The Financial Times has carried a short background piece on the appointment of the new permanent CEO of BP, the Canadian Murray Auchincloss, who has succeeded former CEO Bernard Looney, after acting as interim CEO since September last year.

Mr Auchincloss‘s appointment follows a pattern in which no external person has been appointed to head the company in its 114-year history, Mr Auchincloss having been with the company since 1998. Prior to that, he had worked for Amoco in the USA for six years, before it merged with BP. His appointment is more unusual in the fact that he has an accounting and finance background rather than an engineering or science background, as has often been the case with BP CEOs. He is described as “highly credible, very competent and extraordinarily steady”, as well as being “low-key” and “unassuming”. He worked in the office of the CEO between 2010 and 2012, becoming close to former CEO Bob Dudley, and was appointed group chief financial officer in 2020.

There is some doubt over Mr Auchincloss having the full range of skills to perform as CEO, but that remains to be seen. On strategy, he is expected to follow that of Mr Looney in steering the company through an energy transition where the business is decarbonised while continuing to provide for energy reliability.