What is the current name of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company? Its modern corporate successor is BP, officially BP p.l.c.
The company was founded in 1909 after oil was discovered in Persia, now Iran, through the efforts of entrepreneur William Knox D’Arcy. Its original name was the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. In 1935, after Persia formally adopted the name Iran for international use, the company became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
The business adopted the name British Petroleum in 1954, reflecting its broader identity and the familiar “BP” initials. It later became The British Petroleum Company p.l.c. and expanded through major acquisitions, including Amoco in 1998 and ARCO in 2000. Since 2001, the company has generally traded under the short name BP.
BP is not the same company as Shell, Eni, or TotalEnergies, despite operating in the same global oil and gas industry. The wording “current name” points to the corporate lineage rather than a simple rebranding of an unchanged national company: BP is the descendant of the Anglo-Persian and Anglo-Iranian enterprise.