LONDON – BP’s much-criticised CEO Tony Hayward will be replaced by American Robert Dudley on October. 1, the company said yesterday as it reported a record quarterly loss and set aside $32.2 billion to cover costs of the devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill.BP said the decision to replace Hayward, 53, with the company’s first ever non-British chief executive was made by mutual agreement.In a mark of faith in its outgoing leader, BP said it planned to recommend him for a non-executive board position at its Russian joint venture and would pay him 1.045 million pounds ($1.6 million), a year’s salary, instead of the year’s notice to which he was entitled.“The BP board is deeply saddened to lose a CEO whose success over some three years in driving the performance of the company was so widely and deservedly admired,” BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said in a statement.Svanberg said the April 20 explosion of the Macondo well on the Deepwater Horizon platform run by BP in the Gulf of Mexico has been a “watershed incident” for the company.“BP remains a strong business with fine assets, excellent people and a vital role to play in meeting the world’s energy needs,” he said.“But it will be a different company going forward, requiring fresh leadership supported by robust governance and a very engaged board.”Besides permanently plugging the oil leak and cleaning up the spill and the company’s image, Dudley will oversee the sale of $30 billion in assets over the next 18 months to bolster the company’s finances.Appearing briefly outside BP’s London headquarters with Hayward and Svanberg, Dudley said that sealing the well was his priority and that he planned to focus on building relationships on the Gulf Coast and in Washington D.C.“There’s no question that we are going to learn a lot from this . . . and I’m sure there will be changes,” Dudley told reporters, as Hayward and Svanberg looked on without speaking.
(AP)
