BP’s slide and the drop in crude prices complicates a bet by Elliott Investment Management, which has bought up around 5% of BP. The activist investor has been ramping up pressure on BP after its new strategy fell short of its expectations, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The tariffs threaten to disrupt North America’s tightly integrated oil industry and raise demand for US crude to backfill any Canadian or Mexican barrels that are diverted elsewhere to avoid the levies. Still, the tariffs’ effects may be blunted by the fact that many American refineries were built to handle those countries’ heavy crudes, rather than domestically produced light oil, leaving them limited options for substitution. The US receives about about 4 million barrels a day from Canada and about 400,000 barrels a day from Mexico.
Oil prices have eased after concerns over potential supply disruptions from Storm Rafael in the US Gulf of Mexico subsided.
Oil prices fell on Monday after China’s fiscal stimulus measures, announced at the National People’s Congress, failed to meet investor expectations, suggesting limited support for fuel demand.