LONDON (AP) — British oil giant Shell on Thursday denied media reports that it is in talks to buy rival BP.
The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday said Shell was holding “early stage talks,″ to acquire BP, citing people familiar with the matter.
“In response to recent media speculation Shell wishes to clarify that it has not been actively considering making an offer for BP and confirms it has not made an approach to, and no talks have taken place with, BP with regards to a possible offer,” Shell said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.
Shell has repeatedly denied speculation that it was considering a takeover of its smaller rival BP, saying it was focused on streamlining and simplifying its own business.
Some analysts have suggested BP would be an attractive takeover after a plan to shift its focus to renewable energy, which was abandoned earlier this year, left its shares undervalued in comparison to other oil companies.
BP has also struggled to recover from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 17 workers and forced the company to pay billions of dollars for environmental damage in the Gulf of Mexico.
FILE - This Aug. 1, 2017 file photo shows the BP logo at a petrol station in London. (AP Photo/Caroline Spiezio, File)
FILE -This is the Shell Oil logo in front of a Shell gas station in Pittsburgh,, June 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
PARIS (AP) — A pro-Russian hacking group claimed responsibility for a major cyberattack that halted package deliveries by France’s national postal service just days before Christmas, prosecutors said Wednesday.
After the claim by the cybercrime group known as Noname057, French intelligence agency DGSI took over the investigation into the hacking attack, the Paris prosecutor’s office said in a statement to The Associated Press.
The group has been accused of other cyberattacks in Europe, including around a NATO summit in the Netherlands and French government sites. It was the target of a big European police operation earlier this year.
Central computer systems at French national postal service La Poste were knocked offline Monday in a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, cyberattack that still wasn’t fully resolved by Wednesday morning, the company said.
Postal workers couldn’t track package deliveries, and online payments at the company’s banking arm were also disrupted. It was a major blow to La Poste, which delivered 2.6 billion packages last year and employs more than 200,000 people, during the busiest season of the year.
France and other European allies of Ukraine allege that Russia is waging a campaign of “hybrid warfare” to sow division in Western societies and undermine their support for Ukraine. The AP has tracked more than 145 incidents including sabotage, assassinations, cyberattacks, disinformation and other hostile acts that are increasingly draining police resources.
A postal delivery man leaves a post office, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
FILE - A general view of France's national postal service, La Poste, in Paris, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Bertrand Combaldieu, File)
