Sky News Hits Top Gear with BP Losses and Hayward Departure Scoops

Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 July 2010 17:53 Wednesday, 28 July 2010 17:53

Mark Kleinman BP’s Chief Executive will be offered another role linked to the company after he steps down, Sky News exclusively revealed as it pulled out the stops covering the BP losses and Hayward's departure.

As Sky News’ City Editor Mark Kleinman reported in his blog (www.skynews.com/kleinman) and on Sky News’ Live at Five programme, Tony Hayward will be nominated to a seat on the board of TNK-BP, a Russian joint venture which is responsible for a quarter of BP’s production.

The man who is set to succeed Hayward as chief executive, Bob Dudley, ran TNK-BP until he was forced out of Russia in a dispute over how the company was run.

In his blog, Kleinman says: “BP is to nominate Tony Hayward to the board of its politically-charged Russian joint venture as part of the arrangement that will see him step down as boss of the oil giant, I have learned... my discovery that Hayward is likely to be proposed for a non-executive role on the board of TNK-BP – which I expect to be announced alongside the details of his exit from BP tomorrow morning – will inevitably be viewed by some observers as a consolation prize offered by his colleagues.”

Mark Kleinman also gives an insight into the BP Chief Executive’s thinking as he prepares to leave his job. Mark writes: “As I understand it, he [Hayward] has been telling friends during the last 24 hours that he believes leaving his role is the “honourable” thing to do.”

Sky News has set the pace on the departure of Tony Hayward from his role at the top of what was Britain’s biggest company before the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico on 20th April.

Last Friday night, Sky News City Editor Mark Kleinman was the first to report that Hayward was to depart from BP this week. He wrote in his blog that “Hayward's departure would be a mutually-agreed decision with the rest of the BP board and announced alongside the company's interim results on Tuesday”, and that Hayward’s replacement would be Dudley.