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BP has lost the head of its electric vehicle charging division for the second time in a year, as it scales back investment in its energy transition businesses and refocuses on oil and gas ahead of the arrival of its new chief executive this week.
Martin Thomsen, who took charge of BP Pulse as well as the energy major’s petrol station and retail business in Europe and South Africa last May, joined Rolls-Royce this month as chief procurement and supply chain officer, according to people familiar with the matter. A representative for the aerospace group confirmed the appointment.
Rolls-Royce is led by former BP executive Tufan Erginbilgiç and counts other former BP leaders among its senior ranks.
Thomsen’s departure comes as Meg O’Neill, the former head of Australian oil and gas company Woodside, is set to take over as BP’s chief executive on Wednesday, replacing Murray Auchincloss.
O’Neill is expected to continue a pivot back towards oil and gas, backed by chair Albert Manifold, who is overseeing a broader transformation of the group. Manifold described O’Neill in BP’s annual report as “the right leader” to pursue “significant strategic and financial opportunities”.
The shift away from clean energy followed pressure from activist investor Elliott Management, which built a roughly 5 per cent stake in BP in early 2025.
BP is examining the potential sale or part sale of a wide range of assets outside its core oil and gas production, refining and trading businesses, according to several people familiar with its thinking.
The divestments could include its Austrian and South African fuel and retail businesses, both of which fell under Thomsen, some of the people said.
A senior energy banker compared BP’s restructuring to the break-up of ConocoPhillips more than a decade ago, when the US group spun off refining company Phillips 66 and sold non-core assets to streamline its oil and gas production business.
ConocoPhillips now has a market capitalisation of about $164bn, compared with BP’s roughly £94bn.
In December, BP agreed to sell nearly two-thirds of its lubricants business Castrol to private equity firm Stonepeak for $6bn to pay down its debt.
The group’s global network of about 20,500 petrol stations is likely to attract interest from potential bidders ranging from private equity firms to retailers and Middle Eastern national oil companies.
BP Pulse, which lost its former head Richard Bartlett last March, focuses on electric vehicle charging in the UK, US, Germany and China, and had a target of 100,000 public charging points by 2030.
Pulse sold more than 1.5 TWh of energy last year, an all-time high for the business, and marking an 8 per cent year-on-year increase.
But BP is moving away from the energy transition businesses, and last year shut down the team responsible for developing electric, hydrogen and other low-emission solutions for vehicles.
Thomsen told staff at the time that it was no longer “commercially viable” to have a team dedicated to the area. Thomsen’s previous roles during more than 20 years at the group included leading its aviation fuelling business, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The energy major said BP Pulse had “a strong year of delivery aligning with bp’s strategy to focus the downstream, and be a simpler, stronger, more valuable company”.