William Knox D'Arcy, by contract with Ali-Qoli Khan Bakhtiari, obtained permission to explore for oil for the first time in the Middle East,[22] an event which changed the history of the entire region.

[24] In 1923, Burmah employed Winston Churchill as a paid consultant to lobby the British government to allow APOC have exclusive rights to Persian oil resources, which were subsequently granted by the Iranian monarchy.

By 1928, the APOC's shareholding in TPC, which by now was named Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), was reduced to 23.75%; as the result of the changing geopolitics post Ottoman empire break-up, and the Red Line Agreement.

Later, in 1954, the Sultan of Muscat, backed by the British government and the financial aid he received from IPC, started occupying regions within the interior of Oman, which led to the outbreak of Jebel Akhdar War that lasted for more than 5 years.

[105] In 2007, BP formed with AB Sugar and DuPont a joint venture Vivergo Fuels which opened a bioethanol plant in Saltend near Hull, United Kingdom in December 2012.

[174] In November 2022, the company announced a large increase in profit for the period from July to September due to the high fuel prices caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

[196] In February 2022, BP announced it acquired a 30% stake in the London-based company, Green Biofuels Ltd, a producer of renewable hydrogenated vegetable oil fuels that can be used as a direct replacement for diesel.

On 1 February 2021, BP inked a deal to sell 20% participating interest in Block 61 to Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Ltd. (PTTEP) for a total of $2.6 billion.

[132][134][251] Retail operations of motor vehicle fuels in Europe are present in the United Kingdom, France, Germany (through the Aral brand), the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Poland, Greece and Turkey.

[255] It purchases crude oil for the company's refineries in the United States, and has a 35 per cent stake in the undeveloped Bay du Nord project and three offshore exploration block in Newfoundland.

[97] On the US West Coast, in the states of California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, and Utah, BP primarily operates service stations under the ARCO brand.

[308][309] According to the company, the new slogan represented their focus on meeting the growing demand for fossil fuels, manufacturing and delivering more advanced products, and to enable transitioning to a lower carbon footprint.

[322][323] In May 2012, BP tasked a press office staff member to openly join discussions on the Wikipedia article's talk page and suggest content to be posted by other editors.

[327] In 2014, BP backed a global study researching challenges for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees and for ways that companies can be a "force for change" for LGBT workers around the world.

[331] A 2016 article in the Houston Chronicle said BP was "among the first major companies in the United States to offer LGBT workers equal protection and benefits roughly 20 years ago".

[335] Also in 2017, John Mingé, chairman and president of BP America, signed a letter alongside other Houston oil executives denouncing the proposed "bathroom bill" in Texas.

[339] In March 2002, Lord John Browne, the group chief executive of BP that time, declared in a speech that global warming was real and that urgent action was needed.

[358] In a 2016 study, conducted by Indra Øverland of Norwegian Institute of International Affairs BP was ranked 15th out of 18 levels (in total 37th out of 92 oil, gas and mining companies) on indigenous rights and resource extraction in the Arctic.

The suit alleged that BP illegally released air pollutants by failing to adequately inspect, maintain, repair and properly operate thousands of pieces of equipment across the refinery as required by AQMD regulations.

[368] The company was accused of benefiting from a regime of terror carried out by Colombian government paramilitaries to protect the 450-mile (720 km) Ocensa pipeline; BP said throughout that it has acted responsibly and that landowners were fairly compensated.

[369] In 2009, another group of 95 Colombian farmers filed a suit against BP, saying the company's Ocensa pipeline caused landslides and damage to soil and groundwater, affecting crops, livestock, and contaminating water supplies, making fish ponds unsustainable.

BP was further fined for neglecting to develop shutdown procedures and designate responsibilities and to establish a system to promptly address and resolve recommendations made after an incident when a large feed pump failed three years prior to 2006.

[404] In October 2013, a trial designed as a test for a larger suit that includes 45,000 people found that BP was negligent in the case, but due to the lack of substantial evidence linking illness to the emissions, decided the company would be absolved of any wrongdoing.

[455] Another peer-reviewed study, released in March 2014 and conducted by 17 scientists from the United States and Australia and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that tuna and amberjack that were exposed to oil from the spill developed deformities of the heart and other organs.

[462][463][464] A peer-reviewed study published in The American Journal of Medicine reported significantly altered blood profiles of individuals exposed to the spilled oil and dispersants that put them at increased risk of developing liver cancer, leukemia and other disorders.

BP stated that it pressed for the conclusion of prisoner transfer agreement amid fears that delays would damage its "commercial interests" and disrupt its £900 million offshore drilling operations in the region, but it said that it had not been involved in negotiations concerning the release of Megrahi.

In 1952, IPC offered financial support to raise an armed force that would assist the Sultan in occupying the interior region of Oman, an area that geologists believed to be rich in oil.

[494][495] At that time, CFTC Enforcement staff provided BP with a notice of intent to recommend charges of attempted market manipulation in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act.

[499] A dataset of gasoline prices of BP, Caltex, Woolworths, Coles, and Gull from Perth gathered in the years 2001 to 2015 was used to show by statistical analysis the tacit collusion between these retailers.

[500] Documents from a 2016 bid to drill in the Great Australian Bight revealed claims by BP that a large-scale cleanup operation following a massive oil spill would bring a "welcome boost to local economies.