Barack Obama's administration has promised to keep its boot firmly applied to BP's neck. Many people would be happier if the boot were a blade.
Fishermen who worry that their livelihoods are in peril; shareholders who have seen the value of BP's shares plunge; local Democratic politicians who want to make sure they cannot be blamed for reacting too slowly: the list of boot-and-blade wielders is growing longer by the day.
In practice BP's neck means Tony Hayward's. Just a few weeks ago Hayward was one of the world's most celebrated chief executives, responsible for delivering $5.6 billion in profits in the first quarter of this year.
Now, after the collapse of a rig leased by BP in the Gulf of Mexico, costing 11 lives and threatening environmental catastrophe, he is in the meat grinder of public opprobrium along with Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, and Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota.
So far he has done a creditable job of crisis management. He has been a whirlwind of activity -- moving to a Ramada Inn in Houma, La., meeting Obama's deputies and giving back-to-back TV interviews.
He has thrown the full might of his company's resources at the problem, sending 2,500 people to help with the cleanup and chartering a sizeable armada. He has accepted "full responsibility" for the disaster -- but also made it clear that the rig was being operated by a subcontractor, Transocean.
Things may yet get worse for BP. The company faces a tidal wave of litigation and an epidemic of stories about oil-drenched sea birds and devastated wetlands. The final bill for the cleanup, which is costing BP about $6 million a day, could well exceed $10 billion.
Hayward could yet buckle under the pressure. But, if he can keep his head, he is arguably the best man to deal with an impossibly difficult situation. Hayward took over BP in 2007 as the back-to-basics candidate. His predecessor, John Browne, was in many ways a remarkable chief executive, a man who sprinkled pixie dust onto the company's black gold while also boosting its market capitalization ninefold. But Lord Browne focused too much on the soft furnishings and too little on the foundations.
Hayward set out to replace flash and fluff with nuts and bolts. He promised to focus "like a laser on safe and reliable operations." He streamlined the company's management. He played down Browne's "Beyond Petroleum" rhetoric in favor of a greater emphasis on the company's core business.
"BP makes its money by someone, somewhere, every day putting on boots, overalls, a hard hat and glasses, and going out and turning valves," he argued. "And we'd sort of lost track of that."
To be sure, after the spill in the Gulf this back-to-basics strategy leaves him open to some sharp criticisms. Hasn't the disaster made a mockery of his "focus like a laser" argument? And hasn't he been at the forefront of lobbying for more deep-sea drilling?
He has tried to convince the Obama administration that one of the keys to America's energy security lies in the oil and gas in the deep waters of the Gulf. Last September he even dispatched one of his lieutenants, David Rainey, to Congress to argue that new technology had made possible the "safe and reliable production" of offshore oil.
But against all this he has a number of things on his side. One is that the disasters at Texas City and Prudhoe Bay occurred before he took over. A second is that before the current oil spill he had a solid record of improving safety and reducing injuries in the workplace.
A third is that the markets have probably overreacted to the oil spill: the fact that BP's shares have lost $30 billion in value, three times the likely cost of the cleanup, suggests that they will start to climb back.
But the fourth may count for most: that he is an oilman by conviction as well as profession.
