Embattled BP CEO Tony Hayward defied expectations and didn’t resign Monday. Instead, he’s being shuffled off to Russia, where he will direct BP’s role in TNK-BP, a joint venture considered one of BP’s plum projects . After running the careless business that began the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 2010, and then leading a bungling response to the disaster, Hayward may seem to be getting away. But some senators who think he had a hand in a BP-Libya oil deal that led to the release of a convicted terrorist want to grill him before he flies to Moscow.
Tony Hayward’s Russian gig has an ironic twist
In October Tony Hayward steps down as BP CEO. The Associated Press reports that Robert Dudley is his likely replacement. After Hayward botched directing BP’s oil spill response, Dudley exchanged him. Hayward will serve on the board of BP’s Russian venture TNK-BP. In an ironic twist, Dudley led TNK-BP until he got on someone’s bad side and had to leave Russia in 2008.
Dudley’s TNK-BP run a lesson for Hayward?
BP thinks more of Tony Heyward than most American’s and American politicians, if his new role swimming with Russian oil sharks is any indication. Accounting for 25 percent of its total production, the Washington Post reports that the TNK-BP venture is one of BP’s crown jewels. But it is a problematic one, as proven by Robert Dudley, Hayward’s likely successor as BP CEO. Russian shareholders forced Dudley to flee the country for the sake of the deal.
Did Tony Hayward set a terrorist free?
Tony Hayward may be stepping down, but that won’t stop United States Senators Bob Menendez and Kirsten Gillibrand from trying to haul him before Congress. The New York Observer reports how the senators could be holding a July 29 hearing into the release of the Lockerbie bomber and told the press they want to hear from Hayward. For weeks, the senators are pressuring U.K. officials to launch an investigation into whether the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset al-Megrahi is related to a BP-Libya oil deal. Hayward may have had a role in negotiations with the Libyans during that deal, Menendez said.
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