Drowning in Oil: BP & the Reckless Pursuit of Profit by Loren C. Steffy

Author:Loren C. Steffy
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: Business & Economics, Corporate & Business History
ISBN: 9780071761772
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
Published: 2010-11-05T04:00:00+00:00

11

C H A P T E R

“ A B U R N I N G

P L AT F O R M ”

Tony Hayward shifted in his chair just

slightly as he thought about what he was

going to say. The soft-spoken Englishman liked to choose his

words carefully. Sitting in Bob Malone’s office at BP’s office

tower in west Houston, Hayward was giving one of his first

press interviews as chief executive, six weeks after taking over

from his mentor, John Browne. Wearing a pink shirt that was

open at the collar and dress slacks, Hayward leaned back in the

black leather chair and crossed his legs. He seemed both relaxed

and reticent, as if he knew that his words would form the foun-

dation for rebuilding BP.

Even before Browne’s career ended in scandal, as he was

fighting BP’s mandatory retirement rules, Browne had tapped

Hayward as his successor. Hayward had been one of Browne’s

turtles, and, like Browne, he’d spent much of his career mov-

ing between the company’s finance and exploration operations.

He’d been head of BP’s vaunted global exploration and produc-

tion division for four years, overseeing the company’s crown

jewel as it searched for some of the world’s biggest oil discover-

ies in some of its most hard-to-reach places.

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D R O W N I N G I N O I L

Hayward’s face was framed by protruding ears and set with

blue eyes that rested atop cheeks that appeared perpetually sun-

burned. His thin features gave him a boyish appearance despite

his 50 years. He was a company man through and through,

just as Browne had been. Both had spent their entire careers at

BP. The oldest of seven children, Hayward had been educated

in public schools and had studied geology, first at Aston Uni-

versity in Birmingham, then later earning a doctorate from

the University of Edinburgh. Like Browne, he had shuttled

among BP postings all over the globe—London, France, China,

Scotland—but it was a chance meeting in a place far removed

from the global oil industry that altered the trajectory of Hay-

ward’s career. In 1990, Hayward helped to organize a leadership

conference in Phoenix, Arizona, and Browne put in an appear-

ance. Browne was so impressed that he asked Hayward to be-

come one of his personal assistants, an inner circle of rising

executives that Browne was grooming for bigger responsibili-

ties. For Hayward, who’d been focused solely on the explora-

tion side of the business, this meant an education in finance.

After a couple of years under Browne’s tutelage, Hayward

was dispatched to Colombia, where BP was tapping the huge

Cusiana field, and then later to Venezuela. He spent almost five

years in South America, and his time there shaped his views of

how BP should operate. As BP’s top executive in Venezuela, he

attended the funeral of a young worker who had been killed

in a BP oilfield. At the end of the service, the man’s mother

approached Hayward and began striking him on his chest,

screaming, “Why did you let it happen?”1

R

Hayward may have been Browne’s protégé, and their career

paths may have had some similarities, but Hayward lacked

“ A B U R N I N G P L A T F O R M ”

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Browne’s fondness for the limelight.

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