Upstream

The Upstream segment is responsible for our activities in oil and natural gas exploration, field development and production

Business model

Exploration

The exploration function is responsible for renewing our resource base through access, exploration and appraisal, while the reservoir development function is responsible for the stewardship of our resource portfolio over the life of each field.

Wells and projects

The global wells organization and the global projects organization are responsible for the safe, reliable and compliant execution of wells (drilling and completions) and major projects.

Global operations organization

The global operations organization is responsible for safe, reliable and compliant operations, including upstream production assets and midstream transportation and processing activities.

Strategy

Our strategy has three parts and is enabled by:

Quality execution

We want to be the best at what we do – everywhere we work.

This starts with executing our activity safely. In every basin, we will benchmark against the competition and aim to be the best – whether it be operating facilities reliably and cost effectively, with a focus on emissions, drilling wells, managing our reservoirs, exploring, building projects, or deploying technology. Through the quality of our execution, scale and infrastructure, we aim to be competitive in every basin, and as a business, get more from a unit of capital than our peers.

Growing advantaged oil and gas

We manage our portfolio through disciplined investment in the world’s great oil and gas basins.

We intend to make longer-term investments in natural gas as a lower carbon fuel which can complement renewables and provide stable cash flows while contributing to the energy transition to a lower carbon future. We see our gas portfolio being complemented by oil assets that we consider to be advantaged in the energy transition; this is oil we can produce at a lower cost and higher margin, with faster payback times and ready access to markets, and maintaining a rigorous focus on carbon.

We aim to maintain a strong financial frame, allocating capital to build resilience to withstand uncertainty and change in the external environment. Ensuring sustainability of our business model and products will be key to maintaining competitiveness.

Returns-led growth

We want to grow returns and value, and believe this will come from many sources – expanding and managing our margins, operational efficiency, unit cost reduction, and capital efficiency with disciplined levels of capital reinvestment.