BP doesn't know the meaning of the word audacity

BP chief backs oil drilling in wake of US disaster (current)

Mr Tony Hayward, BP's CEO, told the BBC the permit regime in the US was as rigorous as anywhere in the world.

How does THAT make you feel?

As good as these other stories thrown into the Stew in the last several years?

Greed may be good, but excess is best (2006)

Mr Buffett also had harsh words for speculators who, like Lord Browne of BP, he blamed for driving up the price of everything from housing to oil and metals.

Oh, thank haven (2005)

Caymans 97 [is] a holding company for BP - the world's second largest oil producer. Now, this company holds controlling ownership in Cayman of many of BP's worldwide operations. It serves a variety of useful purposes for BP, the most useful being the pooling together in one place of a massive portion of the income and assets of the entire BP group. The goal is to fill the holding company pool to the brim with revenue and then keep that money in play and wash it back through the company - untaxed - only landing it onshore in the U.S. or UK when tax rates have been engineered through the company's offshore network to be the most advantageous.

Model behaviour (2005)

"The British Petroleum investor relations person presented yesterday at the BankAmerica conference, and during the breakout session she defended the fact that BP uses a $20 per barrel oil price to “test” its spending projects—i.e. to decide whether to go ahead with drilling for oil.When reminded that oil currently sells for about three-times that figure, the BP investor relations person vigorously defended this $20 “test” price, noting that BP sees oil trading in a $20 to $35 a barrel range over the long haul.Since it takes five to seven years to bring a big project on stream, “it is reckless to be investing (based) on (today’s) oil price.”That is true enough, I suppose…but when asked if $20 a barrel was not a little on the low side of recklessness, she noted that at the $20 per barrel “test” price, BP has enough exploration and production projects “to grow production 5% per year.”And since world oil production is growing “at half” that rate—i.e. around 2.5%—then “we are doing more than our fair share.” British So-Called Petroleum is giving back to its shareholders 70% more of the cash flow it makes thanks to $65 oil prices than it is spending to find new sources of oil supply."

Running a presidential campaign at BP (2006)

BP needs a cultural shift because whoever wins the race for the top job will be leading a company built in Lord Browne of Madingley’s image — a highly centralised organisation with a presidential style of office that keeps its senior management on a tight leash and projects its public image from the chief executive’s podium.

Tony Hayward, head of exploration and candidate for the chief executive’s job, recently told an internal audience in Houston that the top of the organisation was not listening.

He said that management was too directive and too fond of making a virtue out of doing more for less. “(BP) has lived too long in the world of making do and patching up this quarter for the next quarter,” he said.

Mr Hayward’s passionate plea for management to listen and reject the penny-pinching approach to resources would sound more persuasive if he had not been an arch exponent of the BP cost mantra in previous years.

Etc., etc.