BP and the blow-up caribou

12 April 2012

A BLOW-UP caribou greeted BP shareholders in London today as environmental campaigners gathered at the oil giant's annual general meeting.

Demonstrators including US students, the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Free Tibet campaign - BP owns a stake in Chinese firm PetroChina - protested outside the meeting, held at the Royal Festival Hall.

The 15-foot inflatable caribou, Kara, is owned by a US pressure group which is campaigning against oil exploration in the Arctic Refuge - one of the last natural wildernesses and home to herds of caribou.

Shareholders were urged to back a resolution at the AGM that will make BP reveal where it is considering drilling and why. A WWF spokeswoman said: 'The way forward is going to be through transparency. As oil reserves get more and more depleted, companies are going to look into going into environmentally sensitive sites. Governments are going to be looking for companies that are completely clean and transparent when it comes to granting licences for this.'

BP said it was proud of its corporate responsibility record, adding: 'BP already makes available, to all interested parties, information on matters related to environmental and social issues and on its approach to managing risk.'

At the AGM, BP chief executive Lord Browne told investors: 'Globalisation has increased our size and reach, but of course to some people we seem dangerously powerful and unaccountable.

'The world is watching the corporate sector, often with suspicion, and if we're going to be able to deliver growing shareholder value we have to demonstrate that our presence and our activity is to the benefit of the community as a whole.'

BP was rocked by the tough global economic conditions last year. But Browne said business was expected to improve over coming months.

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