He’s off to Siberia … literally, switching jobs with Bob Dudley who headed Russian operations “before leaving in disgrace”
Tony Hayward, who became the face of BP’s flailing efforts to contain the massive Gulf oil spill, will step down as chief executive in October and be offered a job with the company’s joint venture in Russia, a person familiar with the matter said Monday.
Looks like BP reads Climate Progress after all (see “Time to fire BP CEO Tony Hayward).
Seriously, though, while Hayward tried to blame his predecessor and pretty much everybody else for this disaster — see Is BP the Goldman Sachs of Big Oil? CEO Hayward says to fellow executives: “What the hell did we do to deserve this?” — let’s remember that even though Hayward became CEO in May 2007, Hayward became “Chief Executive of exploration and production in January 2003.” Hayward created whatever safety culture the explorers and producers have that led to the disaster.
The BBC notes “Mr Hayward began his career with BP 28 years ago as a rig geologist.” As CEO, Hayward also put the company through ruthless cost-cutting that certainly lead to fatal corner cutting (see”The three causes of BP’s Titanic oil disaster: Recklessness, Arrogance, and Hubris“).
Now here’s where things get weird — no, I mean, really weird — Hayward has not been fired, so he retains his mammoth pension (see update below). Instead, he is apparently switching jobs with BP’s Bob Dudley and, as Business Insider reports, “Dudley was the head of Russian operations before leaving in disgrace“:
In 2003, Dudley became CEO of TNK-BP, BP’s joint venture in Russia along with Russian company AAR, a group of four Russian billionaire oligarchs. Over the years, tensions mounted between BP and the oligarchs. According to news reports from 2008, the oligarchs wanted more bang for their buck in the form of higher returns on their investment, while BP wanted to invest more profit back into the company.The 50-50 venture became a fierce power struggle, with BP executives alleging harassment by both AAR and the Russian government, charges that the Russians denied. According to one report in the Times, Dudley was regularly sweeping his office for bugs and taking phone calls on his balcony to avoid being recorded.
It came to the point, in July 2008, where Dudley fled the country. His visa was set to expire, and it seemed that the Russians weren’t keen on renewing. BP was so paranoid at the time that they didn’t announce his departure until he was airborne, and refused to disclose his location.
Dudley continued to run the company from his secret location. In August, a Russian court banned Dudley from holding office in the country for two years. Then in early September, BP and the Russians signed a deal agreeing that Dudley would be out as CEO. The move, along with other provisions of the agreement, put the venture into Russian control.
If BP has a worse job than this one to shove Hayward into (outside of the Gulf, that is), I can’t imagine what it is.
UPDATE: The BBC reports:
BP chief executive Tony Hayward will get an immediate annual pension worth about £600,000 ($930,000) when he leaves in October, the BBC has learned…..
BBC business editor Robert Peston said that the pension entitlement was “bound to be hugely controversial”.
BP pension scheme rules say that those who joined before April 2006 can take the pension at any point from age 50. Mr Hayward is 53.
He will also receive a year’s salary plus benefits worth more than £1m.
Mr Hayward’s pension pot is valued at about £11m and he will keep his rights to shares under a long-term performance scheme which could – depending on BP’s stock market recovery — eventually be worth several million pounds.
Our business editor said that because Mr Hayward was leaving by mutual agreement rather than being sacked, the BP board felt it had “to honour the terms of its contract with him”.
“Mutual agreement”? Seriously. Just how badly do you have to screw up to actually get fired by BP?
- E-mail from BP engineer called Deepwater Horizon rig a ‘nightmare well’ six days before explosion
- Stupak stunner: Oil well’s blowout preventer had leaks, dead battery, design flaws, “How can a device that has 260 failure modes be considered fail-safe?”
- BP calls blowout disaster ‘inconceivable,’ ‘unprecedented,’ and unforeseeable
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Actually it is pretty irrelevant who runs the company – as long they do in fossil.
Wasn’t it on Laugh In that they used to remark
You bet your BP!
[JR: Funny! I'll have to dig a up a clip.]
No Golden Parachute For Hayward Until Gulf Costs Paid http://globalwarming.house.gov/mediacenter/pressreleases_2008?id=0298
It seems Russians have lower environmental standards than we do. THis would be an excellent fit for Hayward. Don’t let the door hit your bottom on the way out of the US.
Joe, you also might be able to pull up some old Hogan’s Heroes episodes where Col Klink is worrying about doing something wrong or they’ll send him to the eastern front.
Ol’ Tony just got sent to the eastern front, it seems.
Ah! It’s Schultz that is always concerned about being sent to the Russian front…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljAhtr80oSo
clip at 3:30.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9_Qn8UrxuE
[JR: A tiny word of explanation would be useful....]
Tony Hayward has not been fired, retains pension. As well he must. We would not want him turning states witness in a negligent manslaughter case would we. I will bet that he will even be able to “tele-commute” to his new job and and that will be fine with Russia.
For that kind of money, I am sure I could fail in a far more monumental fashion than Hayward; just give me the chance!
I’d even accept being sent to worse places than Russia — Fort Hays, Kansas, springs immediately to mind …
[JR: Well, it isn't just the location -- it's working with four Russian oligarchs who apparently believe, with some cause, that they can bully BP around!]
Bob ‘Dish Soap’ Dudley To Replace ‘Fantastic’ Tony Hayward At BP Helm http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/26/meet-bob-dudley/
JR: “A tiny word of explanation would be useful….”
Tony Hayward is sent to siberia – an area heavy affected from global warming. The video offers a short introduction to his new location assignment.
[JR: OK. We all greatly appreciate your links, but I would ask all posters to not just put up blind links.]
Hayward maybe leaving… but,
There is a new study in the PNAS about mass migrations to the US;
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/07/16/1002632107
Interestingly enough, the paper only looks at agricultural productivity alone as the driving factor.
Re catman306: Laugh-In’s catchphrase was, “You bet your sweet bippy!”, but it’s pretty close.
JR: “it’s working with four Russian oligarchs who apparently believe, with some cause, that they can bully BP around!”
(Anyone feel free to correct me here, this was one of those cases where the two sides were telling radically different stories.)
I have a vague recollection that BP were badly hurting their ‘partners’ by using some of the clauses in the original contract terms, and were totally uninterested in renegotiating.
“I have a vague recollection that BP were badly hurting their ‘partners’ by using some of the clauses in the original contract terms, and were totally uninterested in renegotiating.”
At one point, Russian business people weren’t noted for their scrupulous adherence to contractual obligations.
I think it is fair to say that hired gunmen/private armies were their first choice of negotiation tool.