BP shortlists former Centrica chief Laidlaw as potential chair, Sky News reports
The timing and status of Laidlaw's engagement with BP remain unclear, the report said.
Ken MacKenzie, who retired as chair of mining group BHP (BHP.AX), opens new tab earlier this year, has also been approached about the role, Sky News added.
BP declined to comment.
Lund was re-elected in April with sharply reduced support amid pressure from activist investor Elliott Management and criticism from climate-focused shareholders, some of whom had called for a vote against Lund.
Nearly 25% of BP shareholders opposed Lund's re-election at the annual general meeting.
BP subsequently announced he would step down, likely in 2026. Board member Amanda Blanc is in charge of finding Lund's successor.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
26 minutes ago
- Reuters
German government to approve 2026 budget with record investment and borrowing surge, sources say
BERLIN, July 28 (Reuters) - The German government will on Wednesday back a 2026 draft budget which includes record investment of 126.7 billion euros and borrowing of 174.3 billion euros as part of its fiscal bazooka for infrastructure and defence, finance ministry sources said. Germany is throwing off decades of fiscal conservatism in the hope of reviving economic growth, modernising its crumbling infrastructure and scaling up military spending, as Europe's biggest economy has gone from economic powerhouse to the euro zone's laggard. It is the only G7 economy that failed to grow for the last two years and the government forecast in the spring that it would stagnate again this year. The sources said that with the budget plans, the economic environment should improve noticeably over 2025 and 2026 compared with those forecasts. The 2026 draft budget comes together with a medium-term financial framework until 2029, with the whole package expected to be approved by the cabinet. The budget discussions will then start in parliament at the end of September before expected approval in both houses of parliament at the end of the year. The 2026 draft budget, with total spending of 520.5 billion euros ($606.80 billion), includes 126.7 billion euros ($147.71 billion) in investments earmarked for the modernisation of the country. That is an increase from 74.5 billion euros in 2024 and 115.7 billion euros in 2025. The investment surge in 2026 and subsequent three years will be possible thanks to a special 500 billion euro ($583 billion) infrastructure fund and an exemption from debt rules for defence spending approved in March. The special fund for infrastructure, which is also excluded from Germany's "debt brake" that limits borrowing to 0.35% of GDP, will add borrowing of 58.9 billion euros in 2026. For defence, the 100-billion-euro special fund created by former Chancellor Olaf Scholz following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which will be exhausted in 2027, will add 25.5 billion euros in borrowing in 2026. In the core budget, borrowing will go up from 33.3 billion euros in 2024 to 89.9 billion euros in 2026, the sources said. Adding those three components, total borrowing in 2026 will be 174.3 billion euros ($203.20 billion). It compares with total borrowing of 50.5 billion euros in 2024, under the previous government. Interest expenses will rise more sharply than previously forecast, the sources said, forecasting an increase to 66.5 billion euros in 2029, which compares with the 61.9 billion previously expected. Germany will raise defence spending to 3.5% of economic output by 2029, sources said on Monday. After low spending following the end of the Cold War, Germany complied with the NATO defence alliance's target of 2% of GDP for the first time in three decades in 2024 due to Scholz's special fund. NATO countries committed in June to spend 2.8% of GDP on defence in 2026 and then increase it to 5% - a new target to be achieved over the next 10 years, representing a jump worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year from the current goal. Germany's total defence spending will go up from 95.1 billion euros ($110.90 billion) in the draft budget for 2025 to 161.8 billion euros ($188.67 billion) in 2029, the sources said. Germany would be able to borrow a total 380 billion euros for defence between 2025 and 2029 thanks to debt brake reform from March, they said. ($1 = 0.8519 euros)
ITV News
28 minutes ago
- ITV News
Starmer meets Trump in south Ayrshire for talks at Scottish golf resort
The Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Lady Victoria Starmer have met Donald Trump at the US president's golf course in south Ayrshire, Scotland, for a series of wide ranging talks on trade and global affairs. Speaking on the steps of the president's residence at his Turnberry resort, and accompanied by the sound of bagpipes, Trump hailed the deal on tarrifs he and Starmer had struck, describing US-UK relations as "unparalleled", claiming: "We want to make the prime minister happy". Trump took a series of questions from journalists upon his arrival, who were keen to question the pair on what they would be discussing during the visit. Occupying most of the president's attention was the ongoing crisis in Gaza. "I think it's one of the main reasons for our meeting," he told reporters. Starmer has come under pressure in recent days to move further and faster on recognising Palestine as a soverign state. 