Top BP exec said to slam company

Accuses the firm of squeezing profits and ignoring maintenance costs too long, as search for new CEO gets underway – report.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — A top BP executive and possible successor to John Browne sharply critiqued the company’s cost-cutting efforts, leadership style and political lobbying, according to a report Monday.

“The mantra of ‘more for less’ says we can get 100 percent of the task completed with 90 percent of the resources; which in some cases is OK but it needs to be deployed with great wisdom and judgment,” Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive for exploration and production, wrote on the company’s internal Web site, the Financial Times reported. “When it isn’t, you run into trouble.”

Under Browne, who retires in 2008, BP (Charts) has been praised as having some of the best management in the world.

But the oil major has also suffered a series of setbacks, including a deadly explosion at a Texas refinery that investigators said could have been prevented and the closure of half its massive Alaska oil field due to corroding pipes.

CNN/Money