- BP CEO Bob Dudley says he does not expect a wave of mergers in the energy industry unless oil prices stay low for long, downplaying talk that Shell's takeover of BG Group could trigger a wave of multibillion-dollar deals like those that reshaped the industry in the 1990s.
- It probably will take “quite a bit of time to work off” the high levels of U.S. crude inventories at Cushing, Okla., and other oil hubs, Dudley told the IHS CERAWeek energy conference, adding that if sanctions against Iran were lifted, it would not take long to add 500K bbl/day of oil to the global market.
- Dudley’s remarks could suggest that Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), which has been speculated to be considering a move, would have difficulty persuading the BP board to accept an agreed offer; BP today denied a Bloomberg report that it had stepped up internal reviews of takeover scenarios following the Shell-BG deal.
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