Give BP’s ‘continuity candidate’ time to succeed or fail on net-zero strategy

Some investors don’t buy the idea that BP’s ‘transition growth engines’ – wind turbines, hydrogen, biofuels and electric vehicle charging points – can generate the same returns as fossil fuels. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

After a “robust and competitive” hunt for a new chief executive, the board of BP has decided that the best appointment is the bloke who has been sitting in the boardroom for three and a half years already and doing the job on a stand-in basis since the defenestration of Bernard Looney last September.

No surprise there. BP has never appointed a boss from outside, and Murray Auchincloss, the former chief financial officer, fits the bill as a continuity candidate. He has been in the company for 25 years and is wedded to Looney’s – and chair Helge Lund’s – strategy of “orderly” transition to net zero by 2050 or sooner. He did the numbers on the approach, after all.