Tony Hayward of BP spill fame back in oil business

Tony Hayward, the oil executive Americans learned to hate during last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, is back in business, this time in the rich oil fields of northern Iraq.

At a news conference Thursday in Istanbul, Hayward announced the merger of his Vallares PLC with Turkey’s Genel Energy in an effort to dominate exploration of the vast oil reserves of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region. The new company also intends to invest in other areas in the Middle East.

Read more

Earlier this week, the Daily received a copy of the video deposition of former BP chief Tony Hayward. At one point during the testimony, plaintiff attorney Robert Cunninham questions Hayward about his relationship to the workers at the Deepwater Horizon rig. At first, Hayward expresses his profound sympathy. But moments later, he stumbles and says he can only remember the names of three out of the 11 workers who lost their lives. He only got one out of the three names correct (Karl Kleppinger):

CUNNINGHAM: And did you get the impression that they considered themselves all one big family even though they were from different companies?

HAYWARD: Yes.

CUNNINGHAM: Do you remember any of the names of the individuals who lost their lives?

HAYWARD: Uh, I remember some of them: James Anderson, Gordon Clark, Karl Kleppinger, I think. I can’t remember all of them.

Watch it:

Later in the video, Hayward becomes dodgy and refuses to answer a question about the timing of a BP report that blamed the explosion on the dead workers. Cunningham asked if the report, which was put out on the one year anniversary of the disaster, might have been insensitive to the families of the deceased. Hayward replied that he could not pass “any judgment one way or another” on the sensitivity of the report. After further prodding by the attorney, Hayward grudgingly conceded that the wives of the men could have been hurt by BP’s attempt to shift the blame.

As the Daily notes, Hayward admits to Cunningham later in the deposition that BP’s investigation of itself after the disaster neglected to examine possible failures by BP leadership. When he testified under oath before Congress, Hayward had promised a “full and complete investigation” of his company and the mistakes that led to the Deepwater Horizon spill. The admission of an incomplete investigation suggests that Hayward lied under oath.

Today, the Obama administration announced initial steps to improve oversight of BP’s processing of claims of economic damage caused by the foreign oil giant’s Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. After weeks of growing complaints and a huge backlog of unpaid claims, National Incident Commander Thad Allen met with BP officials and wrote a letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward demanding “access to the BP claims database with personally identifiable information removed.” On Sunday, Hayward lavishly praised his own company’s performance in a BBC interview, saying BP had paid “every claim” by instituting a claims process that takes only “48 hours”:

We’ve taken a claims process that has taken 45 days traditionally in the United States and shortened it to 48 hours. It takes 12 seconds when you phone the BP claims line to be put into the process, be given a number. If you turn up at the claims office, within 48 hours you’re given a cheque.

Watch it:

Hayward’s fantastical 48-hour deadline is not being enforced by the government, however. Instead, unpaid claimants must wait 90 days before the federal government has promised to take action:

Any claim that is denied by BP or not settled within 90 days of submission to BP may be presented to the Coast Guard for relief from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund through the National Pollution Funds Center (NPFC).

The administration should make BP stand behind its CEO’s words, and mandate Hayward’s purported 48-hour turnaround for processing claims. Better yet, the administration could take the Center for American Progress’s suggestion to take over the claims process from this environmental criminal. For fishermen, hotel owners, and other Gulf Coast businesses, a ninety-day wait would be an economic death sentence.

Tony Hayward, BP’s controversial CEO, thinks the Gulf Coast will ultimately benefit from his company’s catastrophic environmental disaster. Yesterday, the foreign oil giant announced that the “net revenue” from selling the oil being drawn to the surface from the uncontrolled gusher will go into “a new wildlife fund to create, restore, improve and protect wildlife habitat along the coastline of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.” Hayward claimed that BP’s recovered-oil money is the silver lining to the incomprehensible damage being done by the oil itself:

We’ve already launched the largest environmental response in history, and BP is committed to protecting the ecosystems and wildlife on the Gulf Coast. Proceeds from the sale of oil recovered from the MC252 well will be used to further this commitment. We believe these funds will have a significant positive impact on the environment in this region.

With the approval of the Obama administration, BP sheared the gushing riser pipe six days ago and installed a funnel to draw off some of the oil, pumped to a ship on the surface above. The surface ship, the Discoverer Enterprise, is now processing oil at maximum capacity — 630,000 gallons a day — without any visible decrease in the amount of oil gushing into the ocean at the seabed.

Two of the scientists working in the federal Flow Rate Technical Group, Ira Leifer and Steve Wereley, have described why that’s the case. The “top kill” effort to pump the wellbore with mud cleared out obstructions to the upward flow, and then shearing the riser pipe widened the outflow hole. They have indicated that the flow rate — which had been one to two million gallons a day — is likely to now be two to four million gallons a day or even more, with only about twenty percent of the oil being captured.

Even as the oil is being captured at maximum capacity, undersea dispersants are still being pumped into the uncaptured gusher at or around the maximum rate of 15,000 gallons a day as well. Satellite imagery shows an undiminished surface slick menacing four states.

The reason BP has launched the “largest environmental response in history” is, of course, because the company has caused one of the largest environmental catastrophes in history — one with no end in sight.

President Barack Obama told NBC’s Matt Lauer he would have fired BP CEO Tony Hayward for his dismissive comments about the foreign oil giant’s Gulf of Mexico disaster. After relating Hayward’s “very big ocean,” “very very modest” and “I’d like my life back” comments, Lauer asked, “He doesn’t work for you, but if he did, would you want him out?” Obama replied that Hayward would be out of a job:

He wouldn’t be working for me after any of those statements.

Watch it:

Hayward’s dismissive comments are not unusual for BP management — Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, COO Doug Suttles, BP America President Lamar McKay, and Managing Director Bob Dudley have likewise minimized off the scale of the disaster and the devastation to the United States of America while overselling their failed attempts to stop the oil gusher, which may now be flowing at four million gallons a day.

According to National Incident Commander Thad Allen, Tony Hayward is still actively involved in the oil disaster response, discussing issues regularly with Allen. In addition to the failed efforts to stop the leaks, BP still controls claims processing, environmental contractors on land and sea, volunteer assistance, access to the disaster site, hotlines, and data collection.