Headed by BP’s chief financial officer Brian Gilvary from Britain, the new taskforce will coordinate the oil giant’s operations in the country and any discussions with National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Reuters reported on Tuesday.
BP’s new executive committee also includes Bernard Looney, upstream chief executive, who is Irish, Dev Sanyal, chief executive of alternative energy and executive vice president, regions, an Indian national, and General Counsel Rupert Bondy, a Briton.
“The separate governance structure does not involve Bob (American chief executive Bob Dudley) or any other US citizens and was set up for Bob’s own protection,” one source said.
BP, which was founded more than a century ago as the Anglo-Persian oil company, has yet to sign any deals with Iran.
The company had no recent major involvement in Iran’s oil industry before and after the imposition of anti-Tehran sanctions against the country in 2012.
Anti-Iran sanctions were lifted after Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on July 14, 2015 and started implementing it on January 16.