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Steve Chiotakis: We’re gonna get a take on the global perspective. What’s happening in business and economics around the world and how it affects the United States. British oil giant BP seems to be containing the oil gusher again — after a collision of some of its equipment a mile under the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. For a time yesterday, oil was spewing at previously high levels until a fix was made.
A complete fix, of course, would help give company CEO Tony Hayward his life back. But for now, he’s out of the spotlight. The beleaguered exec is no longer running the British oil giant’s cleanup operations. From London, Stephen Beard has more.
Stephen Beard: Once he was everywhere — on the Gulf Coast, on Capitol Hill, on the nightly TV news. Then suddenly, Tony Hayward disappeared. He failed to show-up at a major oil industry gathering in London. Another public appearance was also cancelled.
Now we know why. Hayward has been replaced. Not as chief executive, but as BP’s boss in the Gulf. That job has now gone to an American BP executive who comes from Mississippi. This just may help the company’s shatttered reputation, says oil analyst Nick McGregor:
Nick McGregor: They’ll be a greater degree of empathy when people see somebody who is from one of the Gulf states standing there and saying BP cares about what’s happening here.
But still, the question remains: Where is Tony Hayward? BP’s press office says they never comment on the chief executive’s whereabouts. But one commentator here reckons that Hayward is enjoying his lower profile and sailing his yacht on the unpolluted waters off the southern coast of England.
In London, this is Stephen Beard for Marketplace.
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