Ex-BP CEO makes appearance at trial

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS

Once the object of ridicule and focus of outrage after the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, former BP chief executive Tony Hayward made a cameo appearance Wednesday in a trial to decide how much blame the company must shoulder for the disaster.

Hayward didn’t attend in person. Instead, he showed up just briefly on a videotape in what may be his only appearance in the courtroom.

Hayward, who famously said “I’d like my life back” at the height of the spill, isn’t expected to take the witness stand in the high-stakes trial. Hayward did testify in person before Congress and gave a videotaped deposition for this trial, but his role may be limited here by his lack of direct knowledge of the drilling operations on the Deepwater Horizon.

Still, attorneys for the U.S. government and Gulf Coast residents and businesses showed a 20-minute snippet of his deposition, projecting the video on a large white screen in the courtroom. The attorneys have said the London-based company bears most of the blame for the spill and they accused BP of putting profits ahead of safety by cutting corners on a project that was over budget and behind schedule.

“I believe that the role of leaders is very important in shaping the culture of an organization,” Hayward said in the videotape.

He also said cost-cutting measures in the years before the 2010 spill did not have an effect on drilling operations, comments that differed from excerpts of a videotaped deposition from Kevin Lacy, who served as BP’s senior vice president for drilling operations in the Gulf before resigning several months before the spill.

Lacy said BP slashed between $250 million and $300 million from its Gulf drilling budget from 2008 to 2009 while at the same time its production rose by more than 50 percent.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier is presiding over the trial designed to identify the causes of BP’s Macondo well blowout and assign percentages of fault to the companies involved. If BP is found guilty of gross negligence, it could be on the hook for nearly $18 billion.