BP’s removal of Tony Hayward as CEO could be bad news for Gulf oil spill

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Word leaked out tonight via the Times of London that BP’s yachting CEO Tony Hayward is set to get back as much of his life as he’d like – he’ll step down as CEO within 10 weeks, they report. Reuters quickly reported that BP denied the rumor, but by the time they got around to posting their consolidated story about Hayward, they could only report a spokesman’s comment that was far from comprehensive or convincing. And let’s face it, spokespersons aren’t always in the know about the decisions made by corporate boards.

And that gets me thinking – is the possible purging of Hayward from his high office a sign that BP’s latest solution to the oil spill has failed?

Earlier in the month, Dan Amira for New York magazine’s Daily Intel blog pointed out an interesting coincidence of dates: BP was expecting that the leak in the Gulf of Mexico where the Deepwater Horizon blew up would be resolved by July 27 – the date of its report to investors on its second quarter earnings results. The logic would suggest that maybe they won’t have any good news to report on July 27. So if nature and the laws of underwater geology won’t collaborate with BP’s management, maybe they need to manufacture some good news.

It’s got me wondering if the scenario goes something like this: Sure, oil will continue to dribble into the Gulf of Mexico from the Macondo well. But at least PR oopsies won’t dribble out of Hayward. The ‘future BP’ strategy that management can roll-out in the quarterly report will encourage those who have parked their money with the oil giant to stand pat while new management is deployed to fix the flaws that resulted in the disaster. BP’s message to the world will be that even if the oil is still leaking, at least the company can restore its brand with a new CEO. Of course, that’s a message that only makes sense to investors, not to you, me, and everyone else who believes the company has created one of the greatest manmade disasters in known history.

The question is whether we should want investors to buy into this line – because a non-existent BP may not be able to pay for all the damage that it did.