BP CEO won’t hold press event Wednesday

HOUSTON – Organizers of a major energy conference here say BP CEO Robert Dudley has reversed plans to hold a press conference Wednesday morning – a briefing the oil giant said was never scheduled at all.

Representatives of the IHS CERAWeek conference, which draws throngs of industry officials and reporters, said Dudley would not hold a previously scheduled media briefing after his morning speech.

But BP spokesman Robert Wine in an email said conference organizers are incorrect because Dudley never planned to hold a media briefing.

“We never had one planned for him alone,” Wine said, adding that Dudley is doing an interview with CNBC and “that was always our plan.”

Dudley’s appearance at the closely watched conference arrives at a sensitive time for the global oil-and-gas company.

BP is in the midst of a federal civil trial for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The company faces billions of dollars in new civil fines after agreeing to a $4 billion criminal settlement with the Justice Department last November.

BP is also seeking to end a suspension from receiving new federal contracts that the Obama administration imposed last year.

— Updated at 10:03 a.m.