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British Petroleum announced that Tony Hayward, the company’s chief executive officer, will step down effective Oct. 1.
Mr. Hayward will be succeeded by fellow executive director Robert Dudley.
BP also said in a webcast today that it has set aside $32.2 billion for oil spill-related costs it expects to cover, which includes the $20 billion set aside earlier this year.
According to BP, Mr. Dudley joined the company from Amoco after the merger of the two companies in 1998. He was president and CEO of BP's Russian joint venture, TNK-BP, until 2008.
BP also said Mr. Hayward will remain on its board until Nov. 30, 2010, and that it plans to nominate him as a non-executive director of TNK-BP.
Under the terms of his contract, BP said Mr. Hayward would receive a year's salary in lieu of notice, amounting to £1 million ($1.5 million).
Asked during the webcast why he feels the need to step down, Mr. Hayward said: “I became, as the face of BP, the lightning rod for the very understandable anger and frustration amongst a very broad cross section of the U.S. public. I think that was an inevitable consequence of leading the response. I believe it’s not possible for the company to move on in the U.S. with me remaining as the face of BP.”
BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said, “The BP board is deeply saddened to lose a CEO whose success over some three years in driving the performance of the company was so widely and deservedly admired.”
For its 2010 second-quarter results, BP announced a loss of $17 billion.
Mr. Svanberg said that BP’s liquidity position “is strong, and last week we enhanced it further through the sale of assets for $7 billion and today we are announcing our intention to extend this divestment program to a total of $25 billion to $30 billion.” He added, “We expect to receive attractive offers for assets that have a higher strategic value to other than to us.”
Mr. Svanberg said the events around the oil spill “have really shocked and saddened us all. They have a profound effect on the families of the victims, on the communities, on our company and the industry in which we operate.”