Sunday, March 19, 2006

British Petroleum CEO Takes Hit For 2005 Explosion Fatalities

Poor Lord Browne. Tragedy upon tragedy.

The performance bonus of Lord John Browne, chief executive of British Petroleum, has been cut due to the catastrophic explosion last year at the company's Texas City, TX refinery that killed 15 workers and injured 170 .

But don't worry about how Lord Browne is going to make it through the year; his overall compensation went up.
Browne will receive a bonus of £1.75 million, or $3 million, for the year, compared with £2.28 million in 2004, according to the company's annual report. His total pay, including salary and long-term remuneration, was £6.49 million, up from £5.7 million a year earlier.

The remuneration committee at BP considered "both positive and negative" events during the year when setting bonuses, the report said. "Safety performance was impaired by the incident at Texas City" last year, which killed 15 people and injured 170.
Yes, I guess you could call 15 deaths and 170 injuries "impaired" safety performance.

And one small question. Why is he receiving any bonus? Time off for good behavior or a cushy job in the prison library, maybe, but a bonus?

Might have something to do with the record $22.34 billion dollar profit BP made in 2005.