Safety failures at all levels of the BP business were to blame for the Texas City refinery explosion which killed 15 people, a new report said today.

BP chief executive Lord Browne is expected to use his company’s second quarter earnings presentation today to confirm plans to stand down in 2008.

A group of American black leaders including the Revs Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are to boycott British oil giant BP, accusing the company of exploiting customers and racially discriminating in its business practices.

Oil giant BP was silent today on reports that it is courting Chinese leaders over a ground-breaking deal that would mirror its lucrative joint venture in Russia.

BP plc's oil output in Angola is set to rise from 50,000 barrels per day currently to 250,000 in 2007 after winning a large concession from national oil company Sonangol, the company said in a statement.

THE US and Britain are on the verge of war with Iraq. The pretext for war is to prevent Iraq making “weapons of mass destruction” and to destroy any stocks of such weapons it already possesses.

Dozens of people were injured when a tornado tore apart a town in the US, levelling a church and a petrol station, witnesses and officials said.

BP has signed a £1.75bn deal with Algeria to develop a gas field deep in the Sahara desert.