BP
The thing that gets me with these fuckers is that they are not concerned about the environment one bit. whatever fine they will get, will be a "drop in the ocean" compared to the vast profits they will get from deep sea oil drilling.....In short they don't give a fuck!I wish there was something else we could use apart from oil but looking around my desk 90%-100% of the stuff on it uses oil in some shape or form.....
(bROKEN aRROW PUA HVI Master, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:02, 18 replies)

I don't think you're right there
They could lose a lot more than a bit of money, and I'm sure they don't feel any good about what's happening.
(Aberracion Life's getting very complicated, but a lot of fun., Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:04, closed)

and I bet Obama is relieved...
... they're a "British" oil company, not an American one.
(haberman is singing in the changes, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:21, closed)

Obama
is going to be made to look like an utter tool over this. To my knowledge, BP broke no US regulations. And anyway, the company that did the drilling and blew up the rig ARE American. BP are just a convenient figurehead to blame.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:29, closed)

Transocean
Are a Swiss company. For tax anyway.
(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:34, closed)

It is just for tax.
I work in this sector (in publishing) and know Transocean, BP and most significant companies pretty well.
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:00, closed)

It also seems
That Obama isn't really offering BP or indeed any companies involved help, and is instead only condemning them. Which is pretty cuntish.
(General_Manchego, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:39, closed)

No expertise
It's not the US taxpayers problem, financially. More importantly neither the Coast Guard nor the US Navy has the kit to deal with the problem, the oil companies are the only ones that can fix it.
(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:53, closed)

no-one has expertise.
Unsurprisingly, it's pretty fucking hard to test contingency plans for a well blowing more than a mile below the surface. The US government would do well to take a long hard look at why it's deepwater drilling. It's not like the oil companies don't warn about the dangers.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 17:40, closed)

They're 50% american owned
and their shares have plummeted by half.

This could very well be the end of BP, but there's always the possibility of a government bail-out
( Bert Monkeysex is waiting for the mods to delete him, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:33, closed)

Exxon
They will do what Exxon did (Valdez spill) and stay in court for 20 years and pay 10% of the initial fine and damages.
(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:36, closed)

Agree, and when they are making billions of dollars every quarter in pure profit, there should be enough
money to address the spill even if it is taken from BP. If they cry poor, they are full of shit. Plus, environmental liability trumps most bankruptcy protection in the US.

This company is tarting to look just like Exxon. Within hours of the release being made public, BP was going to people on the coast offering them $5000 for damages and telling them this was the best offer they would get. By accepting the 5K, people gave away all of their abililty to get compensation for the very real and huge damages they will bear from this spill. They are refusing to let reporters near the spill site etc. BP is in self protection mode much more strongly than they are in a respond to envirnmental disaster mode.
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:12, closed)

They are going to address the cost of the spill
and the clean-up, and the compensation. They volunteered that from day one. The argument here is about Obama banging on about criminal charges like an idiot and also demanding that money is set aside on US terms. Why? It doesn't happen that way anywhere else in the world and it certainly didn't for Bhopal, now, did it?

And, considering the way US congress and Obama is behaving, I don't really blame BP for being in self-protection mode. Do you?
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 17:48, closed)

There is no such thing as a "British" or "American" oil company anymore.
BP owns numerous smaller American companies and companies in other countries. Same with Exxon. These companies are truly multi-national.

BP has broken US environmental laws by causing significant pollution. it is also becoming clear that BP (British), Transocean (Swiss) and Halliburton (American) all cut corners and did not operate in a safe manner. If this is true, BP having hired these other companies and owning the well has the liability for the release. They should have insisted and insured that all safety precautions were taken. Burned out batteries on the Blow Out Preventer, sub-standard casing cementing procedures, the lack of proper drilling mud present in the drill pipe, etc all should have been avoided. If so, there would have been much less of a chance of a blowout. This is especially true as they were drilling in an area where extremely high subsurface pressures were known to exist and they knew they needed to be careful.

If more information on lack of following standard safety procedures keeps surfacing, someone in BP should be criminally liable. the long term effect on the environment is going to be huge. I have a friend who works for Alabama and his decriptions of the oil affecting the beaches and estuaries makes you sick.
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:06, closed)

Halliburton
Dubai company for tax purposes. Ex US VP is a senior director!
(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:25, closed)

When did that happen?
When I was working in the oil and gas industry (25-30 years ago drilling gas wells) Halliburton was still a good 'Merican company with US flags on every truck and its employees drinking only American beer etc!

