Where is Tony Hayward? BP boss vanishes...

The media have been curiously empty of Tony Hayward-related PR disasters this week, leading some to ask: where has BP's chief executive gone?

Following his poorly received appearance at the weekend on a yacht off the Isle of Wight, while BP's Macondo well continues to spew oil into the Gulf of Mexico, Hayward has disappeared without trace.

The beleaguered CEO ducked out of two planned appearances in London yesterday: an oil industry get-together, where he was scheduled to give the keynote speech, and the opening night of the 2010 BP Portrait Award at the National Gallery.

Speculation is mounting that, having handed over day-to-day running of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Hayward is attempting to shore up the crumbling eastern front of BP's operations by preparing for a meeting with the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev.

TNK-BP, the oil giant's Russian arm, is responsible for one in every four barrels produced worldwide by BP. Medvedev last week expressed concern that the fallout from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill could lead to the break-up of BP and have knock-on effects for the Russian economy.  

"What I know is that BP will have to pay a lot of money this year," Medvedev told the Wall Street Journal, referring to the $20m claims and compensation fund demanded by President Barack Obama. "Whether the company can digest those expenditures, whether they will lead to the annihilation of the company or its breakup into pieces is a matter of expediency."

Medvedev will be keenly aware of the other financial pressures mounting on BP, since his own government is responsible for at least $1bn worth of them.

Russia's state gas monopoly, Gazprom, recently pulled out of a deal to buy TNK-BP's stake in the huge Kovytka gasfield in Siberia for $1bn.

The deal was only made necessary by Russia's classification of Kovytka as a 'strategic reserve'. Now, following the global recession, Gazprom says it doesn't need the gasfield - and the deal's collapse means a company set up by TNK-BP to develop the gasfield had to be put in administration.

Hayward will be hoping he can persuade Medvedev that the rest of TNK-BP isn't about to go the same way. ·