Team size: 72

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Bp’s Trading and Shipping Legal Team (T&S) is a team of commodity, finance, regulatory and shipping lawyers, whose deep expertise has been critical in our response to the extreme conditions in the traded energy markets, over the past two years. Throughout the pandemic, the team helped bp keep energy flowing, while managing supply and demand disruptions, quarantine issues, vessel delays and crew changes on bp’s ships. Through unprecedented events such as winter storm Uri in the US the team helped our gas and power business maintain supply, and respond to the regulatory inquiries, litigation and counterparty bankruptcies that followed.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, together with bp’s specialist regulatory legal team, the T&S lawyers have been at the forefront of guiding T&S’s compliance with the numerous international sanctions’ regimes, helping to navigate market volatility, and maintain security of supply.

All of this has been against the backdrop of bp’s pivot towards net zero, which was announced in February 2020 and has fundamentally changed bp’s long term business strategy. T&S’ experience and expertise is proving to be essential in enabling the development of new products and markets focused on the transition to a lower carbon economy, including in areas as varied as bioenergy, green hydrogen, renewable power and carbon offsets.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

Be curious. We are privileged to work with talented individuals who are passionate about their business. Share that passion and be willing to learn. The true value of an in-house legal team comes from understanding the business, its strategy and the markets within which it operates.

How has the increasing consciousness of climate change and sustainability affected your company and the team’s priorities?

It has been fundamental. In 2020, bp launched its new strategy with the ambition to be a net zero company by 2050, and to help the world reach net zero. By 2030, bp aims to be a different kind of energy company as it pivots from being an international oil company to an integrated energy company. While our oil and gas business will be important to bp for many years to come, bp is aiming to reduce production by around 40% from 2019 to 2030, and by 2025, expects more than 40% of capital spending will go into its transition growth businesses. These businesses are driven by our growth engines, namely, renewables, hydrogen, convenience, electric vehicle charging and bioenergy. These new activities require intensive legal support as they grow rapidly to match bp’s ambitions.