By Ed Crooks
Published: February 5 2008 19:46 | Last updated: February 5 2008 19:46
Tony Hayward at BP and Jeroen van der Veer at Royal Dutch Shell have a great deal in common.
Both chief executives took over when their companies were in crisis; Shell after the reserves misreporting scandal that emerged in 2004 and BP after the fatal explosion at the Texas City refinery in 2005 and other problems that drew attention to deep operational weaknesses.
Both face the same challenge of how big international oil companies – challenged by ever more assertive governments and national oil companies – can gain access to the resources they need to survive. They have found some of the same answers, in terms of trying to restrain cost inflation and making it a priority to secure access to resources.