The story
The British National Oil Corporation (BNOC), a state-owned body, was originally formed in 1975 under the provisions of the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Act 1975. Its objective was to maintain adequate oil supply levels.
Britoil's interest in UK oil and gas fields in 1982 was as follows.
As a result of the Oil and Gas (Enterprise) Act 1982, BNOC was split to enable the trading sector of the company BNOC to remain nationalised whilst the oil exploration and production sector, Britoil, was a limited liability company. On 4 March it was incorporated as Britoil Limited.
In November 1982, 51% of Governmental shares in Britoil were sold off, but this was substantially under-subscribed. The resultant losses were carried by underwriters. The remaining Government minority shareholding in Britoil was sold in November 1985 for £434 million, ensuring it kept a "Golden Share" in order to veto any outsourcing attempts. The collapse in world oil prices globally, combined with the possession of Britoil's majority share by BP meant that the golden share was sold to British Petroleum in 1988.
Britoil's Production entitlement and financial summary was as follows:
In the same year, the company had been subject of an attempted £23 million fraud by one of its own cashiers.
Key people
Chairman and Chief Executive: Baron Kearton (Christopher Frank Kearton) (1975–79), Ronald Utiger (1979–1980), Sir Philip Shelbourne (July 1980 – 1988), Sir Robin Duthie (1988–90).
Ian Clark was Britoil joint managing director until the BP takeover.
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After the splitting off of Britoil Lord Croham, the deputy chairman of BNOC, became chairman of BNOC's trading activities (1982–85).
From Wikipedia’s article on Britoil, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4