Bp Company

BP's chief executive is stepping down by the end of July -- more than a year ahead of schedule -- after a series of high-profile problems including a deadly refinery blast in Texas and a giant oil spill in Alaska tarnished the image of one of the world's largest oil companies. BP said Friday that Chief Executive John Browne, 58, would be succeeded by Tony Hayward, the head of exploration and production. Hayward, 49, who will take over Aug.

U.S. pipeline regulators will propose in coming weeks rules aimed at preventing runaway pipeline corrosion that plagued Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska. Thomas Barrett, head of the Transportation Department's Pipeline Safety Administration, said he would soon propose rules to regulate some low-stress lines in rural areas, including London-based BP's Prudhoe Bay lines. Current pipeline regulations exempt those lines from oversight.

Soaring oil and gasoline prices propelled BP to a $7.3-billion net income in the second quarter, a 30% increase from last year despite reduced output and rising costs. BP's performance exceeded the expectations of Wall Street analysts, who forecast that second-quarter profits from the world's six largest publicly traded oil companies will surpass $36 billion. The next major integrated oil company to release quarterly earnings is ConocoPhillips. Its results are expected today.

Oil giant BP said Tuesday that its third-quarter profit declined 3.6%, slumping on lost Alaskan production, higher taxes in Britain and a sharp drop in gasoline prices. BP, which has experienced a run of difficulties in the United States, also lowered its average daily oil production forecast for 2006 because of asset sales and snags at several oil fields. The first of the major oil companies to report quarterly earnings this week, BP said net income for the three months ended Sept.

BP is aiming to restart oil production in the eastern half of Alaska's Prudhoe Bay oil field by the end of September, sources familiar with the company's plans said Thursday. Plans call for a partial restart of a pipeline that connects with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline's Flow Station 1, allowing up to half of the 200,000 barrels a day of lost production to begin flowing again. Prudhoe Bay normally supplies about 400,000 barrels daily, or 8% of U.S.

BP, Europe's biggest oil company, and partners in Indonesia's Tangguh liquefied natural gas project will start to deliver as much as 3.7 million metric tons of the fuel to Sempra Energy in Mexico in 2008, Indonesia's oil and gas regulator said. BP and San Diego-based Sempra have signed a 20-year sales contract. The LNG, which is natural gas chilled to liquid form so that it can be transported on a ship, will be delivered to Sempra's planned terminal near Ensenada in Baja California.

British oil giant BP has agreed to sell its interest in the Siberian Kovykta gas field to state-controlled Gazprom as the Kremlin tightened its grip on Russia's oil and gas industry. The sale is the culmination of years of pressure on BP's Russian joint venture TNK-BP, which wanted to develop the huge field to supply lucrative export markets in Asia. Gazprom will pay $600 million to $900 million for TNK-BP's 62.9% stake in the Kovykta operating company and a 50% stake in a smaller company.

Russian police visited the offices of British oil company BP and its Russian joint venture in what some observers said could be part of the government-orchestrated campaign to take control of lucrative energy assets. A group of police investigators appeared at the offices of BP's joint venture, TNK-BP, and later went to the Moscow offices of BP itself.

BP signed a $900-million natural gas exploration deal with Libya, marking the return of the British oil and gas company to the North African OPEC-member state after a 30-year break.

Venezuela said it had reached a $250-million deal to compensate Total and BP for an oil field it seized from them in April, but said it would not make the compensation in cash. Speaking at the signing of the deal, Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez pegged the compensation slightly lower than the $262 million that a government official had given earlier.