BP (LON:BP) confirmed the ejection of hapless boss Tony Hayward as it set aside US$32 billion to meet the cost of the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
The charge means the oil major crashed to a second quarter loss of $16.9 billion – a record three-monthly shortfall.
Hayward will leave in October to be replaced by Bob Dudley, the former BP Russia boss, praised for his diplomatic skills and prized for his American accent.
"We are highly fortunate to have a successor of the calibre of Bob Dudley who has spent his working life in the oil industry both in the US and overseas and has proved himself a robust operator in the toughest circumstances," said BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg.
Hayward’s three months in charge of the clean up and well capping operation have been punctuated by a series of PR gaffes that so riled US president Barack Obama they threatened to sour Anglo-US relations.
The terms of the departing chief executive’s payout are not known, but some reports put the package at as much as £10.5 million.
A total of US$20 million of the US$32 million charge relates to the already-announced escrow account set up at the behest of the American president and which will be used to fund the clean-up effort and meet compensation claims.
The group confirmed the cancellation of the first quarter dividend and said it won’t make a payout for the remainder of the year. It will at look again at the start of 2011 at whether to resume the dividend.