255 MPs from nine seperate parties have all written to the PM demanding he move to recoginse Palestine. The UK's G7 ally France also announced last week it would be recognising Palestine's statehood. Asked whether he felt recognising Palestine as a state was a necessary step towards resolving the crisis, Trump refused to take a stance, adding: "I don't mind him taking one," as he signalled Starmer. Contradicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's assertions there was no starvation in Gaza, Trump said: "I'm looking at getting people fed right now. "Maybe that's the number one position because you have a lot of starving people." The US President claimed America had given $60 million (£45 million) in aid to Gaza already but that other countries would need to step up. Jumping in, Starmer emphasised: "It's a humanitarian crisis, right? It's an absolute catastrophe. Nobody wants to see that. He added: "I think people in Britain are revolted at seeing what they're seeing on their screens. So we've got to get to that ceasefire." Among the President's remarks was a strongly worded condemnation of Russian Presdient Vladimir Putin and the suggestion he would bring forward the deadline given to Putin to negotiate a ceasefire. "I'm very disappointed in President Putin. Very disappointed in him," said Trump. "We're going to have to look and I'm going to reduce that 50 days that I gave him to a lesser number because I think I already know the answer - what's going to happen." The US President was referring to his previous announcement in the Oval Office that he had given Putin 50 days to negotiate a ceasefire deal with Ukraine before imposing 100% secondary tariffs. Secondary tariffs would target Russia's trading partners in an effort to isolate Moscow in the global economy, potentially including nations that rely on Russia for oil and natural gas. Donald Trump will also meet with Scotland's First Minister John Swinney druring his trip, at which Swinney will broach the subject of tarrifs on Scotch whisky. Speaking on Monday morning, Swinney claimed the tariffs on this industry are currently costing whisky manufacturers £4 million a week and he would use this meting to make the case for lowering them. Asked about this on the steps of Turnberry the president, who himself does not drink, said, "I'm not a big whisky drinker... We're going to take a look at it." The president will be back in the UK in just under two months when he will be hosted by King Charles during a second official state visit.
The Independent
28 minutes ago
- The Independent
Britain has no business laughing at Trump's EU trade deal
In a world where Donald Trump's tariffs and trade wars make everyone a loser, are there any winners from his latest deal, sealed by a handshake with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in a ballroom at one of the president's Scottish golf courses, of all places? One very clear loser is von der Leyen herself. If body language is anything to go by, she looked like she'd been badly bullied by the Big Orange Man – and, truthfully, so she had. In her own clipped remarks, she admits that a reduction in tariffs to 15 per cent, while 'not to be underestimated', was 'the best we could get'. President Macron has declared the US-EU trade deal a 'dark day' for Europe – and you can understand why. A general tariff level of 15 per cent – better than the 20 per cent proposed by Trump on his infamous 'Liberation Day' in April, and even better than the 30 per cent he was threatening a couple of weeks ago – is still prohibitive. It is certainly way above the 2 to 3 per cent levels that most EU exporters used to face. A trade war has been avoided, but this looks like the kind of deal the Americans have forced on the likes of Vietnam or Indonesia. So it is something of a humiliation for the mighty European Union, a global trade superpower. The feeling in some parts of Europe must be that if von der Leyen had played hard ball like the Chinese, a more evenly balanced and more advantageous relationship could have been reached in the long run. We will never know the truth about that. For European pride and for many of its great industrial concerns, the deal is disappointing, and will be expensive – the Volkswagen group is just one to speak out. But for European consumers, it is surely good news. They will be able to enjoy cheaper imports from the United States; it is American customers who will have to pay more for their French wines and Italian sports cars. Could it be that the EU's trade deal – which Trump has, well, trumpeted as the 'biggest ever', and whose biggest 'win' is the removal of a threat to raise tariffs to 30 per cent later this week – is marginally worse than the one Starmer did with Trump in May? Britain's trade deal lowered tariffs of UK goods imported into the US to 10 per cent, and imposed a lesser, 25 per cent tariff on the UK steel industry, with room for further concessions, while the 50 per cent 'worldwide rate' will remain for the EU. For those now cheering this as a rare Brexit benefit, it is a hollow victory. For the concessions to Britain are so minor, they cannot hope to make up for the ground lost since Brexit – essentially, a GDP loss in excess of 5 per cent. And we're not out of the rough, by any stretch. As Keir Starmer meets the US president for further trade discussions at the Trump Turnberry golf course, he will be acutely conscious of his counterpart's unpredictability. Starmer has milked the modest concessions he managed to wangle, particularly on cars and food standards, but much remains vague and far from nailed-down. The greatest danger is the fuzzy UK commitment to improve the trading environment for the US pharma groups will eventually mean an enormous increase in the drugs bill for the National Health Service, which it can ill-afford. Trump also omitted virtually the whole of the service sector from his UK deal, where the British actually enjoy a surplus, which is great until he decides otherwise. There are no legally binding rules here. The world economy remains highly inter-dependent, and globalisation, while receding, cannot sensibly be ended, as even Elon Musk tries to argue. All barriers to trade harm the country that erects them both directly and, in their depressing effects on world growth, indirectly. Consumers are charged more, on a highly regressive basis, companies are forced to pay more for inputs, and be less cost-effective, and competition and dynamic structural change are deliberately impeded. Whatever the details of the individual deals counties are trying to strike with one another, tariffs make us all poorer in the long run.
