“Where is Carl-Henric Svanberg, the Swedish engineer who sits in the big chair in BP’s boardroom?”, the Times asks.

• BP: oil spill disaster not our fault
• Sweden offers to help the US to clean up oil spill

Swedish businessman Carl-Henric Svanberg, former chief executive of Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson who was appointed as the BP group's new chairman from 2010, is being heavily criticized for his silence on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that is wreaking havoc on the environment.

“He is being paid £750,000 a year to bat for BP, but is maintaining complete radio silence”, the Guardian points out. “It will not have escaped the notice of shareholders who have seen billions wiped off the value of the oil group since Deepwater Horizon exploded last month with the loss of 11 lives, that Carl-Henrik Svanberg is keeping an unusually low profile, given the scale of the disaster that has engulfed the company”.

Sure, it is not Svanberg's job to run the business. That’s chief executive Tony Hayward’s job. Svanberg is also a newcomer to the oil industry. But with an environmental disaster running nearer and BP’s already battered reputation in the US on the line, commentators find Svanberg’s silence odd.

“One of the key jobs of the chairman - especially the modern breed earning 'fat cat' salaries - is to be the public face of the company and protect the chief executive in difficult times”, Daily Mail wrote.

US President Barack Obama lashed oil companies Friday for trying to divert blame for the Gulf of Mexico slick and vowed to sever the "cozy" ties between the industry and government regulators. Obama vowed he would not rest until the leak was contained and capped.

"Maybe Svanberg realises that being too supportive of his chief executive may not be the best course of action for his own reputation", the Guardian wrote.