BP Yanks Hayward Out of Spill Response Role

Posted on Jun 18, 2010

Wikimedia Commons / World Economic Forum

BP’s embattled CEO, Tony Hayward, is stepping out of the limelight after intensifying the company’s PR issues since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began its relentless spread—and particularly after royally ticking off certain members of Congress last week.  —KA

Los Angeles Times:

BP’s chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, told Sky News television in Britain that Hayward was handing over daily operations to managing director Robert Dudley, a Mississippi native who started his career at Chicago-based Amoco Corp., which BP bought in 1998. Dudley has handled sensitive international assignments for BP in Russia and Africa.

Hayward, a soft-spoken British geologist, has been a lightning rod for criticism of BP since the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Under questioning in Washington on Thursday, members of Congress accused him of “stonewalling” and “insulting our intelligence.”

Read more

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

We are launching a major overhaul of our comments section.

In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread.

Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts.

Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with.

Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page.