BP today announced that Mr Andy Holmes, President of Australasia and Chief Operating Officer, Fuels Asia Pacific & Air BP has decided to retire from the company. Mr Frédéric Baudry, currently Vice President, Midstream Europe, has been appointed to the position effective 1 January 2020.
Mr Holmes has been with BP for 34 years, first joining the company as a graduate engineer in the UK. His career with the company has included roles in the Upstream, chemicals, refining, trading and supply businesses in countries that include China and Germany. He has also led the Rhine Fuels Value Chain, and global fuels businesses Air BP and LPG.
Since his appointment in 2013 to BP Group's Downstream executive team and as leader of the Asia Pacific Fuels businesses, Mr Holmes has significantly improved the safety and competitive performance of BP's businesses in Australia, New Zealand and China.
Mr Holmes' strategic interventions transformed the Bulwer Island refinery to a fuels terminal, reduced overheads by more than $250 million through simplification and improved Kwinana Refinery's competitiveness against Asia Pacific refiners, up one quartile – as well as increasing its capacity from approximately 130,000 bpd to 152,000 bpd – the largest in Australia. Highlights of Mr Holmes' leadership in the region include growing BP's retail network by 25% in New Zealand, adding more than 50 new sites to the Australian network, and increasing profitability in China by 50% and signing a new joint venture to expand BP's retail presence in three new provinces. Operationally the business is in good health – with our convenience stores having market-leading like-for-like sales for every month of 2019 in both Australia and New Zealand.
Mr Baudry, who is French, has worked for BP for 30 years for a range of commercial and operational businesses in Europe and Asia Pacific. In his most recent role Mr Baudry delivered a significant turnaround and growth for the Midstream in Europe where he was responsible for the optimisation of BP's fuels value chain including four refineries, wholesale supply and biofuels, B2B, 14 terminals and end consumer pricing for the Retail business. Mr Baudry will bring to BP's Asia Pacific businesses a strong record of commercial and safety performance drawn from segments as diverse as fuels, retail, petrochemicals, lubricants finance and strategy.
