Bob Dudley is likely to take over as the BP chief executive from the outgoing Tony Hayward.
Bob Dudley is likely to take over as the BP chief executive from the outgoing Tony Hayward.

Man who would be king of what?



If Bob Dudley, an American, becomes the next chief executive of the UK's biggest oil company as many expect, it could be legitimate to ask whether his former company Amoco has taken over BP. Large corporate mergers often involve a struggle for supremacy between disparate cultures. In 1998, when BP acquired the much talked about US oil company Amoco, it was widely assumed the British oil giant's culture would win out.

But now the US public is baying for change, egged on by a chorus of vote-conscious politicians. BP's "corporate culture of carelessness", they argue, has spawned the biggest oil spill in US history. The point man who could be entrusted with cultural reform, starting as early today, is the Amoco alumnus Mr Dudley. "It's a wise choice to pick an American. This will take off some of the pressure," Gudmund Halle Isfeldt, an analyst at DnB NOR in Oslo, told Bloomberg. He anticipated BP's board would name Mr Dudley the future chief executive of the company after it met yesterday evening.

Born in Queens, New York, in 1955, while his father was serving a stint in the US Navy, the current head of BP's oil-spill response was raised in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and spent summers in Biloxi, on the Gulf coast. He obtained a chemical engineering degree from the University of Illinois and business degrees from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona - training grounds for the "good ol' boys" who dominated the Gulf Coast oil scene around that time.

Mr Dudley got his start in the oil industry as a field engineer for Amoco in Texas and later worked for the company in Scotland, Russia and China. He joined BP through its takeover of the Chicago-based Amoco and was soon made head of the merged company's renewable and solar energy business. At BP, he was the chief executive of the company's TNK-BP joint venture with Russian billionaire investors. There, in Vladimir Putin's Russia, he was embroiled in a fight with business partners who wanted to focus exclusively on the bottom line. Mr Dudley stood up for BP and was chased out of Russia. After running TNK-BP from a secret hideout while a shareholder battle for the company raged, his resignation was the public sacrifice the Russians demanded for a settlement.

Mr Dudley has been described as diplomatic and careful with words. On May 6, he told a business audience in Boston, less than three weeks after the explosion on the Deep Horizon oil platform, "the human dimension of this tragedy" had been "somewhat overlooked". "Our thoughts and prayers are with the injured and with the families and friends of those souls who are not with us today. We feel an enormous sense of sadness and loss. ? No one will rest until this job is done," he added.

Still, not everyone would welcome his elevation. "I worked for BP between 2000 and 2004 and one thing that was very noticeable was that in the UK and in Europe, BP was obsessed with health and safety, environmental protection, risk minimisation, etcetera," Stan Pomeray, a UK investor, wrote two weeks ago on the Interactive Investor website. "We regularly turned down lucrative bits of business because it felt too risky.

"In the US, however, BP was a completely different animal," he added. "Nobody took safety seriously, nobody really gave a damn about environmental considerations. ? That wasn't just senior management it was everyone. The reason? Simple: BP USA was basically Amoco re-badged." tcarlisle@thenational.ae

THE SPECS

Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine 

Power: 420kW

Torque: 780Nm

Transmission: 8-speed automatic

Price: From Dh1,350,000

On sale: Available for preorder now

The specs

Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
Power: 150hp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: From Dh139,000
On sale: Now

The%20specs
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Vidaamuyarchi

Director: Magizh Thirumeni

Stars: Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra

Rating: 4/5

 

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)

What is THAAD?

It is considered to be the US' most superior missile defence system.

Production:

It was first created in 2008.

Speed:

THAAD missiles can travel at over Mach 8, so fast that it is hypersonic.

Abilities:

THAAD is designed to take out projectiles, namely ballistic missiles, as they are on their downward trajectory towards their target, otherwise known as the "terminal phase".

Purpose:

To protect high-value strategic sites, such as airfields or population centres.

Range:

THAAD can target projectiles both inside and outside of the Earth's atmosphere, at an altitude of 93 miles above the Earth's surface.

Creators:

Lockheed Martin was originally granted the contract to develop the system in 1992. Defence company Raytheon sub-contracts to develop other major parts of the system, such as ground-based radar.

UAE and THAAD:

In 2011, the UAE became the first country outside of the US to buy two THAAD missile defence systems. It then deployed them in 2016, becoming the first Gulf country to do so.

COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3EFounder%3A%20Hani%20Abu%20Ghazaleh%3Cbr%3EBased%3A%20Abu%20Dhabi%2C%20with%20an%20office%20in%20Montreal%3Cbr%3EFounded%3A%202018%3Cbr%3ESector%3A%20Virtual%20Reality%3Cbr%3EInvestment%20raised%3A%20%241.2%20million%2C%20and%20nearing%20close%20of%20%245%20million%20new%20funding%20round%3Cbr%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%2012%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs: 2019 Mercedes-Benz GLE

Price, base / as tested Dh274,000 (estimate)

Engine 3.0-litre inline six-cylinder

Gearbox  Nine-speed automatic

Power 245hp @ 4,200rpm

Torque 500Nm @ 1,600rpm

Fuel economy, combined 6.4L / 100km

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: ARDH Collective
Based: Dubai
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Sector: Sustainability
Total funding: Self funded
Number of employees: 4
The Sand Castle

Director: Matty Brown

Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea

Rating: 2.5/5

THE LIGHT

Director: Tom Tykwer

Starring: Tala Al Deen, Nicolette Krebitz, Lars Eidinger

Rating: 3/5

My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci
Pushkin Press

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE%20set%20for%20Scotland%20series
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Tightening the screw on rogue recruiters

The UAE overhauled the procedure to recruit housemaids and domestic workers with a law in 2017 to protect low-income labour from being exploited.

 Only recruitment companies authorised by the government are permitted as part of Tadbeer, a network of labour ministry-regulated centres.

A contract must be drawn up for domestic workers, the wages and job offer clearly stating the nature of work.

The contract stating the wages, work entailed and accommodation must be sent to the employee in their home country before they depart for the UAE.

The contract will be signed by the employer and employee when the domestic worker arrives in the UAE.

Only recruitment agencies registered with the ministry can undertake recruitment and employment applications for domestic workers.

Penalties for illegal recruitment in the UAE include fines of up to Dh100,000 and imprisonment

But agents not authorised by the government sidestep the law by illegally getting women into the country on visit visas.

Dhadak

Director: Shashank Khaitan

Starring: Janhvi Kapoor, Ishaan Khattar, Ashutosh Rana

Stars: 3

The National Archives, Abu Dhabi

Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.

Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en

The Brutalist

Director: Brady Corbet

Stars: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn

Rating: 3.5/5