Would a Change of Leadership at BP Help?

This morning Tony Hayward, the CEO of British Petroleum, takes to the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal to explain what BP is doing about the spill:

The ultimate solution to stop the flow of oil and gas from the well is to drill a relief well, a process that takes about three months. We obviously wanted to minimize or stop the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf long before that. So we readied a multifaceted strategy, featuring a series of technological approaches to be deployed in parallel and in sequence. These included a large containment dome that could not be successfully deployed several weeks ago, the riser insertion tube tool (RITT) that was attached with partial success, and the “top kill” and “junk shot” approaches we tried over several days and eventually abandoned on May 30.

The next question people naturally ask is: “What will you do until the relief well is finished?” Based on what we have learned from the approaches taken thus far, we now believe the best way to minimize the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf is to use a lower marine riser package (LMRP) containment system.

This will involve cutting the damaged riser connected to the Deepwater Horizon’s blow-out preventer and placing a cap over the LMRP, which should enable us to contain and collect a majority of the oil and gas flowing from the well. We expect to have the LMRP containment system in place in the next few days. If the LMRP containment system begins operations as expected, then we plan to enhance the system with additional features that should capture even more oil and gas out of the Gulf.

while peasant armed with torches and pitchforks slaver for his blood:

How is it possible that BP chief executive Tony Hayward hasn’t been fired? At this point, how can anyone believe a word the man says? If he told me my mother loves me, I’d want a second source.

I can understand, even sympathize with the sentiment. However, the only question that we should be considering right now is what will facilitate BP’s stopping the spill?

I don’t know if Mr. Robinson has ever experience the aftermath of a company’s top management being replaced in crisis. I have. Not only is it not empowering the entire company seems to freeze like a deer in the headlights, proceeding only on automatic pilot.

I doubt that automatic pilot is what we need from BP right now. There will be plenty of time for ceremonial defenestrations later when the well has been capped, oil and gas aren’t pouring into the Gulf in the tens of thousands of gallons per day, and the clean-up, which will probably go on for decades has begun.