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BUSINESS Bob Dudley, DIEGO LEVY the Quiet Man Who Saved BP

BUSINESS Bob Dudley, DIEGO LEVY the Quiet Man Who Saved BP

The Sunday Times December 29, 2019 BUSINESS , DIEGO LEVY the quiet man who saved BP

leased by BP. It was clear from the outset The boss who took the helm after that BP would wear the consequences. Its share price crashed from more than is our Business 640p to less than 300p. It cut the divi- dend to zero for three quarters, “almost Person of the Year. By Oliver Shah on the request of the US government”. Dudley remembered: “ t the height of the Macondo “We’ve got to move in that direction, but just called me and said, ‘Hey, can you get catastrophe in 2010, which our shareholders also want the dividend. on a plane and come help?’. We all knew saw 168m gallons of oil pump Some say, ‘We’d like you to move from oil it was really, really serious . . . Because into the Gulf of , caus- and gas quickly to renewables’. We say, crude oil comes out with , it’s ing a corporate crisis for BP ‘OK, do you want us to cut the dividend?’ like you shake up a Coke can and pop it.” and an environmental disas- ‘Well, no, don’t do that.’ So we’ve got to Dudley and senior BP staff moved into ter along the figure it out. This transition will not be the Sorella hotel in and started coastline, Bob Dudley overnight. It’s not going to be as easy as putting in 18-hour days at the local office, received a call from his people think, as much as I want it to be.” which had been taken over by the US daughter. The American had In many ways, Dudley was the obvious Coast Guard. He said: “We had separate been leading BP’s response. candidate to replace Hayward, the Brit rooms for people that were dealing with A“Dad, is it true?” asked Laura, then in who was dubbed the most hated man in anchors, people that were dealing with her first year of university. “It’s going to America for his ill-judged comments after the underwater robotics, people who fill up the world? I saw it on television and the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon were dealing with logistics and weather. they had it swirling around the Gulf of offshore rig that killed 11 and injured 17. It was shifts, the whole time . . . We didn’t Mexico, going around to North Hayward, a BP lifer, at first promised the know where it was going — it was uncer- Carolina and coming across the Atlantic.” environmental impact of the spill would tain. The future of the company was at Dudley, who took over from Tony Hay- be “very, very modest”, then said he risk . . . At one point I realised I had been ward as chief executive in October that wanted his “life back”; the crisis became gone 60-something days, as had others, year, reassured his daughter that was highly politicised as waves of oil washed without a single break. I realised I had to “absolutely not going to happen”. He also ashore on America’s southern coast and go buy some clothes.” advised BP’s staff not to watch CNN ’s interior secretary said In mid-July, Carl-Henric Svanberg, because “it just wasn’t going to help”. his job was “to keep the boot on the neck then chairman, called Dudley and asked “They had absolute experts, saying, of British ”. if he would take over from Hayward. At ‘This is the volume and there’s going to be Calm and softly spoken, Dudley was the bleakest moments, the unthinkable a seabed breach, it’ll fill up the Gulf of born on a naval base in Queens, New became possible: BP, the former state Mexico and go around’,” Dudley recalled. York, during a time when his father was a monopoly nationalised by Winston “And then CNN would show graphs and physicist with the US Navy, but he was Churchill in 1914 and privatised by Marga- maps. You were up against that febrile ret Thatcher between 1979 and 1987, time and you just had to keep going.” faced collapse. “Rumours started to go In the year of , PREVIOUS WINNERS around,” Dudley said. “There was great and growing climate- work done by our CFO at the time, Byron change activism by institutional share- Grote, and Dev Sanyal, the treasurer, to holders, it might seem contrary to single 2018 Tim Steiner, Ocado do things like forward-sell oil from differ- out a boss for praise. BP has been 2017 Charles Wilson, Booker ent countries and make quick divest- dropped as a sponsor by the Royal Shake- 2016 Kevin Loosemore, Micro Focus ments. They brought cash into the com- speare Company and National Galleries 2015 Breon Corcoran, Betfair pany that kept us away from that edge. Bob Dudley has had to deal with the crisis, strife with BP’s Russian partners and the oil-price crash of 2015 over its role in extracting and 2014 Pascal Soriot, Astra Zeneca Few people knew that at the time. You selling fossil fuels, and accused of “green- 2013 Dame Moya Greene, just have to put one step ahead each day. garchs were applying pressure to force Dudley has attracted controversy over simplified this incredibly complex thing washing” over its claims to be moving 2012 Ivan Glasenberg, You can’t say there’s a silver bullet.” BP to buy them out). rescued BP pay: he has earned more than $118m since far too much. There’s a lot of people who towards more renewable energies. 