The sense of honor is missing

[peejay 327]

The sense of honor is missing

By LOREN STEFFY

2007 Houston Chronicle

May 6, 2007, 12:06AM

Perhaps BP's chairman was speaking literally when he said last week that the fall of Chief Executive John Browne was a tragedy.

In a literal sense, a tragedy involves central character who comes to a disastrous end because of fate, a character flaw or moral weakness.

Certainly that would seem to apply to Browne, who tumbled from the pinnacle of the world's oil business after admitting he lied to a judge during an attempt to squelch a newspaper story involving claims of wrongdoing by a former boyfriend. BP said it investigated the allegations by the former boyfriend and found them untrue.

In the scope of BP's business practices during the past few years, though, the details of Browne's personal life seem something less than tragic.

Texas City tragedy

After a company refinery exploded in Texas City two years ago, killing 15 workers and injuring scores more, BP's board gave Browne a raise. After a BP pipeline corroded and spilled crude over Alaska's North Slope, the board offered him a performance bonus.

In the face of heated criticism, Browne agreed to retire early, but the board still allowed him to linger until this summer, so he could collect his full retirement pay. Only after he admitted lying to a judge about how he met his former boyfriend did he resign.

"It is a tragedy that he should be compelled by his sense of honor to resign in these painful circumstances," BP Chairman Peter Sutherland said in a statement.

Where, though, was Browne's sense of honor after Texas City?

Had he shown the honor to accept responsibility for the many failings on his watch during the past two years, had he left sooner, the compounding tragedy that is BP may have been less disastrous.

It is, of course, a moot point, except to note that Browne's departure, however it was achieved, couldn't have come soon enough. His successor, Tony Hayward, has much to do, and now that Browne is gone, the doing can begin.

Going slower on deals

Hayward already has said he plans to slow down the deal-making that was Browne's trademark. He wants to refocus BP on safety and maintenance and on repairing the internal breakdowns that led to the disaster in Texas City and the lapses in Alaska.

Late last week, yet another report on the refinery blast — this one an internal BP investigation — was released. The report, made public by a court order in the civil litigation surrounding the accident, recommended the firing of four executives for showing poor judgment.

Review of Manzoni

More important, though, it also called for a review of John Manzoni, head of BP's worldwide refinery operations, who the report found failed in his duties and responsibilities.

Manzoni sat next to Browne at a news conference in January, to address another critical report on the blast, in which Browne expressed confidence in him. After all the changes BP has made in response to the Texas City disaster, the decision to keep Manzoni in his job remains a looming question mark.

Perhaps more telling, Hayward didn't attend.

Hayward faces other tasks, from BP's flagging stock price to political wrangling over oil contracts in Russia to dealing with U.S. investigations into its trading of crude oil and gasoline. The U.S. government also has alleged that BP manipulated the market for propane in 2004, which the company denies.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is investigating possible criminal charges related to Texas City, and Congress will hold a hearing on the Alaska spill later this month.

Unseen documents

The hearings were postponed after the head of BP America, Robert Malone, wrote a letter to lawmakers saying that additional documents had surfaced that were relevant to earlier congressional hearings last fall. Malone said they weren't turned over to lawmakers or to him, and he noted that some of their contents caused him concern.

What resides in those as-yet unseen documents? What new embarrassments have yet to come forth?

Perhaps nothing. Perhaps they were simply overlooked in the roundup of records that preceded the hearing.

But BP's track record puts the benefit of the doubt beyond its reach.

End of an era

Repairing BP's battered reputation, after all, is the most monumental task on Hayward's list, and the one that will take the most time to complete.

The first step begins as the Browne era comes to its unceremonious close. It took a former boyfriend to do what BP's board would not.

That, like the disaster in Texas City and the pollution of the North Slope, is the real tragedy.

Loren Steffy is the Chronicle's business columnist. His commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headli...iz/4777962.html