BP Gets a New CEO

The Wall Street Journal reports on that BP’s board will appoint an American to be the new CEO:

HOUSTON—The task of saving London-based BP PLC—and its U.S. empire—is falling to an American.

The likely choice of managing director Robert Dudley as BP’s new chief executive marks a watershed moment for a company tightly linked to British history and institutions. Formerly known as British Petroleum, it was the largest company in the U.K. until its market capitalization was dragged down by investors’ fears about the costs of cleaning up its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. Dudley, 54 years old, would be the first American to sit at the top seat at No. 1 St. James Square, the company’s tony London address. He joined the company from Amoco Corp., itself a storied U.S. oil company that was absorbed by the British oil giant in 1998.

A BP spokesman had no comment on talk of Mr. Dudley’s becoming CEO, except to say that Mr. Hayward remained at the helm with the backing of BP’s board and management.

Mr. Dudley’s ascension underscores the critical importance of the U.S. to BP. The U.S. represents 40% of the company’s business and much of its growth potential. But the U.S. has become a political minefield after a series of disasters that began with a 2005 explosion at the company’s massive refinery in Texas City, Texas, continued with accidents in the oilfields of Alaska, and culminated with the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

“There is a lot at stake in the U.S.,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, director of the Baker Institute Energy Forum at Rice University in Houston. But, she noted, Mr. Dudley has experience in dealing with political challenges as former chief executive of BP’s Russian joint venture TNK-BP.

Conflict between BP and the three Russian billionaire co-owners led to Mr. Dudley leaving Russia in July 2008, after the authorities refused to extend his visa. BP was forced to cede control of the venture, but TNK-BP still accounts for about one-quarter of BP’s reserves and production.

In the U.S., elected officials have openly talked about denying BP future exploration opportunities. The company, the largest producer of oil in the U.S. by barrels pumped, has staked a big part of its hope for growth in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, home to some of the $7 billion worth of deepwater assets it bought recently from Devon Energy Inc.

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