BP PLC said Wednesday that it hired David Lawler, an executive with U.S. independent petroleum producer Sandridge Energy Inc., to run a separate business unit it is creating for the U.S.’s lower 48 states. The move is part of BP’s plan to restructure its shale-focused U.S. assets in response to the difficulties that it and other big oil companies have had profiting from the shale boom in the country. Mr. Lawler, most recently an executive vice president and chief operating officer of Sandridge, will take over a new business with “separate governance, processes and systems” from the rest of BP, the company said in a statement. He will report to BP’s exploration-and-production chief, Lamar McKay. BP said in March that it would put its lower-48 onshore assets into a new business in an effort to become nimbler and “compete more effectively with the independents,” BP CEO Bob Dudley told […]