The enforced departure of the 53-year-old Briton will top the agenda at a crucial London board meeting today.

He has been widely seen as a ‘dead man walking’ ever since an oil-rig explosion led to the worst-ever environmental disaster in the U.S.

The focus will not be on if he goes but when, and how much it costs. During his 28 years at BP, he has built up a gold-plated £10.8million pension pot which he can start taking at 60.

He is also entitled to a year’s salary, equal to just over £1million.

His departure follows a disastrous series of PR gaffes since 11 died in an explosion on April 20 in the Gulf of Mexico.

One of his most notorious was to admit: ‘I want my life back’, at a time when millions of barrels of oil were gushing into the ocean, wrecking the livelihoods of thousands of Americans.

A few weeks later, his decision to go sailing on his yacht in the Isle of Wight added to suspicions that Mr Hayward was not being suitably contrite. But the level of the fury from America has been extraordinary and relentless despite the fact that BP was not solely responsible for the disaster.

President Obama warned: ‘He wouldn’t be working for me after any of those statements.’

Yesterday a BP spokesman insisted that Mr Hayward, whose family have been the victims of crank phone calls, hate mail and death threats, remains the company’s chief executive.

But his departure is inevitable, and will be the second headline-grabbing exit of a BP chief executive in just three years. In 2007, his predecessor Lord Browne dramatically resigned after admitting lying on oath to a High Court judge.

He had desperately tried to prevent the publication of a story about his homosexuality, which he had never publicly revealed, and his former gay lover. Sources say Mr Hayward is unlikely to leave immediately, as BP typically has an orderly handover between two bosses.

His replacement is tipped to be Bob Dudley, an American who replaced him in overseeing the day-to-day operations in the Gulf.

The chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, whose insistence that BP cares about the ‘small people’ was seen as patronising and insensitive, is expected to stay.

BP will tomorrow publish its quarterly results, which could reveal the largest quarterly loss in British corporate history. They will reveal the financial impact of the oil spill, with provisions of up to £20billion for capping the well, the clean-up and the cost of damage claims.

Its latest update, published on July 19, revealed that it has mobilised 43,100 people, more than 6,470 vessels and dozens of aircraft. It has already paid out around £135million to 67,500 claimants, and says the cost of the response has totalled £2.6billion – so far.

The company says it will finish placing the last piece of pipe into a relief well intended to help kill the oil leak ‘some time in the next week’. News of Mr Hayward’s hefty payoff caused outrage yesterday among fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico, many of whom have failed to see any of the compensation promised by BP.

Captain Greg Henry, whose charter boat business off the coast of New Orleans has been shut down and now relies on handouts from charities to survive, said: ‘I don’t think it is fair that he is getting so much and makes me sick to my stomach.

‘My life has been ruined by the oil spill and BP are not looking after me because I do not have the right paperwork. ‘I don’t know how Tony Hayward can sleep at night.’

John Carleton, 57, who works on a charter boat in Fort Walton, Florida, said: ‘Will people be angry? Hell, of course. It’s going to be galling and a slap in the face for the fishermen who have lost everything.

‘Many of the fishermen who delayed putting in their claims are finding it tougher than before to get money from BP and some of them are going to lose the shirts on their backs.’

There was also criticism from families of those who lost loved ones in the Lockerbie bombing. BP executives are due to be questioned this week on what role, if any, the company played in securing the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of 270 deaths when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown out of the sky over Scotland.

Frank Duggan, president of Victims of Pan Am 103 Inc, which represents the families of those killed, said: ‘With the hearing before Congress this week, some people will see this as bad timing. ‘It’s the chance to finally get some answers from BP and Mr Hayward, and it doesn’t look like he is going to be there.’