The chief executive of BP – Britain’s second biggest oil company – has warned that Scottish independence could cause his company “uncertainties” and said he did not want to see Scotland ‘drifting away’.
Bob Dudley’s comments mark a rare foray into the debate on Scottish independence among heads of major British companies, which have so far sidestepped the issue.
“We have a lot of people in Scotland. We have a lot of investments in Scotland. My personal view is that Great Britain is great and it ought to stay together,” the BP boss who is American, told the BBC.
Uncertainty around currency issues could affect the company and if Scotland became independent, it would mean additional costs for BP, Dudley told reporters later.
“It does not seem the right thing to me for the country (Scotland) to drift off. That’s not a company view, that’s from me,” he added.
Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland, said Dudley is ‘entitled to his personal opinion’ and added: “The main thing is that BP has got massive investment planned in Scottish waters, and rightly so, because they make lots of money from exploiting the national resources.”
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