BP - a bit of history

British Petroleum has quite the interesting past. Some excerpts from Wikipedia:

In May 1901, William Knox D'Arcy was granted a concession by the Shah of Iran to search for oil, which he discovered in May 1908.[11] This was the first commercially significant find in the Middle East. On 14 April 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was incorporated as a subsidiary of Burmah Oil Company to exploit this.[11] In 1935, it became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).[11]

After World War II, AIOC and the Iranian government initially resisted nationalist pressure to revise AIOC's concession terms still further in Iran's favour. But in March 1951, the pro-western Prime Minister Ali Razmara was assassinated.[12] The Majlis of Iran (parliament) elected a nationalist, Mohammed Mossadeq, as prime minister. In April, the Majlis nationalised the oil industry by unanimous vote.[13] The National Iranian Oil Company was formed as a result, displacing the AIOC.[14] The AIOC withdrew its management from Iran, and organised an effective boycott of Iranian oil. The British government - which owned the AIOC - contested the nationalisation at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, but its complaint was dismissed.[15]

By spring of 1953, incoming U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorised the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to organise a coup against the Mossadeq government with support from the British government.[16] On 19 August 1953, Mossadeq was forced from office by the CIA conspiracy, involving the Shah and the Iranian military, and known by its codename, Operation Ajax.

Mossadeq, prince (Shahzadeh) of Qajar Dynasty, was replaced by pro-Western general Fazlollah Zahedi,[17] and the Shah, who returned to Iran after having left the country briefly to await the outcome of the coup. The Shah abolished the democratic Constitution and assumed autocratic powers.

After the coup, Mossadeq's National Iranian Oil Company became an international consortium, and AIOC resumed operations in Iran as a member of it.[14] The consortium agreed to share profits on a 50�50 basis with Iran, "but not to open its books to Iranian auditors or to allow Iranians onto its board of directors."[18] AIOC, as a part of the Anglo-American coup d'�tat deal, was not allowed to monopolise Iranian oil as before. It was limited to a 40% share in a new international consortium. For the rest, 40% went to the five major American companies and 20% went to Royal Dutch Shell and Compagnie Fran�aise des P�troles, now Total S.A..[19]

The AIOC became the British Petroleum Company in 1954. In 1959 the company expanded beyond the Middle East to Alaska[20] and in 1965 it was the first company to strike oil in the North Sea.[21] In 1978 BP acquired a controlling interest in Standard Oil of Ohio or Sohio, a breakoff of the former Standard Oil that had been broken up after anti-trust litigation.[22]

BP continued to operate in Iran until the Islamic Revolution in 1979. After 1979, during the Iran-Iraq war, the oil refineries were destroyed and Iran became a raw supplier of oil. The new regime of Ayatollah Khomeini broke all prior oil contracts and signed new contracts with British Petroleum with 90% to BP and 10% to Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers.

Nice heritage. Some flags on the environmental front as well:

BP was named by Mother Jones Magazine as one of the "ten worst corporations" in both 2001 and 2005 based on its environmental and human rights records.[49][50] In 1991 BP was cited as the most polluting company in the US based on EPA toxic release data. BP has been charged with burning polluted gases at its Ohio refinery (for which it was fined $1.7 million), and in July 2000 BP paid a $10 million fine to the EPA for its management of its US refineries.[51] According to PIRG research, between January 1997 and March 1998, BP was responsible for 104 oil spills.[52] BP patented the Dracone Barge to aid in oil spill clean-ups across the world.

Much more at the site -- I have not bothered to import the links to the citations as there are so many of them. If you want the data to back up these stories, visit the site and click away to your hearts content...