BP's chief executive has warned staff that third-quarter revenues will be "dreadful" and that its financial performance was as bad as 1992-1993 when a crisis halved the oil major's shares, the Financial Timessaid.
BP shares fell today after the FTreport on CEO Tony Hayward's comments to a staff meeting in Houston, Texas, at which he also said he planned to streamline the company to address the shortcomings.
BP chief executive Tony Hayward. Image: PA.
Mr Hayward complained of duplication at BP, the FTsaid, citing a summary of the meeting circulated in an e-mail by a BP manager.
"We will reduce the number of organisation units," Mr Hayward was quoted as saying. "[We] will reduce the number of layers from the workers up to the CEO from 11 to about seven."
Refining margins have fallen sharply across the industry since the second quarter, while BP had previously said three of its five US refineries would not be fully operational in the period and that a ruptured North Sea gas pipeline had hit output.
BP's shares traded down 2.6 per cent at 574 pence earlier today, underperforming a 1.8 per cent drop in the DJ Stoxx European oil and gas sector index.
Nonetheless, some analysts saw Mr Hayward's comments as positive, saying they suggested a recognition of BP's flaws and a strategy for addressing them.