BP's 'heretic' hailed

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In an industry where companies generally move in lock-step, copying rivals down to the standard, three-legged drilling structure, John Browne broke away from the pack in 1997.

The British Petroleum chief executive started the year as Greenpeace's No 1 villain and ended with its grudging respect, opening a transatlantic rift in Big Oil over the environment.

Since May, Mr Browne's standard stump speech has included urgings that there is "cause for concern" that burning of fossil fuels like the oil and natural gas at the hub of BP's profit could be damaging the climate.

That's heresy in the US, where BP is the nation's biggest oil producer. US majors led by Exxon dispute the science suggesting a link between oil burning and climate change. Environmentalists say Mr Browne's affirmation that climate change may be fact is a landmark because it shows the first cracks in the lobbying effort against new pollution rules.

"There is a bit of a public relations ploy, but one should give credit where credit is due," says Marcus Rand, a close watcher of the industry at Greenpeace who spent part of the year on a ship in the North Sea fighting BP's oil drilling efforts.

Elsewhere, too, Mr Browne has distinguished BP's strategy from his rivals' in America. In November, he bought a stake in Russia's Sidanco with the aim of investing up to $3bn (pounds 1.8bn) in Siberian gas fields. And BP is aiming for $1bn in sales from its solar power business to satisfy the demand for cleaner energy.

Shareholders noticed, too, driving up BP shares 23 per cent - slightly better than the 20 per cent surge enjoyed by 16 of the biggest US oil majors.