The chairman of BP says embattled chief executive Tony Hayward is being relieved of day-to-day responsibility for handling the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The announcement comes a day after Hayward angered US lawmakers with his refusal to answer many of their questions.

Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP Chairman, said, "And now he has been out there for eight weeks and he is now handing over the operations, the daily operations to Bob Dudley and he will be more home and be there and be here, but I think it has been a difficult period and as long as we don't close the well and take care of this, there will be criticisms about many things."

On Thursday, Hayward told a US House investigations panel that he was out of the loop on decisions at the well. Both Democrats and Republicans were infuriated when he asserted, "I'm not stonewalling." This followed a string of gaffes that made Hayward appear insensitive.