These BP executives just can’t seem to avoid saying stupid things. While scrambling to deal with the worst oil spill in U.S. history, they keep putting their feet right in their mouths — making statements that make the oil giant come across as elitist, insensitive and disingenuous. It sure doesn’t seem to be helping their PR problem.
Here’s a roundup of the seven dumbest things BP executives said over the last two months:
1. The ‘Tiny’ Spill
Last month, BP CEO Tony Hayward said in an interview with The Guardian that the amount of oil and dispersant in the Gulf of Mexico were relatively “tiny” compared to the “very big ocean.”
“The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”
2. ‘Very, Very Modest’
Just a few days later, Hayward told Sky News that “everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact of this will be very, very modest.” Watch it here.
Later in the month, Hayward changed his tune and said the spill was “clearly an environmental catastrophe.” Watch it here.
3. Give Me My Life Back!
With the cameras rolling, Hayward says he’s really motivated to plug the Gulf of Mexico oil leak so he can get his life back. “Y’know, I’d like my life back,” he said. “So there’s no one who wants this thing done more than I do, and we are doing everything we can to contain the oil offshore, defend the shoreline and return people’s lives to normal as fast as we can.” Watch it here.
He later apologized.
4. ‘Big And Important’
BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg told the Financial Times on May 25 — his first newspaper interview since the April 20 Deepwater Horizon explosion — that his company still has a future in the U.S. because BP is “big and important.”
“The US is a big and important market for BP, and BP is also a big and important company for the US, with its contribution to drilling and oil and gas production. So the position goes both ways.”
5. Plumes? What Plumes?
On May 30, Hayward disputed the claims of scientists who say the disastrous oil leak has resulted in gigantic undersea plumes of oil. Hayward says BP testing has shown “no evidence” of this. ”
“The oil is on the surface,” Hayward said. “There aren’t any plumes.”
6. ‘A Relative Trickle’
BP COO Doug Suttles told the Associated Press on June 8 that the oil leak should slow to “a relative trickle” soon. (It has not).
He later tried to clarify that comment, saying that BP’s containment system “will never capture every drop, but it should be able to capture the vast majority.” It has yet to do that, either.
7. ‘The Small People’
Maybe something got lost in translation. But when BP Chairman Svanberg spoke after Wednesday’s meeting between BP executives and President Obama, the Swedish-born businessman declared: “I care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don’t care, but that is not the case at BP. We care about the small people.” Watch it here.
He later apologized.
