John Browne: the man who changed the oil industry

John Browne has told the story of his life at BP. It is an engrossing insight into the rise and fall of one of the oil industry's greatest leaders, writes Derek Brower

BY 2007, John Browne's star had faded. Operational blunders in the US, including the explosion at the Texas City refinery that killed 15 workers and an oil spill that shut down the Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska, had undermined BP's reputation. Critics of the company blamed Browne's cost-cutting, accused him of failing to integrate employees inherited from the Amoco takeover and delighted as the "Sun King's" image was tarnished. And then Browne lied in a witness statement used to support an injunction to stop the press from publishing embarrassing allegations stemming from a greedy former boyfriend. Humiliated, he resigned from BP just a few months before his planned retirement. That these