BP shakes up senior management

By Joseph Woelfel, TheStreet

BP (BP) shook up its senior management team just days before Bob Dudley takes over as CEO of the giant oil company.

BP, in a statement to the London Stock Exchange today, said Andy Inglis will relinquish his role as the head of the company's upstream business. Inglis' future as the head of exploration and production has long been speculated about in the wake of the company's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April.

Inglis will step down as a main board director on Oct. 31 and will leave the company at the end of the year, BP said.

BP also said it has created a safety division to "oversee and audit the company's operations around the world."

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The group will be led by Mark Bly, who will report directly to incoming CEO Dudley.

Dudley takes over from CEO Tony Hayward on Friday.

The Financial Times first reported the news of the BP management shakeup.

Dudley said the upstream segment will be restructured into three functional divisions: exploration, development and production. Dudley also said BP will carry out a "detailed and wide-ranging review of how it manages third-party contractors. "

"These are the first and most urgent steps in a program I am putting in place to rebuild trust in BP -- the trust of our customers, of governments, of our employees and of the world at large," Dudley said in a statement. "That trust is vital to the restoration of shareholder value, which has been so adversely affected by recent events. "

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