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back to article BP: Oil prices crashed, so must our ICT budget

BP has confirmed it is looking to squeeze costs from its annual ICT budget on the back of crashing oil prices, and well-placed sources tell us the business wants to identify $300m in savings. It’s been a tough couple of years for the over-enthusiastic oil seeker and distributor, what with the crisis in Gulf of Mexico and more …

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  1. Robert E A Harvey

    About a thousand years ago

    I was working for the UK half of a USA petrol pump design company. We had just ordered a computer, a PDP11 to automate stock control and payroll. There was a downturn in oil industry business, and the instruction came from Texas to cut overheads in half.

    Being scared of taking decisions, the local management sacked half the accounts department, and cancelled the order for half the computer. So we ended up with a computer that could not do the stock control and an accounts dept. that could not do it either

    3 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Greed

    Again, I'm forced to confront the fact that I'm becoming increasingly left wing as I age. BP made a profit of 2.2 billion dollars in the last quarter of 2014. Full year profit of $12 bn. Hardly time to nip off to the pawn shop with the boardroom table is it? How much money do they need to be making? Isn't 12 billion dollars profit enough to be going on with? Sheesh.

    2 1 Reply
    1. Mark 85
      Reply Icon
      Devil

      Re: Greed

      Can a company ever have too much profit? After all, they have shareholders (including the board) that they need to "return shareholder value" to.

      3 0 Reply
    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Greed

      "Isn't 12 billion dollars profit enough to be going on with?"

      I suppose it depends on how much of your pension is invested in them.

      5 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Greed

        Well Doctor, that card, the 'obsene profits actually benefit pensioners' card, is played just a tad too often for my taste. I'm a cynical old git, and I smell a stock answer that's wheeled out to justify the hugely rich, becoming even richer. I mean, if people genuinely started to realise that a tiny number of people are in the posession of most of the world's wealth there would be the inconvenience of the inevitable revolution, and subsequent rolling of the tumbrils that would follow. Messy. Best stick to the status quo.

        0 0 Reply
        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Greed

          "the 'obsene profits actually benefit pensioners' card, is played just a tad too often for my taste."

          The insertion of "obscene" before "profits", even when spelled correctly, is a bit too much of a cliché for my taste.

          The fact remains that if you have savings in pensions, ISAs or whatever you're likely to have some of that in all the big corporations unless you pick a fund that specifically doesn't make such choices. If so then whenever thinking about the behaviour of such corporations it always helps to replace "them" with "me". It also helps to remember that for any corporation of that size all the numbers are going to be big.

          Nevertheless, it's a good while since I bought any petrol at a BP forecourt. They're far too dear.

          2 0 Reply
      2. Roland6 Silver badge
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        Re: Greed @Doctor Syntax

        It also depends on how that profit is being used and what proportion is being given out as dividends - not all companies use their profits wisely...

        0 0 Reply
    3. Roger Anderson
      Reply Icon

      Re: Greed

      They still have billions in liabilities for the GoM disaster so they need to find that cash from somewhere. Up till now it's been paid off by selling parts of the business.

      You also require profits to invest in new projects. developing new oil/gas projects can requires 10s of billions in expenditure before you ever see a return.

      Lastly, the effect of the oil price drop didn't really show up in Q4 results. I would expect Q1 2015 results to be the same.

      If you were told you salary was going to be slashed, would you not alter your spending habits before it happened?

      0 0 Reply
      1. Roger Anderson
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        Re: Greed

        Damn, just noticed the typo. I "wouldn't" expect the 2015 results to be the same, profits will be lower.

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      2. Roland6 Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Greed

        They still have billions in liabilities for the GoM disaster

        Yes the ambulance chasers have been having a feeding frenzy on this one, can't foresee them letting go anytime soon.

        1 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Uh huh...

    So presumably the CEO of BP has taken a 33% cut in his remuneration and bonus, to account for this leaner organisation now going through some troubled times?

    What do you mean, he hasn't? That, in actual fact, it was tripled last year? http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/06/bp-salary-idUSL6N0M33HJ20140306

    Well colour me shocked, utterly shocked.

    3 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Uh huh...

      I'm sure if you asked him, he'd say he's 3x more valuable because he's "guiding them through challenging times"

      1 0 Reply
  4. channel extended

    Nothing new

    Still a bad company making bad descisions.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nothing new

      Maybe a 'bad company making bad decisions' (I'm ambivalent) but the oil spillage in Mexico was caused by US company Transocean who have 22 offices World Wide, 1 in the UK, 6 in the US, Canada and Brazil). BP owned the oil well, but Transocean owned and operated the rig. So in this case, BP was the customer. So using the same logic, the next time Horse Meat is found in Tesco meat, then you are to blame (if you shop at Tesco). Blaming the oil spill on BP, served 2 purposes: firstly it avoided a US company having to foot the bill. Secondly (and more importantly), it finally wrestled control of BP (majority of directors already US citizens) from British hands. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill was decidedly convenient.

      0 0 Reply

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