Bernard Looney to chair US start-up as he plans comeback from BP scandal

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Former BP chief executive Bernard Looney is joining the board of a US-based data centre company as he seeks a comeback from a scandal last year that cost him the top job at the oil major.

The Irish executive told the Financial Times he has been appointed chair of Prometheus Hyperscale, a start-up with plans to build a $10bn data centre in Evanston, Wyoming, to capitalise on the artificial intelligence boom.

Looney said the role, which will be formally announced by the company on Monday, marked his first public appointment since he resigned abruptly from BP in September 2023 over his failure to disclose fully to the board past relationships with female colleagues at the company.

“I had some of the best years of my life there [at BP],” said the 54-year-old executive, who joined BP when he left university in Dublin in 1991.

“I’m wishing BP well, and of course for me I’m thinking about the next 32 years of my career, and I can’t think of anything more exciting, more challenging to do than get stuck into this space.”

Prometheus plans to build one of the world’s largest data centres on land owned by its founder and chief executive, Trenton Thornock, a rancher with experience in the finance and energy industries. The facility would offer up to one gigawatt capacity to technology companies and cover one square mile, about three quarters the size of New York’s Central Park.

In May, Prometheus signed a partnership agreement with Oklo, a nuclear energy developer chaired and backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman.

“There will be other things that I do as well, but this is the first one that we have publicly announced and I’m really energised, really excited and looking forward to getting going,” said Looney in an interview.

Looney said he was also advising a Norwegian technology company and sitting on the board of a US non-profit organisation, Focusing Capital On The Long Term. He would not comment on a report by The Financial Times in July that he had held talks with senior figures in the UAE about a project that would involve him making private equity style investments with the backing of the Gulf state.

Looney was BP chief executive for less than four years but garnered respect within the industry for his attempt to pivot the 115-year-old oil company to cleaner fuels.

His career imploded last year following an investigation about past relationships with colleagues at BP, which prompted his resignation. He was later dismissed by BP for “serious misconduct” over his failure to disclose fully to the board past relationships and stripped of as much as $32.4mn in pay and unvested share awards.

When asked if there were any legal issues outstanding with BP, Looney said not as far as he was concerned and he “wished the company well”.

Prometheus’s Thornock, who previously worked in the drilling industry, said Looney had a great background in energy and sustainability, which made him a good candidate to chair the company.

“Of course, Bernard started his career as a drilling engineer, so we have a lot of similarities in terms of coming out of the energy industry and now into the sustainability part of the tech industry. And we both actually grew up on family ranches,” he said.

He said the manner of Looney’s departure from BP last year raised “no concerns” with him.