BP was last night poised to boot out boss Tony Hayward - with a near £15MILLION pay-off.
The under-fire chief executive could go as early as today after being locked in talks over the weekend.
He will carry the can for the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which has badly damaged BP's reputation in the US.
Oil disaster ... BP expected to announce losses of £9billion
The cost of the disaster means the firm is expected tomorrow to reveal the biggest ever quarterly loss - almost £9BILLION - in UK corporate history. BP is to pay the US £13billion in compensation after four million barrels of oil spewed into the Gulf after a rig explosion in April.
Mr Hayward - slammed for his handling of the crisis - would be due a £1million salary pay-off, share options worth £2.7million and a £10.8million pension pot.
He is set to be replaced by US managing director Bob Dudley in the first step to a "Future BP". A huge restructuring could see the firm sell its refining operations and petrol stations to concentrate on finding oil and gas.
Mr Hayward was unavailable for comment last night. BP would say only that he "remains our chief executive and has the full support of the board and senior management". But his departure could be announced after a board meeting today.
Founding member of cap and trade lobby will reap financial bounty if worsening crisis is exploited by Obama administration to impose carbon tax on Americans
Former high-level BP contractor and Army Special Operations soldier Adam Dillon told a New Orleans television station that British Petroleum is not interested in cleaning up the oil spill because the company is run by “cutthroat individuals” who only care about money.
Dillon was fired by BP “after taking photos that he believes were related to the use of dispersants and to the cleanup of the oil.” Before his dismissal, Dillon was “confined and interrogated for almost an hour,” by BP officials.
“There are some very great, hardworking individuals in there. But the bottom line is just about money. There are some very cutthroat individuals. They’re not worried about cleaning up that spill as it is,” said Dillon, adding that he has “lost faith” in BP’s response.
Dillon was one of BP’s hired goons used to keep reporters from asking questions of cleanup workers on beaches in Houma, but turned whistleblower after he was fired for taking photos of the consequences of chemicals used by BP to clean up the spill.
“I saw something when I was out there,” he said. “I took pictures of something and I brought it to the attention of the command structure and whatever I took pictures of, 12 hours later I was gone.”
Dillon decided to speak out publicly because he placed his oath to his country over and above any loyalty to BP.
“I will never have loyalty to this company,” he said. “I will always have loyalty to my country. And my country comes first.
“What this company is doing to this country right now is just wrong.”
As we have highlighted, as one of the founding members of the cap and trade lobby, BP stands to reap a financial bounty if the Obama administration succeeds in exploiting the worsening oil spill crisis to push through a carbon tax.
BP’s market value plunged by more than a third in the months following the oil spill debacle, but this has recovered somewhat in recent days and once the spill is finally cleared up, expect to see the price return to pre-spill levels.
If the government manages to justify a carbon tax in the eyes of lawmakers by pointing to an environmental catastrophe in the Gulf, BP can look forward to massive long-term profits from both a sustained rise in the price of oil allied to a carbon tax that will be passed on to consumers.
BP’s reaction to the oil spill has proved that the company is more concerned about blocking media access to information about the situation than actually cleaning up the consequences of the spill.
The Defense Department has kept up its immense purchases of aviation fuel and other petroleum products from BP even as the oil company comes under scrutiny for potential violations of federal and state laws related to Gulf of Mexico well explosion, according to U.S. and company officials.
President Obama said last month that the company's "recklessness" in the gulf contributed to the disaster, and he promised that BP will "pay for the damage." Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said on June 2 that Justice Department lawyers were looking into possible violations of civil and criminal statutes. "If we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be forceful in our response," he said.
BP, meanwhile, remains a heavy supplier of military fuel under contracts worth at least $980 million in the current fiscal year, according to the Defense Logistics Agency. In fiscal 2009, BP was the Pentagon's largest single supplier of fuel, providing 11.7 percent of the total purchased, and in 2010, its contracts amount to roughly the same percentage, according to DLA spokeswoman Mimi Schirmacher...
The procedure, known as a safety case, was developed in Britain after the catastrophic Piper Alpha oil rig explosion of 1988 in which 167 people lost their lives.
Royal Dutch Shell confirmed that it always develops safety cases – a lengthy written document – on each of its thousands of wells in the world, even though they are only mandatory in some countries...
HorseofPaulRevere—June 14, 2010 — BP Oil Spill:Toxic Gases Spreading Inland, Scientist Says Move Out of Gulf...EVACUATIONS OF THE GULF REGION ARE COMING, FEMA WILL OPEN ITS ONE-WAY DOORS. Gases such as Hydrogen Sulfide, Benzene, Methylene Chloride, and other toxic gases pose a greater risk to human health than the presence of oil washing up on Gulf of Mexico beaches. The allowable levels of Hydrogen Sulfide and Benzene according to the EPA are 5-10 parts per billion and 0 respectively.The EPA reported the level detected in the Gulf at almost 1,200 PPB for hydrogen sulfide and 3400 PPB for Benzene during the month of May. The amounts pose a serious and even fatal health risk to people and animals. For some official level reports on these deadly gases click below http://www.infowars.com/may-levels-of...
A QUESTION WE MUST ASK OURSELVES. How bad could this go? We are just at the beginning. Consider death and debilitating illness caused by the following, simple exposure to the crude oil and make-up, or the chemical dispersant, the close proximity to the 'burn-off' of such 'contained' areas, the fumes and toxic vapors being given off 'naturally' at the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. Also consider the unseen GIANT PLUMES of oil snaking their way through the depths of the ocean, poisoning all marine life on their way to everywhere. What about the marshlands, deltas, swamps and low lying areas dependent on the waters for their survival. I mean the animals AND the people. Food intake, let alone money for the fisherman, will be 0. All of these things, and much more, ARE ALREADY HAPPENING. Many will be hungry.
Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his holding in the company one month before a well on the Deepwater Horizon rig burst, causing an environmental disaster.
Mr Hayward, whose pay package is £4 million a year, then paid off the mortgage on his family’s mansion in Kent, which is estimated to be valued at more than £1.2 million.
There is no suggestion that he acted improperly or had prior knowledge that the company was to face the biggest setback in its history.
His decision, however, means he avoided losing more than £423,000 when BP’s share price plunged after the oil spill began six weeks ago.
Since he disposed of 223,288 shares on March 17, the company’s share price has fallen by 30 per cent. About £40 billion has been wiped off its total value. The fall has caused pain not just for BP shareholders, but also for millions of company pension funds and small investors who have money held in tracker funds...
