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, 1 reply)

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)