BREAKING NEWS: Tony Hayward to give up control of BP in the Gulf.

[nmbluesky]

What a about time!!!!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Another victory for Obama.

No doubt the right will be livid about the black guy taking jobs away from the white guy.

[havocmom]

15. Curious about how you arrived at that conclusion. It happend 1st week of June

Ya know, before the speech and chat in the WH

On, nevermind. I'm not really curious about how you came to the conclusion.

[VMI Dem]

2. Slow and deliberate action is what this disaster needs!

[BeFree]

4. Slow?

WTF? The oil has been gushing rapidly for 58 days and you want slow?

Tell that to the animals. Tell that to the out of work fishing folks. Dare ya.

Bush did Katrina deliberately slow, and you think Obama should follow?

[VMI Dem]

5. Shoulda put in the sarcasm smilie.

Whoops.

[BeFree]

8. Ok

I'm a little touchy, and there are some people who think slow is ok.

The only way this gets fixed is people pushing hard on the leaders.

Two weeks ago, Obama, et al were saying they were doing everything they could.
Now, in the last few days there's 20B. That. Is. More. Like. It.

How did that happen? People got tired of the slow and deliberate, and raised hell.
The leaders responded.

[bdamomma]

3. giving up control??? so is the company still going to pay out

those who were affected by this tragedy.

[vaberella]

6. yes, because there are people higher than Tony Hayward.

Like Shareholders. And BP is not Tony Hayward. BP said they would dish up the funds. NOt Hayward.

[Cha]

10. Thanks for explaining that, vabrella.

[havocmom]

16. When BP Board Chairman spoke of the 'small people' I think he meant Tony

Tony was right behind him, and he IS pretty small in comparison. Looked like a well scolded little whelp too

[droidamus2]

7. We'll see

Is this a PR move so that down the line he can say 'well those new guys in control didn't do any better than me and anything that happened after I gave up control isn't my fault'. It amazes me that these guys/gals get up in front of Congress and basically claim that they have no idea of what's going on in their company and aren't really involved in the decisions that are made (is this the plausible deniability ploy?). If these the case why the hell do they get paid millions of dollars in salary, perks and retirement? If most of us were that clueless about our jobs we find ourselves in the unemployment line.

[flamingdem]

9. This "BREAKING NEWS" was announced on June 5th. Now BP is using it for PR nt

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1284087/BP-oil-spill-Bob-Dudley-handle-fallout-oil-firm-spins-division-head-clean-up.html

* PLUS Dudley is American

BP will spin off its efforts to manage the fallout from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill into a separate division to be headed by renowned troubleshooter Bob Dudley.

Chief executive Tony Hayward told investors that US citizen Dudley would lead the long-term response once the spill is over, adding: 'I don't believe we could have a better person to lead this organisation.'

Dudley has a reputation for managing confrontational situations after he found himself at the centre of a row with powerful billionaires within the oil firm's Russian venture TNK-BP.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1284087/BP-oil-spill-Bob-Dudley-handle-fallout-oil-firm-spins-division-head-clean-up.html#ixzz0rCS4oSzC

[havocmom]

12. And it seems too many DUers aren't aware of the chronology

or are joining in the PR effort by pretending this is all brand new.

Hayward was floundering badly. The stress was more than he could handle and his poker face crumbled to sniveling about his life. Somebody at BP (or cheney's pr flack from his oily connections) noticed the public dislike of Hayward's whiny ass 'tude and made the change.

Acting like it's news and probably result of Obama getting tough and kicking some ass is PR part two.

BP had Hayward do the hot seat on the Hill because America already hates him. BP knew he wasn't pulling off the PR work before and was unlikeable. So they put him in as the villan well after they tapped someone else to face down the press without the baggage.

Appearances. All is appearances. Control the access to the damage. Control the message (Hayward failed). Control appearances. Enough PR and you might mitigate some of the legitimate claims against the company. The ol 'baffle 'em with bullshit' tactic. And they are working it well with acting like the changing of the guard is news.

[DeschutesRiver]

20. I too remember reading about it earlier - Dudley had been the liason guy for BP when

there were problems with some russian oligarchs on some oil deal, as I recall reading.

In the article that announced that he'd be taking over from Hayward, it said Dudley had to broker the Russian deal from a series of undisclosed hidden locations - apparently, it was an ugly situation. I remember wondering why the Brits picked his particular guy and what it might mean about just how badly fucked up the Gulf is such that they need the "I can play hardball with Russian rich guys bearing death threats" man to handle the GOM deal.

I actually don't think it is good news, ie I think their information tells them things are going to get a lot more ugly. Some of these future events have moved totally out of everyone's control.

