The Washington Post - 05.10.2019

A20 EZ RE T H E  W A S H I N G T O N  P O S T.S A T U R D A Y, O C T O B E R  5 ,  2 0 1 9

BY THOMAS HEATH

Bob Dudley, the oil executive
who charted BP through the
aftermath of the Deepwater Ho-
rizon explosion and oil leak, is
leaving the petroleum giant next
year after 40 years.
Dudley, 64, will retire as group
chief executive and relinquish
his membership on the compa-
ny’s board on March 31, 2020. He
will be succeeded by Bernard
Looney, 49, the chief executive of

the firm’s upstream division.

“Bob Dudley took over a BP

that was in deep crisis and built

it back into a resurgent global

player, restoring confidence out-

side the company, including with

investors, and most crucially

among BP’s own employees,” said

Daniel Yergin, the vice chairman

of IHS Markit and the author of

two major works on the oil

industry, “The Prize” and “The

Quest.”

Dudley took over BP, formerly

known as British Petroleum, in

the wake of the April 2010 Deep-

water Horizon oil platform ex-

plosion in the Gulf of Mexico that

killed 11 workers and ignited the

largest oil spill in U.S. history.

The accident in water

5,000 feet deep nearly took the

British-based company down,

costing it tens of billions of

dollars in cleanup costs, penal-

ties and payments to individuals

and businesses.

It was also a public relations

disaster, resulting in an embar-

rassing hearing before the U.S.

Congress.

Mississippi-born Dudley took

charge of the company’s Gulf

Restoration Project before re-

placing then-chief executive

Tony Hayward on Oct. 1, 2010,

less than six months after the

disaster.

Dudley was well-prepared for

the corporate tumult after serv-

ing five years as president and

chief executive of TNK-BP, which

was BP’s lucrative oil partner-

ship in Russia. Dudley fled Rus-

sia in 2008 after being harassed

by Russian authorities. He re-

portedly escaped before he was

to be arrested.

BP recovered under Dudley’s

nine years as chief executive. The

company produces more than

1.2 million barrels of oil per day

from its far-flung operations and

is projected to earn more than

$10 billion in profit this year on

$300 billion in revenue.

The London-based oil giant is

one of the largest companies in

the world, with more than 5 bil-

lion barrels of proven oil re-

serves. It employs 73,000.

“Bernard Looney comes very

well prepared for the new energy

era ahead, with deep under-

standing of both BP and the

industry, and with experience

working in very different circum-

stances around the world,” Ye-

rgin said.

[email protected]

BP executive who handled Deepwater Horizon aftermath to retire in 2020

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