BP (LON:BP) chief executive Murray Auchincloss sent a letter to all staff on Thursday setting out the firm’s plans to cut 4,700 jobs across the business and a further 3,000 contractor roles – although he said 2,600 of these had already left the business.
In April, the firm set a target to slash $2 billion (£1.64bn) a year by end 2026 in order to “simplify and focus BP in pursuit of value”. The cut in staff represents a 5% cut of the firm’s global workforce of about 90,000.
Hello everyone,
We began a multi-year programme to simplify and focus BP last year – strengthening our competitiveness and building in resilience as we lower our costs, drive performance improvement and play to our distinctive capabilities. We have got more we need to do through this year, next year and beyond, but we are making strong progress as we position bp to grow as a simpler, more focused, higher-value company.
We are focusing resources on our highest value opportunities and have stopped or paused 30 projects since June.
We are expanding our business & technology centres. This cost-effectively enhances support to our businesses across the world, alongside the expertise in our current hubs.
We’re driving digitization into our organization, with AI delivering value in engineering, marketing and our operations, as well as playing an important role for our functions.
Supply, Trading & Shipping (ST&S) is now stood up, simplifying the midstream and enhancing our potential to grow value.
And it’s been good to see increased collaboration between P&O and G&LCE (gas and low carbon energy), following the changes to simplify reporting lines and remove duplication.
This week, several entities shared more detail about the transformation programmes that began last year. In terms of what this means for jobs across BP as a whole, we expect around 4,700 roles to be impacted by changes announced to date, accounting for much of the anticipated reduction in our headcount this year. These proposals are, of course, subject to consultation and local regulations. We are also reducing our contractor numbers by more than 3,000 – with 2,600 of those leaving BP having already done so.
I understand and recognize the uncertainty this brings for everyone whose job may be at risk, and also the effect it can have on colleagues and teams. We have a range of support available, and please continue to show care for each other, be considerate, and keep putting safety first – especially during times of change.
Thank you for your honesty in the calls and conversations you’ve been having with your leaders. As I’ve said before, we are a brilliant company with great people, great businesses and great assets – and we are uniquely positioned to grow value through the energy transition. But that doesn’t give us an automatic right to win. We have to keep improving our competitiveness and moving at the pace of our customers and society. That’s what we are doing.
As always, thank you for everything you are doing. And thank you for the best wishes over the past few days – see you soon.
