BP PLC said Tuesday that it would create a new business to manage its onshore oil and natural-gas assets in the U.S.’s lower 48 states. The decision is an attempt to reverse the struggles that BP—along with other large oil companies—has had trying to coax profits from the North American shale boom. By operating its U.S. onshore assets through a separate, wholly owned company, BP hopes to “compete more effectively with the independents”—the kind of smaller, nimbler producers that have profited on the shale boom, Chief Executive Bob Dudley said at a Tuesday investor meeting. The announcement came as part of a strategy presentation that Mr. Dudley and other executives made to investors in London Tuesday. BP has been retrenching since its 2010 Macondo explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, having sold about $40 billion in assets over the past few years with plans to sell […]