BUSINESS Bob Dudley, DIEGO LEVY the Quiet Man Who Saved BP
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The Sunday Times December 29, 2019 BUSINESS Bob Dudley, 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 Deepwater Horizon 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: “Tony Hayward 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 Mexico, caus- and gas quickly to renewables’. We say, crude oil comes out with natural gas, 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 Louisiana figure it out. This transition will not be the Sorella hotel in Houston 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 Florida 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 Barack Obama’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 Petroleum”. 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 Extinction Rebellion, PREVIOUS WINNERS around,” Dudley said. “There was great Greta Thunberg 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 Big Oil 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 Gulf of Mexico crisis, strife with BP’s Russian partners and the oil-price crash of 2015 Scotland 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, Royal Mail 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, Glencore You can’t say there’s a silver bullet.” BP to buy them out). Rosneft 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, Tesco the well, BP finally managed to install a receiving $12.5bn in cash and taking its $14.7m last year. But it is climate change 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, Morrisons 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 Russia and negotiating raised in Mississippi. “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 barrel 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 biofuels get more involved in energy — actually man Helge Lund, formerly of Norway’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 Brazil joint venture with getting involved, whether it’s renewables Statoil and London-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 — refineries 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 water interests in the Gulf of Mex- vehicle charging with Chargemaster.