BP America Inc.
Overview. BP America Inc. is the U.S. operating subsidiary of BP p.l.c. (LSE/NYSE: BP), the British integrated energy company incorporated in 1909 and headquartered at 1 St James's Square, London. BP America's U.S. headquarters is in Houston, Texas (BP Westlake Campus, 501 Westlake Park Blvd.). BP has publicly stated that Houston is its largest employee base worldwide, with roughly 4,000–6,000 employees in the metro area. Parent BP p.l.c. is publicly traded and reported revenue of about $189 billion for FY2024, with roughly 94,000 employees per its 2024 strategic report (some trackers cite ~100,500 including TravelCenters of America); market capitalization has run in the $80–90 billion range. BP America is wholly owned by BP p.l.c. via BP Holdings North America and BP America Limited, per its corporate disclosure statement in the case below.
Operations. BP America is not a shell or licensing vehicle. It conducts BP's U.S. integrated energy business: oil and natural gas exploration and production (including Gulf of Mexico and onshore U.S. operations), refining and petrochemical production, fuels marketing and retail through BP-branded service stations and TravelCenters of America, lubricants (Castrol), natural gas and LNG trading, and low-carbon activities such as wind, hydrogen, and Archaea Energy's renewable natural gas. Its Texas-based activities, as described in court filings, also include research and natural gas power and trading.
Patent-litigation posture. BP America appears in the tracked data once, as a defendant and never as a plaintiff — the profile of an operating company targeted by an asserting entity rather than a litigant driving suits. The single case was filed in the plaintiff-friendly U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division.
Notable case. SIPCO, LLC et al. v. Emerson Electric Co. et al (No. 6:15-cv-00907, E.D. Tex., filed Oct. 16, 2015) named BP p.l.c., BP America Inc., and BP America Production Company alongside Emerson Electric, Emerson Process Management, Fisher-Rosemount Systems, and Rosemount. Plaintiffs SIPCO, LLC and IP Co., LLC (d/b/a IntusIQ) — a Georgia-based, inventor-founded non-practicing entity associated with T. David Petite — asserted a wireless mesh networking and remote monitoring portfolio (e.g., U.S. Patents 7,697,492; 7,103,511; 6,914,893), reflecting an industrial-IoT/smart-metering focus. BP America denied purchasing or using the accused Emerson products. The case was closed in July 2016; a parallel action proceeded in the Northern District of Georgia.