Tony Hayward steps into chairman role at resource giant's annual meeting

Mark King had been considered a “rising star” of company’s leadership team

BP chief executive Bob Dudley today offered some evidence that his turnaround of the beleaguered oil giant is heading the right way.

Shares in BP leapt today after the FTSE 100 oil giant unveiled plans to return $8bn (£5.3bn) to investors, a day after completing the sale of its troubled TNK-BP Russian joint venture.

BP failed to apply its own safety and risk management system to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, in what was a "tragic" and "egregious" oversight, the first witness in a long-awaited civil trial over the 2010 oil spill said.

As oil company finally comes to trial over rig disaster, $16bn settlement talks are intensifying

Angry holidaymakers describe 'sauna of sewage' as they finally get off crippled US liner

Outlook So, the US interior department has launched an urgent review of Arctic offshore drilling operations after the grounding of Shell's Kulluk oil rig off the coast of Alaska last week. Presumably the first thing they will acknowledge is that this was effectively a shipping rather than a drilling accident, though political momentum is against the oil giant.

Like his tough protagonist, Dave Robicheaux, James Lee Burke is a man of passionate temper. His contemptuous anger over the lacklustre response of George W Bush to the devastation of Burke’s beloved New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina was incorporated into his writing. That rage is back again.

BP has agreed to cough up $4.5bn (£2.8bn) in penalties and plead guilty to no less than 14 counts of criminal misconduct in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Last night it was also reported that two BP workers have been indicted on manslaughter charges and an ex-manager charged with misleading Congress.

BP has agreed to pay $4.5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to 14 counts of criminal misconduct over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago.

A half mile below ground near Anchorage, Alaska the U.S Department of Energy have tapped a reservoir of methane hydrate. It looks like ice, but burns like coal.

Shares in BP soared by more than 4 per cent yesterday after the oil giant unveiled a better-than-expected third-quarter profit and hiked its dividend by 12.5 per cent to $0.09.

Anyone who has been following the TNK-BP Russian joint venture can only conclude that the two partners desperately needed a divorce.