2011 Michael Woodford, Olympus After several failed attempts to plug by buying the whole of TNK-BP, with BP 2010, much of it in shares, including just think, ‘Stop using fossil fuels and put Yet for his decade-long stint in charge 2010 Sir Terry Leahy, the well, BP finally managed to install a receiving $12.5bn in cash and taking its $14.7m last year. But it is renewables everywhere’.” — beginning with the Herculean task of 2009 Alan Mulally, Ford cap in July 2010, then drill relief wells in shareholding in Rosneft to 19.75%. that has become a lightning rod lately. His daughter, now a social worker in dragging BP back from the brink in Amer- 2008 Marc Bolland, September, permanently sealing it. Analysts criticised Dudley as flat- Extinction Rebellion and Thunberg, California, tells him her friends are on ica, moving on to handling its problem- “Obviously, [by then], our reputation footed and slow. Yet by late 2014, he who is due to guest-edit Radio 4’s Today anti-depressants because they are so con- atic relations in and negotiating raised in . “I spent all the vaca- was in tatters in the US, which is a big believed he had got BP into “good shape”. programme tomorrow, have heaped cerned. Dudley said that BP broadly the oil price crash of 2015 as well as end- tions in small boats with my family, and place for us to do business,” Dudley said. Then the oil price crashed from more pressure on energy companies and their agreed with Extinction Rebellion — ing with a re-engagement on climate my dad taught college there, so I grew up “We told people it was going to take 10 than $100 a to less than $30 by investors to act. To his critics, Dudley, “things are unsustainable” — but added: change — Dudley is The Sunday Times a real southerner,” he said. “Oil coming years to get our reputation back.” early 2016. “We had a call [in January scarred by loss-making and much- “We’ve taken nations where nobody has Business Person of the Year for 2019. along those beaches was personal to me.” An estimated 4m barrels of oil had 2015] saying, ‘OK, happy New Year, we’ve mocked forays into hydrogen and solar any jobs, there’s no lights, there’s no Dudley, 64, is due to step down as chief He nearly retired before 2010, how- spilled (a court later accepted that BP just opened the door on the New Year power under Browne’s Beyond Petro- roads, and we’ve changed them. executive in February, handing over to ever. Between 2003 and 2008, Dudley recovered 800,000). Initial estimates of and it’s a gale’,” Dudley said. leum initiative, has been reluctant. “I wish the young people today would Bernard Looney. Looney, 49, and chair- ran BP’s lucrative joint venture in Russia, BP’s liabilities look laughably small: it has He argues that BP is active in get more involved in energy — actually man Helge Lund, formerly of ’s TNK-BP, a 50:50 partnership with four now taken a total charge of $69bn. y the end of 2015, BP had sold $74bn through its joint venture with getting involved, whether it’s renewables Statoil and -listed BG Group, oligarchs known as AAR. Relations Dudley set out to make sweeping of assets, including two of its five oil Bunge and solar through its 50% stake in or not. Because the easiest job in the inherit a group with very different finan- soured amid disagreements over strategy safety improvements to BP’s assets — in the US, all its shallow- Lightsource. It has invested in electric- world is to throw rocks. It is just such fun. cial prospects from the one Dudley took and in 2008, believing his phone was “shut ’em down, one at a time, and redo interests in the Gulf of Mex- vehicle charging with Chargemaster. . . . [But] I hate to see young people so on. Then, amid the Macondo storm, BP’s being tapped and he was at risk of being them” — and sell $30bn worth. He Bico and most of its southern North Dudley believes gas — which, if treated unhappy, so anxious about it.” debt was untradeable and rivals such as poisoned, Dudley fled Russia for an returned to Moscow (“The Russians have Sea fields. Last year, it made its biggest properly, emits half as much CO2 as — Flanking the exit to BP’s St James’s ExxonMobil were circling. undisclosed location. BP accused AAR of a great expression — to be friends, you acquisition in two decades, paying should be a bridge to renewables. Square headquarters are two fuel The day he was appointed, BP took an conducting an “orchestrated campaign have to eat salt together, and you’d eaten $10.5bn for a collection of assets “There will