shipping, will serve as interim CEO.

“Following a comprehensive succession planning process, the board believes this transition creates an opportunity to accelerate our strategic vision to become a simpler, leaner, and more profitable company,” Manifold said in a statement. “Progress has been made in recent years, but increased rigor and diligence are required to make the necessary transformative changes to maximize value for our shareholders.”

Translation: Auchincloss was making progress but not doing enough to truly turn the company around.

Manifold said O’Neill has a “proven track record of driving transformation, growth, and disciplined capital allocation [that] makes her the right leader for BP. Her relentless focus on business improvement and financial discipline gives us high confidence in her ability to shape this great company for its next phase of growth and pursue significant strategic and financial opportunities.”

O’Neill worked for more than two decades at Exxon Mobil, serving in various countries around the world and as executive advisor to former CEO Rex Tillerson. She left as a vice president in 2018 to become chief operating officer at Woodside, rising to CEO in 2021 coming out of the pandemic.

“With an extraordinary portfolio of assets, BP has significant potential to reestablish market leadership and grow shareholder value,” O’Neill said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the BP leadership team and colleagues worldwide to accelerate performance, advance safety, drive innovation and sustainability, and do our part to meet the world’s energy needs.”

At Woodside, she led the acquisition of Australia’s BHP Petroleum and, most recently, the purchase of Houston-based natural gas exporter Tellurian last year. Woodside is currently building a $17.5 billion export facility in Louisiana.

Earlier this year, when BP-Shell rumors escalated, Shell in June doubled down on its denials, even invoking a U.K. law that forbade it from bidding on BP for six months. That period expires in just a few days.

It turns out that Shell CEO Wael Sawan nixed any internal talks of buying BP, despite interest from Shell’s M&A team, the Financial Times reported this week. Sawan prefers focusing internally on improving Shell’s operations and financials and making smaller-scale acquisitions. Shell’s M&A chief left the company in September.

For its part, Woodside is naming Liz Westcott, executive vice president and COO Australia, as its interim CEO.