Big oil breeds Big politics

“Big boys playing big games, for very high stakes.”

In that one sentence, Anji Hunter, Group Director of Brand and Communications at global oil giant BP, put in perspective the intimate relationship between the global energy giants and the politicians who shadow their every move.

She laid to rest any doubt about the existing status quo, saying that the modus operandi of BP CEO John Browne is the same as British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

These included, she said, being able to run their respective entities as efficiently as possible, being accountable as well as being able to satisfy diverse interests and staying out of trouble.

She told journalists and BP representatives attending a luncheon at the Melange Restaurant on Ariapita Avenue in Port-of-Spain last Thursday that oil and politics were inseparable.

Her presentation, according to the press statement, was, “The evolving role of the media globally” but she preferred to talk off the cuff.

With all the clout the company has in shaping global energy, BP, she admitted, “is still a political organisation” and had to play by certain rules.

Rules, she said, played by big boys for very high stakes.

Hunter, once director of government relations for Blair left the cut-throat world of British politics for another one: the intoxicating world of the global outfit, BP, run by Browne.

When asked about her transition from politics to government, Hunter said it was relatively easy but gave further insight into how oil and politics depended on each other. She reasoned that there was a symbiosis between politics and oil, a relationship that journalists would be na?ve not to recognise.

“Commodities,” she said with authority, “was wrapped up in politics,” noting that this was so since time immemorial.

She said she knew all too well the nasty perception that big oil companies — like BP — can have in the countries in which they do business.

“Profit centres, rapacious pillagers,” are how these companies are described, she said.

BP’s reputation, she added, was nothing like this, stressing that the company had worked hard to protect its image.

Business, she said in response to a question, should not be trying to do the work of government. “It is not BP’s job to do health and education services. That is for government,” she said in her British accent.

She told journalists that she knew nothing about the oil business before joining the company in 2002.

At Downing Street, she said she was charged with the responsibility of forging and maintaining links between the media, business and foreign governments.

Hunter said she knew the British Prime Minister since she was 16, a man who turned out to be her best friend. Blair, she added, came to power “totally surprised” and with an inexperienced team. Part of her job, she said, was managing the transition from opposition to government.

She described those 18 years out of office as “long, dark, years,” saying it was “extraordinary coming back to power.”

In a later interview, she said leaving Blair’s side was not an easy decision but felt the calling of the corporate world. She said she was warned to stay away from multi-nationals, especially oil and gas.

Hunter said she started combing the Internet in her office after everyone else went home to see what companies were up to. She then listed several companies that caught her eye, including Unilever, Virgin, headed by Richard Branson, and BP.

“I thought it was a great company to work for,” she said.

Ironically, she said a few days later she was having dinner at the residence of the US ambassador in London and sitting next to her was Browne.

She said she was conduit between Blair and Browne, and as a result, knew him pretty well.

Browne, she said, started talking about how he was looking for a head of communications and someone who knew the business, and asked her to suggest somebody.

“What about me ?” she asked him. “I am interested.”

“You know nothing about oil,” the BP chairman said.

“I can learn the business,” she quipped. At first, he did not take her seriously but slowly warmed to the idea. The rest was history, she said.

“I was a public servant who was about to enter the whole new world of the private sector,” she recalled.

Now, Hunter’s portfolio runs from managing the BP brand and company’s reputation globally, scouring the internet for data, both the bad and good, and keeping tabs on 103,000 BP employees by global intranet on a daily basis.

“I own the Internet,” she said with a laugh.

Her portfolio also includes writing Lord Browne’s speeches and plotting BP’s global communication strategy. She is also the force behind BP’s global advertising and what appears where as well as procurement of space on billboards and events. She is also responsible for writing those sustainability reports and ensuring that BP’s voice does not get lost in the global clutter.

Her advice to Browne can run from prepping him for a popular radio show in the UK, where his unmarried status might be put on trial to being prepared to issue a press statement at a moment’s noitice.

In 2012, when London hosts the Olympics, she will be responsible for what she called “special point accountability (SPA) and which maps put BP’s involvement in the event.

“I did not understand the business,” she said, saying that she only had a degree in history and was at the bottom of a very steep energy learning curve. She said was still learning about how BP runs its oil business globally.

It was fantastic to be part of something so successful, she said of BP’s operations, noting that in the four years she has been there, the company has made the “right call and right investments.”

Hunter noted too that BP was an enormous entity and “sometimes did not know what the other part was doing.”

She was asked about the global extractive industry initiative (EIA) with specific reference to Trinidad and Tobago. She said while she stood for transparency, she was not qualified to answer that question on TT.