Time for Dudley to “kick ass”

Why BP had insisted up until now of fielding Tony Hayward, the boyishly charming CEO with a mop of curly hair as their front line of defense against the public tsunami of American hostility and criticism in the wake of the Maconda oil well explosion is beyond me. The Americans misunderstood Hayward’s flat Thames Valley vowels for privileged upper class. Well now they get one of their own to play with.

Perfect for the Gulf of Mexico disaster is Mississippian Robert Dudley, whom BP inherited from its merger with Amoco a decade ago. The BP Managing Director is used to playing hard ball as the former Chief Executive of the BP-TNK Russian joint venture where he was able to hone his management and negotiating skills with the likes of Mikhail Fridman (Alfa Group), Leonard Blavatnik (Access Industries) and Viktor Vekselberg (Renova) in a protracted dispute that ended with him resigning, 88 seconded BP employees being denied visas to Russia and TNK-BP starting to expand its operations outside the confines of Russia where BP would have liked to keep it.

The technical BP response is now in motion with 2/3 of the escaping oil now being captured, the relief wells advancing on the spill ahead of schedule, a (expensive) truce with President Barack Obama agreed and the US Congress stonewalled by a resolute Hayward now it is time for the tall Mississippian Dudley to "kick ass" to use that phrase coined by President Obama on June 8th.

In case you don’t know him, Dudley was that tall, light-haired fellow trailing behind BP Chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg and Hayward after the White House meeting.

I predict Dudley’s first job will be to kick the ass of Anadarko Petroleum, the Texas oil company that owns 25 percent of BP’s Macondo oil field concession, into line.

The independent oil producer has just publicly slammed its partner as "reckless" and, in a statement, said "the mounting evidence clearly demonstrates that this tragedy was preventable."

It is a back-stabbing move by the Texan independent, which is the largest deepwater oil producer in the Gulf, clearly aimed at escaping contributing 25% to the $20bn compensation fund to which BP agreed to with President Obama.

Anadarco said, BP should be on the hook for 100 percent of the damages.

Anadarco said it was "shocked" to learn that BP operated unsafely and that it didn't monitor and react to warning signs as its Macondo well was drilled 41 miles off the coast of Louisiana.

Anadarko's position does not align with that of US Representative Edward Markey, who yesterday insisted that both the Texas company and Mitsui & Co., which owns a 10 percent stake in the gushing Gulf well, need to pony up some cash to help pay a share of claims.

"They cannot escape responsibility," Markey, speaking of BP's partners, told Bloomberg in an interview to be broadcast this weekend.

BP has agreed to fund a $20 billion escrow fund over four years to compensate victims of the disaster and to help pay for the clean-up costs.

Since the April 20 blowout Anadarko has kept quiet. It had its own men aboard the Deepwater Horizon and has had access to their on-site reports and de-briefing. The sudden pinpointing of blame onto BP when the investigations into the cause of the disaster are not yet complete is just a clear tactic to avoid contributing to the victim fund. Dudley should kick it into touch.