BP in the context of "Deepwater Horizon oil spill"

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⭐ Core Definition: BP

BP p.l.c. (formerly The British Petroleum Company p.l.c. and BP Amoco p.l.c.; stylised in all lowercase) is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. It is one of the oil and gas "supermajors" and one of the world's largest companies measured by revenues and profits.

It is a vertically integrated company operating in all areas of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and extraction, refining, distribution and marketing, power generation, and trading.

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In this Dossier

BP in the context of Big business

Big business involves large-scale corporate-controlled financial or business activities. As a term, it describes activities that run from "huge transactions" to the more general "doing big things". In corporate jargon, the concept is commonly known as enterprise, or activities involving enterprise customers.

The concept first rose in a symbolic sense after 1880 in connection with the combination movement that began in American business at that time. Some examples of American corporations that fall into the category of "big business" as of 2015 are ExxonMobil, Walmart, Google, Microsoft, Apple, General Electric, General Motors, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs; in the United States, big businesses in general are sometimes collectively pejoratively called "corporate America". The largest German corporations as of 2012 included Daimler AG, Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, and Deutsche Bank. SAP is Germany's largest software company. Among the largest companies in the United Kingdom as of 2012 are HSBC, Barclays, WPP plc, and BP. The latter half of the 19th century saw more technological advances and corporate growth in additional sectors, such as petroleum, machinery, chemicals, and electrical equipment (see Second Industrial Revolution).

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BP in the context of Grangemouth Refinery

Grangemouth Refinery was an oil refinery complex located on the Firth of Forth in Grangemouth, Scotland, built by BP but latterly operated by Petroineos. It was the only operating crude oil refinery in Scotland, and with its closure left five remaining refineries in the UK. Grangemouth until that point was the oldest refinery in the UK and supplied 65% of Scotland's oil products, including petrol and diesel.The refinery processed its last crude in April 2025, and is slated to fully convert to a fuels terminal from July 2025 onwards.

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BP in the context of List of countries by natural gas proven reserves

This list is based on the CIA World Factbook (when no citation is given). or other authoritative third-party sources (as cited). Based on data from EIA, at the start of 2021, proven gas reserves were dominated by three countries: Iran, Russia, and Qatar.

There is some disagreement on which country has the largest proven gas reserves. Sources that consider Russia in possession of the world's largest proven reserves include the US CIA (47,600 cubic kilometers), the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) (49,000 km), and OPEC (48,810 km). However, BP credits Russia with only 32,900 km, which would place it in second place, slightly behind Iran (33,100 to 33,800 km, depending on the source).

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BP in the context of List of countries by coal reserves

The reserve list specifies different types of coal and includes countries with at least 0.1% share of the estimated world's proven reserves of coal. All data are taken from the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) via BP; all numbers are in million tonnes. However BP no longer publishes coal reserves and the Energy Institute has not updated the figures since 2020.

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BP in the context of St James's Square

St James's Square is the only square in the St James's district of the City of Westminster and is a garden square. It has predominantly Georgian and Neo-Georgian architecture. For its first two hundred or so years it was one of the three or four most fashionable residential streets in London. It now has headquarters of a number of well-known businesses, including BP and Rio Tinto Group; four private members' clubs, the East India Club, the Naval and Military Club, the Canning Club, and the Army and Navy Club; the High Commission of Cyprus; the London Library; and global think tank and peace-promoter Chatham House.

A main feature is a high, stone-plinthed equestrian statue of William III erected in 1808.

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BP in the context of Atlantic Richfield Company

ARCO (/ˈɑːrk/ AR-koh) is a brand of gasoline stations owned by Marathon Petroleum. BP, which formerly owned the brand, uses it in California, Oregon and Washington, while Marathon has rights for the rest of the United States and Mexico.

ARCO was established in 1966 as the Atlantic Richfield Company, an independent oil and gas company formed from the merger of Atlantic Petroleum and the Richfield Oil Corporation.

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BP in the context of 1953 Iranian coup d'état

On 19 August 1953, Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a coup d'état orchestrated by the United States (CIA) and the United Kingdom (MI6). A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran after Mossadegh nationalized and refused to concede to western oil demands. It was instigated by the United States (under the name TP-AJAX Project or Operation Ajax) and the United Kingdom (under the name Operation Boot).

Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British corporation (now part of BP), to verify that AIOC was paying the contracted royalties to Iran, and to limit the company's control over Iranian oil reserves. Upon the AIOC's refusal to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parliament (Majlis) voted to nationalize Iran's oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country. After this vote, Britain instigated a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically. Initially, Britain mobilized its military to seize control of the British-built Abadan oil refinery, then the world's largest, but Prime Minister Clement Attlee (in power until 1951) opted instead to tighten the economic boycott while using Iranian agents to undermine Mosaddegh's government. Judging Mosaddegh to be unamenable and fearing the growing influence of the communist Tudeh, UK prime minister Winston Churchill and the Eisenhower administration decided in early 1953 to overthrow Iran's government. The preceding Truman administration had opposed a coup, fearing the precedent that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) involvement would set, and the U.S. government had been considering unilateral action (without UK support) to assist the Mosaddegh government as late as 1952. British intelligence officials' conclusions and the UK government's solicitations to the US were instrumental in initiating and planning the coup.

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BP in the context of Mohammad Mossadegh

Mohammad Mosaddegh (Persian: محمد مصدق, IPA: [mohæmˈmæd(-e) mosædˈdeɢ] ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the prime minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, elected by the 16th Majlis. He was a member of the Iranian parliament from 1923, and served through a contentious 1952 election into the 17th Iranian Majlis, until his government was overthrown in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état aided by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom (MI6) and the United States (CIA), led by Kermit Roosevelt Jr. His National Front was suppressed from the 1954 election.

Before its removal from power, his administration introduced a range of social and political measures such as social security, land reforms and higher taxes including the introduction of taxation on the rent of land. His time as prime minister was marked by the clash with the British government, known as Abadan Crisis, following the nationalisation of the Iranian oil industry, which had been built by the British on Persian lands since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC/AIOC), later known as British Petroleum (BP).

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BP in the context of Anglo-Persian Oil Company

The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC; Persian: شرکت نفت ایران و انگلیس) was a British company founded in 1909 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Persia (Iran). The British government purchased 51% of the company in 1914, gaining a controlling number of shares, effectively nationalizing the company. It was the first company to extract petroleum from Iran. In 1935 APOC was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) when Reza Shah formally asked foreign countries to refer to Persia by its endonym Iran.

In 1954, it was renamed again to The British Petroleum Company, one of the antecedents of the modern BP public limited company. The government of Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalized the company's local infrastructure assets and gave the new company the name National Iranian Oil Company.

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