BP - USD Company profile
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Formerly known as British Petroleum, BP plc is a world-renowned multinational oil and gas company. It operates in all areas of the oil and gas industry, from exploration and production to refining and distribution. The business also has renewable energy interests in biofuels, solar technology, smart grid and wind power. Today, the company provides fuel for the transportation industry, energy for heat and light, lubricants for engines and other petrochemical products.
BP is one of the world's seven oil and gas “supermajors”. It has operations in almost 80 countries around the globe and employs more than 70,000 people. It produces around 3.8m barrels per day of oil equivalent and has total proven reserves of 19.341bn barrels of oil equivalent.
BP has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It also has secondary listings on the New York Stock Exchange and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
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BP traces its history back to the founding of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1908. Almost half a century later, in 1954, the company changed its name to British Petroleum. As it expanded beyond the Middle East, it became one of the first companies to strike oil in the North Sea. The UK government privatised British Petroleum in the 1980s and after, a series of mergers and acquisitions, including Amoco, ARCO and Burmah Castrol, the company became BP plc in 2001.
Presently, BP operates in two main segments: Upstream and Downstream. The Upstream section is responsible for the exploration of natural gas and oil, further processing and transportation, while Downstream specialises in the global manufacturing of fuels and petrochemicals.
With Capital.com’s BP share price chart you can not only quickly view the current British Petroleum stock quote, but also trace the company’s shares value in historic terms.
British Petroleum stock is made up of original BP shares as well as shares acquired through mergers with Amoco in 1998 and ARCO in 2000. In the US, the company’s shares are traded in USD in the form of American depository shares (ADS).
The company's merger with Amoco saw the stock soaring 40 per cent by April 1999. However, it then plunged almost 25 per cent by early 2000, when the Federal Trade Commission expressed opposition to BP-Amoco's acquisition of ARCO. Once the acquisition was approved in April 2000, the share price skyrocketed to hit $57 in June 2000. The company’s stock traded at almost $80 per share in November 2007.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 led to another sharp decline in share price, with the stock shedding roughly 50 per cent of its value in 50 days. The company’s shares hit a low of $26.97 on June 25, 2010. In early 2011, the BP stock price reached a post-spill high of $49.50.
At the start of 2020, when Brent crude prices stood above $60 per barrel, BP stock traded around $38-$39. However, as the Covid-19 pandemic caused crude oil futures and the broader stock markets to fall dramatically, the British Petroleum stock price plummeted to its multiyear lowest close of $16.11 on March 18. However, the stock then recovered some of its losses to trade around $28 on June 8.
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