BP launched a plan to repair its battered image in the US, ditching its gaffe-prone chief executive and promising to slim down by trebling an asset sale target to $30 billion. However, the company, facing public anger over the biggest oil spill in US history, tempted further ire by denying it needed cultural change and by offsetting the costs of the spill against its taxes.
The tax move will cost the US taxpayer almost $10 billion.
BP said Tony Hayward would stand down in October, to be replaced by American Bob Dudley, as it unveiled a $17 billion quarterly loss due to the costs of the Gulf of Mexico spill.
“I believe that it is not possible for the company to move on in the US with me remaining as the face to BP,” Hayward told reporters on a conference call. “So I think that for the good of BP, and particularly for the good of BP in the US, it is right for me to ... step down.”
BP’s leaking well was capped a fortnight ago after gushing up to 60,000 barrels per day into the Gulf, ruining fishing and tourism industries and polluting the shoreline with slimy goo.
BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said the company would take a hard look at itself in the aftermath of the spill: “BP... will be a different company going forward”.
However, Dudley denied BP’s culture contributed to the disaster and said the company would continue to target the industry’s harder projects.
Some investors and analysts say BP’s culture encourages greater risk-taking than rivals, contributing to higher returns. Critics have also blamed this culture for the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, which killed 11 workers.
“A total change in the culture of this company is necessary,” Democratic Congressman Ed Markey said on CBS’s “The Early Show”.
Svanberg said he had no intention of resigning and that no one on the board had suggested he should, despite some investors claiming he did too little to help defend BP against critics.
BP said it planned to sell assets worth up to $30 billion over the next 18 months to pay for its liabilities and create a leaner company with the potential for higher growth.
