Since BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April, its CEO's gaffes have made him more unpopular every day, while millions of gallons of oil gush into the ocean, writes LARA MARLOWEin Washington
AS CHIEF EXECUTIVE of BP, Tony Hayward plays a useful role in the worst environmental catastrophe in US history: that of frontman, punchbag, scapegoat, sacrificial lamb and hate figure. But with salary and bonuses totalling somewhere around €6 million a year, he can afford to take a little abuse.
It helps that the 53-year-old has an English accent, as English accents sound arrogant to Americans – even Hayward’s humble drawl, which betrays his origins as the eldest of seven children from Slough.
On Wednesday, Hayward accompanied BP’s chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, to the White House to negotiate with President Obama. There had been some doubt about whether his presence would be required, after Obama said he would fire Hayward if the British oil executive were his employee.
Like much of the country, Obama took exception to Hayward’s statement that “I would like my life back”. In response, the brother of one of the 11 crew killed in the April 20th explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig told a Senate committee: “Mr Hayward, I want my brother’s life back.”
Against his will, Hayward – "the Bumbler from BP", as Newsweekcalls him – has personified the careless profit-seeking that led to the oil spill. The White House appeared reluctant to deal with a man they had portrayed as deceptive and unreliable, so they seemed to pull Svanberg, who was unknown to the public, out of a hat. In the event, Svanberg proved to be almost as inept at public relations as Hayward. His remark that BP cares about "the small people" offended many.
ON THURSDAY Hayward was back in the hot seat, testifying for the first time before a Congressional committee. The “I want my life back” quote dogged him to the hearing room. “We are not small people, but we wish to get our lives back,” said Bart Stupak, the chairman of the subcommittee for oversight and investigations. “For people on the Gulf Coast it will take a while. The 11 dead workers will never get their lives back. I am sure you will get your life back, Mr Hayward, with a golden parachute.”
From 10am until 5.30pm, with three short breaks, Hayward’s British sangfroid contrasted with the Representatives’ need to vent their anger and display mastery of the technicalities of oil-well casings and cement log tests.
“BP blew it. You cut corners to save money and time,” Stupak accused Hayward. Knowing that witnesses do not succeed in Congressional hearings – they merely survive them – Hayward absorbed the blows and let the Congressmen do most of the talking.
Just as Hayward was about to read his prepared statement the ugly reality of the Gulf of Mexico burst into the hearing room, in the form of a middle-aged woman with face and hands blackened as if by oil. “Tony Hayward, look at my hands,” she shouted in a thick Louisiana accent. “You need to be charged with crimes. You need to go to jail. This is a citizen’s arrest.”
Half a dozen police wrestled with the woman, then dragged her out, just three metres behind Hayward’s chair. Journalists scrambled to get out of the way, and a second woman screamed, “You’ve hurt her. She’s a shrimper. It’s her whole livelihood that’s gone.”
Hayward barely batted an eyelid during the commotion. He didn’t turn around. As soon as the door closed behind the unfortunate shrimper he resumed reading his statement: “The explosion and fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon and the resulting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico never should have happened – and I am deeply sorry that they did . . .”. Most of the 11-page waffle prepared by Hayward’s highly paid army of public-relations firms (more than half a dozen in Washington alone) was so dull that he skipped it.
Through it all Hayward was a monument of controlled anger. Whatever you say, don’t say anything you don’t know to be true, his minders had reportedly drilled him. Ignoring the Representatives’ repeated expressions of frustration, he gave four basic answers to all questions about what went wrong on the Deepwater Horizon: “Since I have been the CEO of this company I have focused on safe, reliable operations . . . I think it’s too early to reach a conclusion . . . I wasn’t part of the decision-making process on this well . . . I can’t recall.”
Just when we were about to conclude that Hayward was a pre-programmed android, he betrayed his humanity by going red in the face. The Republican representative Joe Barton’s surreal apology for Obama’s $20 billion “shakedown” of BP prompted the first Hayward blush.
As the day wore on, taunts from representative Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House energy and commerce committee and the most astute of Hayward’s tormentors, got the Englishman blushing more often. “You’re not taking responsibility,” Waxman said. “You’re kicking the can down the road and acting as if you had nothing to do with this company.”
Kicking the can down the road has been Hayward’s standard approach to the oil spill. As late as May 28th he attempted to blame Transocean, from which BP leased the rig. “It was operated by another company. It was their people, their systems, their processes,” he said. BP company documents and ample testimony have established that BP – not Transocean – took the fateful decisions that doomed the rig.
In perhaps his biggest gaffe, committed in an interview published by the Guardianon May 14th, Hayward said, "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume." Estimates of the amount of oil gushing into the Gulf each day have risen from 1,000 to 60,000 barrels.
Around the time oil started washing ashore and images of oil-drenched birds began appearing in newspapers, Hayward told Sky News: “I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest.”
When workers hired by BP to contain the spill complained of dizziness, headaches and nausea, which they attributed to chemicals, Hayward said it was probably something they’d eaten, because “food poisoning is surely a big issue when you’ve got a concentration of this number of people in temporary camps, temporary accomodations.”
HAYWARD IS A true blue oil man who earned a first in geology at Birmingham, despite being more interested in football. He went on to do a doctorate at the University of Edinburgh. Over the past 28 years he has worked his way up the ladder at BP, starting as a geologist in the North Sea before moving on to France, China, Colombia and Venezuela. Along the way he married Maureen, a geophysicist who used to work for BP, and they have two children, Keiran, who is 19, and Tara, who is 15.
The Haywards live in what is described as a large house near Sevenoaks, in Kent. Hayward’s wish to celebrate his birthday with the family on May 21st got him into trouble with the American public. He flew home for the occasion, which he combined with a BP board meeting. A week earlier he had promised to stay in the US until the oil spill was over.
Hayward loves nothing more than to go sailing with Maureen and the kids. The way things are going, he may soon have more time for leisure. British bookmakers are offering 5/4 odds that he won’t keep his job until 2011.
CV Tony Hayward
Who is he?CEO of BP and chief punchbag for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill
Why is he in the news?He appeared before the US Congress committee on energy and commerce this week to answer questions about the company's safety record at the Deepwater Horizon rig.
Most likely to say"I'm not stonewalling. I simply was not involved in the decision-making process."
Least likely to say"We were behind schedule, so we cut corners."