be roughly 2bn more peo- pumps. One is a vintage petrol version initial $32.2bn (£20.5bn at the time) pro- of harassment”. Dudley’s wife, Mary, and a ton of salt”), but hit immediate trouble from miner BHP. BP’s share price has ple on the planet by 2040, and we’ll need from around the time that the Anglo-Per- vision against the Gulf of Mexico disaster, their two children stayed with him in by agreeing an arctic exploration agree- recovered to 483.9p, valuing it at a third more energy, which is like saying sian Oil Company bought British Petro- sending it crashing to a record $17bn Moscow “until the very end . . . and then I ment and share swap with Rosneft, the £98.9bn. It pumps 3.7m barrels of oil and we’re going to need another and leum in 1917. The other is a hi-tech elec- quarterly loss. Last year, BP, which said, ‘OK, it’s time for you guys to go’”. state oil giant. This angered AAR, which gas equivalent a day — less than the 4m it US in terms of scale,” he said. tric-charging device. “We’re putting this employs 73,000 people across 78 coun- Dudley took TNK-BP’s legal stamps said it violated the TNK-BP shareholders’ produced before the 2010 spill — “Today, renewables are 4% of primary in our retail sites,” Dudley said. “It did tries in activities ranging from oil explora- and seals, and ran the joint venture agreement (BP insiders believed the oli- although margins are higher. demand around the world. People have take 20 minutes [to charge]. The new tion to forecourt retailing, reported pre- remotely until BP settled with the oli- ones take eight.” tax profits of $16.7bn on sales of garchs. The saga left its mental scars: On February 4, Dudley will walk $298.8bn. It paid $8.1bn in dividends. “The Russia experience was not just six between them for the final time as chief “Bob stabilised the company after the months, it was four years or so of a really PICKETED BY JANE FONDA ON HIS FIRST DAY, THEN CHASED OUT OF RUSSIA executive, before retiring on March 31. He Gulf of Mexico spill and pulled it out of tense working environment . . . After described the feeling as “bittersweet”: “I the hole,” said Lord ( John) Browne, the that, I wasn’t sure whether I was going to 1955: Born on a naval base because of problems with Fonda is among protesters Becomes one of Browne’s love what I do, but the time was right. I’ve former BP chief executive who picked out come back to BP or do anything, actually in Queens, New York, while his shoulder, he graduates outside shouting “Stop Big cadre of “teenage mutant always said, pass the baton smoothly.” the young Dudley as his executive assist- . . . After [working in] that kind of pres- his father is a physicist with from the University of Oil” — although “back then ninja turtles” and is put in He will continue to represent BP on ant after taking over , where Dud- sure container, you’re really not sure.” the US Navy. Five years later, in chemical engineering, it wasn’t about climate charge of renewables. Rosneft’s board — he has an affinity for ley worked, in 1998. “That was a monu- He was persuaded to return in 2009, in the family moves to where he meets Mary, his change, it was about the 2008: Forced to flee Russia the country (his wife has run a charity in mental task and should not be forgotten.” an ambassadorial role. He had been back Hattiesburg, Mississippi, future wife. He studies Opec crisis and the after a dispute with BP’s Russia helping disabled orphans, “Bernard’s going to inherit a balance barely a year when natural gas surged up and again to when international management embargo in the US that oligarch partners leads to Diema’s Dream, for 20 years). sheet that’s strong, and a good set of through Deepwater Horizon’s riser on Dudley is 14 — “the biggest at the Thunderbird School drove up gas prices”. “tension around business”. Does a “portfolio” career beckon? assets and relationships around the the night of April 20, 2010, and ignited, cultural shock of my life”. in Phoenix, Arizona. 1998: Amoco is acquired by 2010: Named successor Dudley laughed and said: “You know, I world, but will also have to navigate this capsizing the rig, which sank. Thousands 1977: After being forced 1979: Joins the oil giant BP and Dudley is selected to Tony Hayward as the Gulf promised my wife, I’m not going to make energy transition,” Dudley said in an of barrels of crude oil began spilling into to leave Annapolis naval Amoco. On his first day at its as Lord (John) Browne’s of Mexico turns into any commitments whatsoever. People interview at BP’s St James’s Square head- the Gulf of Mexico. academy in Maryland Chicago office, actress Jane executive assistant. an existential crisis. think I’m going to maybe not adjust to quarters a few days before Christmas. The rig was owned by but having some free time. I will do fine.”

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