BP denies ‘dead man walking’ Tony Hayward is quitting

BP was today forced to deny that beleaguered chief executive Tony Hayward will quit as a result of the devastating oil spill in the Gulf

Speculation is mounting on both sides of the Atlantic that Hayward will stand down in the next 10 weeks to draw a line under the crisis and help rebuild BP's shattered reputation in the US.
BP dismissed talk of Hayward's departure and said he has the "full support of management and
the board".

However, the feeling in the City is that he cannot survive. James Hughes, an analyst at CMC Markets, said: "He is a dead man walking. There is no way Tony Hayward can survive."

BP today announced the sale of $7 billion (£4.6 billion) worth of assets in Texas, Canada and Egypt to smaller US rival Apache Corp to help fund the clean-up operation.

Shares in BP rose 15.2p to 402.7p on news of the sale — still well below the 655p at which they traded before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank three months ago.

Hayward has been roundly criticised for a series of gaffes since the disaster and a failure to plug the leak quickly.

BP finally stemmed the flow of oil last weekend.