[havocmom]

24. Interesting points you brought up. Thanks.

Fear you are correct, it is not a good thing that the Prince of Whine has been replaced here by the BP Prince of Darkness

[DeschutesRiver]

26. My memory being imperfect, I googled this

and it turns out that Dudley was actually the one in charge of the joint venture between BP and Russia - TNK-BP. It went extremely ugly, so much so that Dudley fled Russia, went into hiding, but with the purpose of continuing to control the venture from his secret location. Eventually, to keep the peace he was dismissed and the Russians were allowed to put their people in charge. Here is a contemporaneous article - ugly, but what was of interest to me is the lengths that BP and Dudley were willing to go to remain in complete control of an escalating ugly situation.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article4407496.ece

I've read elsewhere, and don't know if it is just rumor still, that BP is splitting off our Gulf mess into what they call the "american unit" with Dudley in charge, leaving the rest of BP free of this mess in running the rest of their operations in the future. The pessimist in me wonders if the rumors I hear that the well casing is broken beyond repair (and that the relief wells will likely fail) might be true, and that nothing will stop this gusher. And that BP is already beginning the process of walling off the immense profit machine from this disaster with no end. Perhaps it has been easy for BP via Hayward to promise that they will pay for everything, because they are accomplished double dealing liars, who are already proceeding with their plans to cut and run in a way that will tie everything up in the courts for years, while the Gulf is destroyed.

I tell you, some of the stuff I googled sounded like a minor plot in a Tom Clancy novel. Dudley does fit the bill of a Prince of Darkness.

[havocmom]

27. corporate entities re-deranging to protect profits, yep, that sounds right

The way Hayward was picking words yesterday told me they have no intention of paying anything they can weasel* out of


* my deepest apologies to any actual weasels in the audience.

[DeschutesRiver]

28. I felt the same way as I listened. Nor do they intend to let this mess disrupt their own lives

just heard this am that the Weasel-in-Chief is taking a break by running his yacht (named "Bob") in a race off the still beautiful and unpolluted waters of his home country. The WIC also took steps to ensure the security of his family's future by paying off the mortgage on his Kent estate with the proceeds from the sale of 1/3 of his shares in BP just before the well erupted. Too bad all the British and American pension funds that are invested in BP didn't have the same insider info on the about to bust well so that they could have taken similar steps. I knew that Brit pensioners were going to be dinged by this, but apparently 40% of the affected pensioners are American per the Ratigan show, including pension funds investing for workers in some of the Gulf states (double whammy - whack them in the present, & whack their retirement). http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/as-bp-staggers-pension-funds-skid/

These BP wealth weasels are not being insensitive at all - they actually don't give a damn about any of this. It has probably just exhausted them to have to pretend to care so much.

[donco6]

11. link? n/t

[havocmom]

14. How bout a link from this 'news' from a couple weeks ago ;^)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/04/deepwater-horizon-leak-bp-criticism

Everybody please note dateline

BP hives off 'toxic' Gulf spill operation to dilute anti-British feeling in US

Chief executive Tony Hayward hands responsibility for clean-up to American as new containment cap is placed on top of leak


* Terry Macalister
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 June 2010 18.15 BST*
* Article history

BP is to hive off its Gulf of Mexico oil spill operation to a separate in-house business to be run by an American in a bid to isolate the "toxic" side of the company and dilute some of the anti-British feeling aimed at chief executive Tony Hayward, the company said today.

The surprise announcement was made during a teleconference with City and Wall Street analysts in which Hayward attempted to shrug off the personal criticism saying words "could not break his bones".

...

* bold mine to focus on the date of this 'news'

[flamingdem]

21. I wonder if this spinning off of US operations will limit BP's liability?? fishy!! nt

[havocmom]

22. What little of Hayward's testimony I could stomach showed they are parsing words

And I didn't notice many picking up on that. He left lots of legalese qualifiers in there when talking about BP's responsibility to pay for damage.

[unblock]

25. hah! that would be a nice trick if it worked.

no, you can't limit your liability by carving out a company, assigning it all the liabilities and none of the assets, and then washing your hands of the mess. lawsuits would become nearly useless if that worked.

[TheKentuckian]

13. Remember to rotate your crooks ever three million barrels

[Arugula Latte]

17. Heh

Good one. :thumbsup:

[Arugula Latte]

18. Scurry on my Hayward son; there'll be no peace when you are gone

[flamingdem]

19. NOTE: When announced to shareholders on June 5 it shocked them

PLUS the "hiving off" of the US branch of BP looked like a scam.

Wonder how this repackaging of the change of leader will play now.

[polichick]

23. Guess he got his life back - good for us! nt