Ex-BHP boss joins BP board

29th Jan 2010 07:08

BP has appointed the former chief executive of mining giant BHP Billiton to the oil company's board as a non-executive director.Paul Anderson, who'll take up his role on 1 February, replaces Sir Tom McKillop, the former chairman of RBS who was forced to step down as a non-executive director of BP last year.McKillop resigned in April to avoid the humiliation of a protest vote against his re-election at the AGM. There was huge public outcry at the £703,000-a-year pension for ex-RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin, sanctioned by the bank's board.Anderson, who led BHP between 1998 and 2002, will retire as a non-exec there on Sunday although he's a non-executive at BAE Systems and Spectra Energy Corp.'I understand Paul's desire to take up one of his last board appointments in the industry where he spent much of his working life,' said BHP chairman, Don Argus.He had been widely-tipped to take over the chairman's role at BP when Peter Sutherland left, although that job eventually went to Carl-Henric Svanberg.Next week's quarterly results are expected to reveal an 80% surge in BP's profits to $4.7bn (£2.9bn).BHP announced Anderson's retirement today alongside the departure of Gail de Planque for health reasons. The pair will be replaced by Malcolm Broomhead and Carolyn Hewson.The miner has also approved $1.93bn of capital expenditure to underpin the further accelerated growth of its Western Australia Iron Ore business.