Sam Laidlaw, the former boss of Centrica, is among the candidates being considered as the next chairman of BP, Britain’s besieged oil and gas exploration giant.
Sky News has learnt that Mr Laidlaw is being considered by BP board members as a potential successor to Helge Lund, who announced in April that he would step down.
BP’s chair search comes with the £62bn oil major in a state of crisis, as industry predators circle and the pace of its strategic transformation being interrogated by shareholders.
Elliott Management, the activist investor, snapped up a multibillion pound stake in BP earlier this year and is pushing its chief executive, Murray Auchincloss, to accelerate spending cuts and ditch a string of renewable energy commitments.
Mr Lund’s departure will come after nearly a quarter of BP’s shareholders opposed his re-election at its annual meeting in April – an unusually large protest given that his intention to step down had already been announced.
BP’s senior independent director – the Aviva chief executive Amanda Blanc – is said to be moving “at pace” to complete the recruitment process.
A number of prominent candidates are understood to be in discussions with headhunters advising BP on the search.
Mr Laidlaw would be a logical choice to take the role, having transformed Centrica, the owner of British Gas, during his tenure, which ended in 2014.
Since then, he has had a long stint – which recently concluded – on the board of miner Rio Tinto, which has been fending off activist calls to abandon its London listing.
He also established, and then sold, Neptune Energy, an oil company which was acquired by Italy’s Eni for nearly £4bn in 2023.
Last December, Mr Laidlaw was appointed chairman of AWE, the government-owned body which oversees Britain’s nuclear weapons capability.
He also has strong family connections to BP, with his father, Christopher Laidlaw, having served as its deputy chairman during a long business career.
One person close to BP said the younger Mr Laidlaw had been approached about chairing the company during its previous recruitment process but had ruled himself out because of his Neptune Energy role.
The status of his engagement with BP’s search was unclear on Saturday.
Another person said to have been approached is Ken MacKenzie, who recently retired as chairman of the mining giant BHP.
Mr MacKenzie headed BHP during a period when Elliott held a stake in the company, and is said to have a good working relationship with the investor.
Shares in BP have continued their downward trajectory over the last year, having fallen by nearly a fifth during that period.
The company’s valuation slump is reported to have drawn renewed interest in a possible takeover bid, with rivals Shell and ExxonMobil among those said to have “run the numbers” in recent months.
Reports of such interest have not elicited any formal response, suggesting that any deal is conceptual at this stage.
BP is racing to sell assets including Castrol, its lubricants division, which could command a price of about $8bn.
This weekend, BP declined to comment, while Mr Laidlaw could not be reached for comment.
