Delivering the plan

It’s the midpoint of the year – a good time to check in on strategic progress. Here’s our CEO, Murray Auchincloss, on where we are with the plan

Murray, we’re halfway through 2025. How’s bp doing? 

We’re in good shape. Our operations are performing well, we’re growing the upstream and focusing the downstream like we said we would, and reliability is running above 96% for both. In fact, we had our best quarter for refining availability in almost 15 years. 

With our customers business (which includes mobility & convenience, EV charging, bioenergy and aviation), earnings are up around 50% year on year, and in trading, our teams performed well in volatile conditions. 

Plenty more to do but I’m encouraged by our results.

You have talked a lot about growing oil and gas production. What key achievements stand out from the past six months?

So first, strong operations. Our upstream production is ahead of plan, rising around 3% quarter on quarter. It means that for the first half of the year, we averaged 2.3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. As a reminder, our upstream strategy is to reach 2.3 to 2.5 million over the next five years. 

We’re also making progress on growing the portfolio. Of the 10 major project start-ups planned by 2027, five are now safely online. Additionally, our US onshore business, bpx energy, has just started up Crossroads – the last of four central delivery facilities in the Permian. It’s an industry-leading set-up where we process oil, gas and water in one place using electricity instead of traditional fuel. We’ve also taken four final investment decisions this year, sanctioning projects in Azerbaijan, India, and the Gulf of America.   

Meanwhile Azule – our joint venture in Angola with Eni – has delivered first oil from the Agogo Integrated West Hub, a major development targeting the offshore Agogo and Ndungu fields. This is the first of seven planned for start-up by 2027 across the joint ventures we have in Angola, Argentina and Norway. In Libya, we’ve agreed to explore redevelopment opportunities in some of their giant fields – a particular specialism for bp. 

Last thing to highlight, the bp exploration machine continues its strong start to the year with 10 discoveries so far. The latest is in Brazil’s Santos Basin about 400 kilometres from Rio de Janeiro – our biggest in 25 years.   

Focusing the downstream business is another key part of your strategy. How is that looking?  

This is partly about focusing on performance, on improving competitiveness and reliability across our facilities. Again, we’re seeing progress – refining availability was 3% higher in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year. Importantly, we also completed two significant refinery turnarounds in the past quarter. (These are very large and complex maintenance events that support the smooth running of a plant.) 

The other key aspect of focusing the downstream is high-grading the portfolio.   

How are you reshaping the downstream portfolio, and what role are divestments playing? 

Our strategy is to focus on markets where we have advantaged and integrated positions. For assets that don’t meet those criteria, we’re exploring options that may include divestment. It’s why, for example, we agreed to sell our mobility, convenience and bp pulse business in the Netherlands last month. We also have active processes under way for our Austrian retail business and the Gelsenkirchen refinery.

Castrol is a brilliant business that’s just delivered its eighth consecutive quarter of year-on-year growth. We currently have it under strategic review where we’re considering all options for its next phase of value creation. That process is progressing at pace. 

Expected proceeds from signed or completed divestment agreements are now running at close to $3 billion.

You’ve set out a big number on cost reductions. How is this going? And how is technology helping bp become more efficient?

We’re committed to safely reducing our structural costs by $4-5 billion by 2027. It’s a key driver underpinning our cash flow target and an area of relentless focus for bp. Since the start of the programme, we’ve delivered around $1.7 billion in structural cost reductions and importantly, around three quarters of this comes from supply chain efficiencies and organizational transformation. A big thanks to the team for their hard work and resilience through this journey.  

Technology is also part of the answer, both on reducing costs and enhancing our capital productivity. At our offshore oil and gas sites, for example, we use digital tools to monitor equipment and optimize production in real time. This helps us to produce about 5% more at bp-operated assets and avoid roughly 10% more downtime by spotting issues early and keeping things running smoothly.

We’ve also achieved significant reductions in our supply chain spend using an advanced analytics tool developed in collaboration with Palantir. Just two examples – we have plenty more. 

And finally, what’s going to be your focus moving forward? 

We’re two quarters into a 12-quarter plan. We’ve had a good start but, of course, there’s a lot more to do. Our new chair, Albert, joins the bp board on 1 September and becomes our chair on 1 October. He and I are already having good discussions about how we accelerate delivery of our strategy. This includes making sure that we’re getting maximum value from our capital allocations, and looking at how we can make our cost base best in class for the industry without ever compromising on safety.

We remain relentlessly focused on delivery – staying safe, delivering the plan and embedding the processes that drive continuous improvement. That’s how we create long- term value for our shareholders.             

bp’s primary performance targets for end-2027

*At $70/bbl Brent, $4/mmBtu Henry Hub, and $17/bbl refining marker margin, all 2024 real.