BP CEO Tony Hayward

As BP’s Tony Hayward faces a congressional hearing, his company must face up to the spiralling costs of the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico

BP’s beleagured chief executive Tony Hayward is to face a congressional hearing today. Hayward will give evidence in a prepared testimony to the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce and update Congressmen with the progress of BP’s internal investigation into the spill. His company has been accused by US politicians of failing to follow proper procedures in the run up to the 20 April explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which led to the ongoing catastrophic spill of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Hayward will be facing one of Congress’s “pit bulls” in Congressman Henry Waxman, wrote Christopher Swann in a Reuters blog. And his “challenge of defending any seemingly reckless behaviour under BP’s watch will not have been made any easier after rival oil giants unanimously testified that BP had not adhered to industry norms in drilling.” Swann thought that a “no-buts apology would be a good start”, but saw Hayward’s main task as a frank response to the charges “without further implicating BP. For a man who has shown little evidence of diplomatic flair, this won’t be easy,” he wrote.

Hayward has been accused of a string of gaffes since the disaster, including the revelation that he would like his “life back”. And his task has been made harder by “fresh irritation” provoked by his normally reticent chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, who yesterday made what The Guardian described as a “poorly worded apology” to the American people in which he claimed, with not a little condescension, “We care about the small people.”

This comment came on the back of yesterday’s meeting between President Obama and BP’s top command in which a $20 billion compensation fund, to be overseen by the attorney Kenneth Feinberg, was negotiated. BP also agreed a $100 million fund to compensate oil rig employees put out of work by the disaster and to waive dividends to its shareholders for the rest of the year – a concession that Alex Wagner at Politics Daily referred to as “the icing on the cake”. Obama, who has received criticism for his lack of resolve in handling the disaster, had been pushing hard for these measures and the “timing on these announcements could not have come at a more opportune time,” continued Wagner: “The president received poor marks from much of the news media for the first Oval office address of his career, delivered Tuesday night, and questions remained . . . as to whether he would be able to secure the escrow funding from BP.”

“The deal gave Obama his most tangible success since the crisis began 58 days ago,” said Reuters. “It also eased U.S. pressure on BP, whose share price has withered amid uncertainty over the spill’s cost to the British energy giant.” Whether BP weathers the economic storm is quite another story. The New York Times led with news that Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James, estimated the company’s total legal cost, including criminal fines, at $62.9 billion – over three times the amount of the escrow fund.