(They were the most conservative people I ever had the displeasure to work with. They would fire anyone who grew a beard. even on the early 1980's they never seemed to hire anyone who wasn't white. I remember eating luch with a rep one day (we paid them a lot of money to do our well completion so they woudl buy us lunch now and again) and he spent the entire lunch talking about fucking hippies this and fucking hippies that with the ocassional "sand nigger" thrown in when talking about the middle east. I refused to ever attend any Halliburton social events after that even if they did buy good booze. It was too hard for me to keep my mouth shut).
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:45, closed)

2007

(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Thu 17 Jun 2010, 10:27, closed)

of course I agree BP should pay...
... i'm just saying it's much easier for Obama to continually re-condemn a pseudo-foreign Company than a pseudo-American one. And indeed he is taking full advantage.
(haberman is singing in the changes, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:31, closed)

nothing of the sort is "becoming clear"
US politicians and the press are spouting. There's no actual evidence of any wrongdoing. The only thing that is cast iron is that US blow-out protection regulations are much, much weaker than european ones.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 18:03, closed)

Private Eye's number crunching last edition
Clean up worker - £7.50 an hour
Chairman of BP - £1,500 an hour
BP profits in 1st Qtr - £1,500,000 an hour
(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:11, closed)

Indeed.
Pity it's not BP's fault the US have such fucking pathetics regs on deepwater drilling then. Or that it wasn't BP's rig.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:27, closed)

Very true
And the Federal agency responsible for reviewing the disaster planning accepted a plan from BP, in June 09, that included measures to protect "sea lions, seals, sea otters and walruses". In the Gulf of Mexico.

Regulation at it's finest.
(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:33, closed)

Goerge Bush's regulatory agencies at their best
The stories about the "reglators" seemingly being bought off by food, parties,and sex supplied by BP are pretty horrific. Of course Obama should have fired everyone immediately and replaced them with real regulators but that didn't happen.
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:47, closed)

I'm pretty sure, like all these things, they are also just that. Stories.

( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 17:56, closed)

At least they are consistent with US companies...
The Bhopal gas leak killed approx 16,000 people and directly affected another half a million. Union Carbide finally paid out $450m compensation which is an average of $900 per victim. They really did something to help those folks down there.

At least the victims weren't American...
( zulu eh?, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:56, closed)

The victims of this spill are also not all americans. Thiss will affect the
fisheries for generations as much of the food source for the gulf fisheries breeds in the estuaries that are being devastated.

(The real kicker about the Uniion Carbide case was that no one responsible for anything got any real punishment. Some big US execs should have been sent to jail many years ago.)
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:23, closed)

I think it's appalling that BP,
despite not breaking any regulations whatsoever (apparently) is getting hammered for this. They bear some responsibility, and have gone way over and above legal requirements ($75m cap, anyone?).

Transocean are the platform operator, and their rig failed. Probably owing to poor quality cementing by Halliburton. Both American.

Osama is showing himself to be a real political lightweight; instead of solving and investigating the issue, and any shortcomings due to US legislation or companies, as part of this, he's punching at an Aunt Sally.
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Wed 16 Jun 2010, 14:59, closed)

whether they broke regulations or not
they have accepted responsibility for the spill and for stopping it. I agree Obama's rhetoric is over the top though, but he's got to appear tough to his people.
(Smale is stuffed, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:14, closed)

BP has no choice but to accept responsibility.
They know if they tried to point the finger at anyone else, they will get killed by the media, the public, etc. (Although if you listened to the three companies pointeing the finger at each other when they testified to congress, it was just like a bunch of 8 yr old booys who got caught breaking the cookie jar. It was pathetic).
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:20, closed)

Interesting figures SYFTS
Private Eye's number crunching last edition
Clean up worker - £7.50 an hour
Chairman of BP - £1,500 an hour
BP profits in 1st Qtr - £1,500,000 an hour
(Set your faces to stunned.,

And while the profits massively out weigh the risks this shit will go on and on.
(bROKEN aRROW PUA HVI Master, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:18, closed)

They are fully responsible for the disaster. If the leak is the "fault" of Transocean or Halliburtain,
BP as the company that hired them was responsible to INSURE that their subcontractors acted correctly and safely. If they didn''t insure this was done (and more and nore we are seeing that they didn't) then they are liable adn responsible.

The $75m cap will be meaningless for this.

As to not breaking any regulations, the US has strict environmental regulations regarding polluting estuaries, oceans, killing wildlife, etc. I believe that they should be held criminally liable and whoever approved poor drilling and cementing procedures shoudl go to jail.
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:18, closed)

I am
One of the insurance claims people for this.

It's a mess (pardon the pun) and the losses will go way over the cover they have bought. Combined.
(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:30, closed)

and I bet they will then try to play poor even while making
billions in pure profit over and above they clean up expenses tjhey will incur.
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:48, closed)

Agreed.
He needs to shut his mouth, as all he's doing is making it far worse (for UK and US people) by destroying pension pot funds and dividend payments (some of which would go into the pension pots).

BP put their hands up to it immediatly, yet this tool says "BP are to blame", they say "Yep, sorry, and we'll pay for it.". He says, "BP are going to pay" (in a menacing way).
BP say "We'll get it all cleaned up too", he says "BP should get this cleaned up".

Of course, Piper Alpha and Bhopal are conveniently forgotten about.
(dchurch bah, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:21, closed)

This^
While he's trying to destroy the markets, he ignores that millions of pensioners rely upon BP's profits to keep them eating.
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:23, closed)

You should be blaming BP for putting the pensioners at risk. They Fucked up by causing the release.
BP has the money anyway. They will not go bankrupt because of this and I''m sure that the BP executives will continue to make millions through bonuses etc no matter what happens to dividends and pensioners.

