British Petroleum

BP is British multinational oil and Gas Company headquartered in London, England, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fifth-largest company in the world measured by 2012 revenues and is one of the six oil and gas "super majors". It is vertically integrated and operates in all areas of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading. It also has renewable energy activities in bio-fuels and wind power. As of December 2012, BP had operations in over 80 countries, produced around 3.8 million barrels per day of oil equivalent, had total proven commercial reserves of 17 billion barrels of oil equivalent and had around 22,400 service stations. Its largest division is BP America, which is the second-largest producer of oil and gas in the United States. BP has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index; it had a market capitalization of 85.2 billion as of April 2013, the fourth-largest of any company listed on the exchange. It has secondary listings on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.

History
On 14 April 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was incorporated as a subsidiary of Burmah Oil Company to exploit the first commercially significant find in the Middle East at Masjid-i-Suleiman, discovered in May 1908 under a concession granted to William Knox D'Arcy by the Shah of Iran. In 1935, Rez Shh requested the international community to refer to Persia as 'Iran', which was reflected in the name change of APOC to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC)

In 1954, the AIOC became the British Petroleum Company. After the 1953 Iranian coup d'tat Iranian Oil Participants Ltd (IOP), a holding company, was founded in October 1954 in London to bring Iranian oil back to the international market. British Petroleum merged with Amoco (formerly Standard Oil of Indiana) in December 1998, in 2001; the company formally renamed itself as BP plc On 1 October 2010, Bob Dudley replaced Tony Hayward as the company's CEO, By 2013 BP had fallen from the second largest oil company to the fourth after selling off assets to cover Deepwater Horizon oil spill-related payouts

Operations
BP has operations in around 80 countries worldwide. BP's global headquarters are located in the St James's area of London, United Kingdom. As of January 2012, the company had a total of 83,400 employees. BP operations are organized into two main business segments, Upstream and Downstream.

Major competitors:
The major competitors of BP are Chevron Corporation (CVX) and Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM). It also faces competition in local markets or specific product ranges from numerous companies, including Shell and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

Direct Competitor Comparison(billion $)

BP Market Cap: Employees: Revenue Net Income 139.60 85,700 374.81 22.68 CVX 244.89 62,000 217.73 26.17 XOM 414.09 76,900 413.86 44.93

BP= British Petroleum CVX = Chevron Corporation XOM = Exxon Mobil Corporation