Why BP's Bob Dudley Is No Tony Hayward

(July 26) -- Almost 100 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion and gulf oil spill began, it looks like BP CEO Tony Hayward may be getting his life back. Although the BP board, scheduled to meet Monday evening to determine Hayward's future with the company, insists that no final decision has been made, reports indicate that Hayward is on his way out. And topping everyone's list of potential successors is Robert W. "Bob" Dudley, the director of disaster operations who in late June took over the reins of the oil relief efforts after Hayward's public image, and nearly BP's itself, reached irreparable lows.

Dudley has been quietly helping to manage the cleanup effort -- and his company's image -- from the very first days of the crisis, giving several interviews about the spill (see below), during which he was able to avoid making impolitic remarks, about "small people" and otherwise.

According to The Wall Street Journal, his appointment as BP's new CEO may come as early as Tuesday, when BP is set to announce what is expected to be an enormous second-quarter earnings loss. At the very least, Dudley's strong performance thus far and his Mississippi upbringing give him a head start in managing the public relations cleanup of the Gulf oil spill cleanup.

Surge Desk has the file on BP's likely next CEO, as earlier collected by our colleague Mara Gay.

1. He learned how to be an oil czar in Russia.
Before he was appointed a managing director at BP in August, from 2003 to 2008 Dudley was the CEO of TNK-BP, an oil company in Russia, where, according to BP, he increased production by 26 percent and delivered the highest average shareholder returns of any major Russian oil company.

2. He isn't easily intimidated by big government.
President Obama, take note. In 2008, Russia refused to renew Dudley's visa when TNK was locked in a fierce dispute with some wealthy Russian shareholders. But Dudley continued to run the company's operations, even after a campaign of "sustained harassment" forced him to flee Russia for an "undisclosed location," The Times of London reported.

3. He probably won't tell us that he wants his life back.
Compared to Hayward, Dudley has proved remarkably adept at giving interviews without sticking his foot in his mouth. He looks more likely to infuriate the public by never answering the question at hand at all.

When CBS News correspondent John Dickerson asked Dudley if BP would bring in a supertanker to help with the cleanup efforts on May 30, Dudley gave this obtuse response, which Esquire magazine called "as convoluted as English can be":

We have looked at that. It's a -- we have looked at that. It's an interesting, interesting idea. Those have you -- been used in the -- in the Arabian Sea in the gulf over there for spills. What we're finding with this oil, it's -- it's light, it's relatively volatile. And with the use of dispersants, it tends to string out a number of miles long but very narrow. And so, as we look at this, it's -- it's not the same concept to be able to work. And -- and our spill responses at the surface now are being very, very effective.

4. He's a good 'ol boy.
Bonus. Unlike BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, aka "I care about small people," Dudley grew up in Hattiesburg, Miss. -- meaning that he is on tap to become the first American to act as BP's chief executive. He also completed his undergraduate studies in chemical engineering at the University of Illinois and holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University. So if he commits a gaffe, he won't be able to blame it on his poor grasp of U.S. idioms.