BP should be sued by any pension funds that reley on these dividends as they are the cause of the spill and resulting decrease in dividends (although they are still paying out plenty of dividends).
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:29, closed)

I don't know that they "caused" the release. It may turn out after inquests that they were negligent
But any country's leader should weigh his words before he/she speaks, especially given the dramatic effect it has on markets. He simply has no understanding of economics and is waaay over his head.
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:32, closed)

A
political heavyweight would be helping, not pointing fingers and by doing so pushing down pension pots of people he supposedly represents (as well as out pension pots and no doubt those of many other countries).

This is showing him up for the lightweight he is.

Sure, we did bad things to his great grandad, but he needs to remember we were the first to abolish slavery too.

He needs to reconsider his position if he's that badly damaged that he can't think without bias.
(dchurch bah, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 16:45, closed)

stop talking arse, it doesn't work like that.
And your environmental point above? how is the relevant? BP (to the best of the knowledge of those of us in and connected to the industry) met all US deepwater drilling regs and their procedure was approved by the US regulatory authorities. So they are fairly unlikely to be criminally negligent due to the minor matter of not committing a crime. They didn't "cause" the spill, there was an accident. If you choose to drill for oil more than a mile down, bad shit sometimes happens. If the US wasn't so fucking desperate to be self-sustainable in their insatiable appetite for oil so they don't have to deal with "forrins" then they wouldn't be begging companies to drill in high risk scenarios. No-one. to. blame. but. themselves.

Hopefully the only decent thing to come out of it might be the US public giving slight more than two short shits about it's energy policy in the future.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 17:36, closed)

The US energy policy is screwed up, I admit.
We have no need to drill that far out, when other countries are drilling even closer in the Gulf. And I agree with the MMS (the regulatory arm) - I dealt with them with oil and gas with Indian tribes and the MMS is as corrupt as they are bloated.
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 17:49, closed)

In the pursuit of fairness
I should point out that the US are hardly alone in this, but they are by far the worst. The combination of massive desire for oil coupled with the mentality that it must be US oil is ...well.... mental.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 17:55, closed)

I see nothing wrong with oil
It seems to me that our ability to drill, transport and refine has greatly improved over the years. I've walked by equipment in the mountains that you could hardly tell were there.

They try to scare the public with photos from Kazakhstan and the like.
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 17:59, closed)

except that it's not inexhaustible.
our ability to drill has improved. We need to up our recovery from spent wells, realistically, rather than hitting new ones. And the deeper we go, the higher the risk. Especially once we are away from fixed rigs. Humanity wants it then it needs to be prepared to pay the price. This, right now, is the price.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 18:06, closed)

The environmental liability comes under
what is known as "Strict, joint,and severable" liability. Basically, there is no excuse even if you are following standard industry practices or are in compliance worth regulations. It's a very strong and useful piece of legislation.

I am fairly familiar witht he issues invovled in drilling 5000 feet deep adn also agree that serious problems can happen. In this case however, there is more and more information coming to light that BP and its subcontractors were cutting corners and not following standard safety practices in an area they knew had high pressure issues. This is where the criminal liability comes in under US environmenatl regulations.

I completely agree with your statement about the US energy policy,. It was written by the ex chair of Halliburton and his masters in teh oil industry. Our policies are totally fucked.
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Thu 17 Jun 2010, 13:27, closed)

Obama is a small boy in a man's job. He can't think without having an adviser put the thought in his head
His Chicago politics is pure Saul Alinsky:"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy.

The world will come crashing down without oil (no I'm not in the business, I'm a lawyer, but I too see everything around me made from plastic - and where would the majority of B3TAns be without petroleum jelly?)

This guy is just way over his head and is upset because he wanted to go to state dinners, wear nice suits, ride in military airplanes and have Bruce Springsteen call him cool, not deal with crises.
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 15:22, closed)

Meh
Most of the Yanks jumping up and down hammering BP don't give a shit about the environment either. If they did they'd sell their shitty gas-guzzling cars and buy the more fuel-efficient versions made by the European subsidiaries of US car firms.

BP were drilling where they where to feed the insatiable thirst of the US for petroleum. If this happened in the North Sea, South China Sea, off the coast of West Africa or anywhere else, the US media would have totally ignored it.

Obama's line that this is like 9/11 is poor analogy in many ways but these - it happened because of the myopic complacency of the US; from the amount of noise made about it you'd think it's the first time it happened to anybody, anywhere; the reaction is going to be over-the-top, poorly directed and inappropriate, the wrong people are going to get it in the neck.
(Wilton Mitrowserz, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 17:40, closed)

It wouldn't have happened in the North Sea full stop.
the specific point in the well head piping that sprung the leak would have had a couple of extra valves on fail-to-close under UK and EU drilling regs.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Wed 16 Jun 2010, 17:43, closed)