BP stock plunges after company ousts its chairman over conduct and governance concerns

The board said the decision was unanimous. In a statement, Amanda Blanc, BP's senior independent director, described the board as having been caught off guard by what it found. "The board has been surprised and disappointed to learn of governance oversight and conduct issues it deems unacceptable and has taken decisive action," she said. The company did not elaborate on the specific nature of the concerns.

Ian Tyler has been named interim chair, BP said, with the board set to begin a formal process to identify a permanent successor. Tyler said in a statement: "The Board and leadership team have deep conviction in the strategic direction we have laid out, and the company is moving at pace to deliver it."

BP stock fell as much as 9% in London following the announcement.

Manifold took up the chairmanship just last October. At last month's annual general meeting, just 81.8% of shareholders backed his election, according to CNBC — a notably weak result given that chairpersons customarily win approval from nearly all voters, even though the threshold for election stands at 50%.

Among the most consequential decisions of Manifold's short tenure, according to Bloomberg, was pushing out former CEO Murray Auchincloss and overseeing the selection of Meg O'Neill to succeed him — a hire that marked the first time BP had recruited a chief executive from outside the company and the first time a woman had led one of the oil industry's largest players. Tyler's statement singled out O'Neill for praise, with the new interim chair noting that the board has been "very impressed" with her performance since taking the top job, and highlighting her move to reorganize the company around distinct upstream and downstream divisions.

BP more than doubled its first-quarter profit to $3.2 billion, driven by oil trading gains tied to the Iran war, with O'Neill saying the company made "further progress towards our 2027 targets." The company has been pivoting back toward oil and gas and away from renewables, a shift Manifold had pushed to accelerate, according to Bloomberg. The ouster compounds the uncertainty hanging over a company that has spent years struggling to win back the trust of its investors.