Tony Hayward to retire from Genel

Tony Hayward will step down as chairman of Genel Energy on June 6, the London-based operator of Kurdistan Region assets announced on Monday.

A successor has already been appointed – Stephen Whyte. Most recently head of exploration and production at Portugal’s Galp Energia, Whyte spent a large part of his career at Shell. Following his departure in 2011, he became a senior vice-president at BG Group.

While Whyte’s appointment at Genel as an independent non-executive director and chairman is effective immediately, he will not takeover from Hayward as chairman until after the company’s June 6 annual general meeting.

CEO Murat Özgül, in a press release, reflected on the progress he and Hayward made.

“It has been a great pleasure to have worked with Tony during his time at Genel. When we first started working together, the oil industry in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq was still in its infancy, without an export pipeline and there was a high degree of uncertainty over export sales,” adding that Genel wishes him “all the best in his future activities.”

Last month, the company announced its results for 2016, revealing a widened loss on account of impairment of exploration assets.

Genel saw losses increase from USD 1.04 billion in 2015 to USD 1.22 billion last year. Revenue was also down, falling by USD 153.2 million to USD 190.7 million.

Earlier in march, Genel was forced to downgrade the reserves estimates for the Taq Taq field in the Kurdistan Region Iraq, resulting in an impairment of 180.8 million.

“Genel has operated in a very tough environment in recent years but I believe the Company has renewed momentum and significant opportunities in the portfolio,” Whyte said of the current state of the business.

“As the environment now improves, I look forward to working with the Board to ensure that Genel has the best possible strategy for the future,” he concluded.

Hayward is best known for his role as CEO of BP, a tenure that commenced on May 1, 2007. The April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill took place on his watch, and he was replaced by current Chief Executive Bob Dudley two months after the accident.