Boat accident. And a lot of oil

[ginnyfizz]

There should certainly be a trial, that I have made quite clear. But not the kind of kangaroo court that jails the CEO of BP for life before the verdict has been handed down. For the most part (unless you meet the London Metropolitan Police on one of their trigger happy days), you tend to have the trial first and sentence after. And the corruption issue would be a quite separate issue from the environmental pollution.

 

As to that pollution, the short term effects are horrific and there is no doubt, damage is being caused to wildlife and livelihoods. It is hard to see it right now when the dead birds are being washed up and the fisheries decimated, but nature does recover - witness what I mentioned before about the Torrey Canyon. That ship ran aground on one of Britain's most valuable sealife havens, the Isles Of Scilly. But nature overcame the disaster. What is important now is to take the right action to mitigate what has happened. And not to make it worse by lobbing around too much detergent like they did in that case. Stop up the well as soon as can be, contain the slick as much as they can. One thing that should also be done is for BP to agree to compensate those already having their livelihoods affected, before what could be a lengthy legal process begins.

 

And don't get disheartened that the damage will last forever, that's not to minimise or denigrate in any way what has happened. Just don't get too depressed over it.

[Aurielius]

The latest news I have heard, is that there will be a trial. Even Mr. Obama is choked to hear how much coruption and "giftgiving" that took place between BP and the controlling authority.

Yes, it´s nice someone do the job, and find some hard needed energy for us. But do it right. Not by spoiling everything else in greed for quick gold.

I am always amused to hear Europeans view Obama as the American messiah, this disaster makes Katrina look like a walk in the park...his (Obama's) watch and nothing but rhetoric. Given BP's safety record or rather lack there of,merits a closer examination by the senate oversight investigation. BP's accidents and scandals have ranged from a refinery explosion that killed 15 people in Texas City in 2005 to a 212,000-gallon oil spill in Alaska from a corroded pipeline that had not been thoroughly inspected in years. Both came in a five-year period during which BP earned $70 billion in profit.

[ginnyfizz]

BP were also responsible for a well that exploded and sprang a massive leak off Western Australia, which was due to a faulty well head apparently of the same design as the one in Louisiana, just to add to their charge sheet. I have never said that BP were innocents, just that the proper process of law should be followed. Senate investigations, most certainly. Summon the BP board to explain their actions and confront them with the evidence. From what I can see with my law graduate hat on, having delved a little into all this, there is such a strong prima facie case for negligence, supported by the fact that BP are already negotiating compensation with local groups, that they would be well advised to admit negligence and for the courts to decide the quantum of damages. A note of caution on honking great punitive damages awards though, it is not unknown in the USA for punitive damages, especially in oil industry cases, to be so huge as to cause the defendant to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as in Pennoil vs Texaco. Should BP do what Texaco did, it would be of no benefit to anyone at all. BP's stock is bombing to such an extent that it is thought they will be vulnerable to a takeover by either Royal Dutch Shell or Exxon (and neither of them are innocents either). Therefore, there is far more to be gained by pursuing a compensation based award as opposed to a punitive award.

 

More serious still are the questions of criminal charges, which may well comprise far graver matters than the issues of corruption. After all, people have died, so we could be talking corporate manslaughter here. And this is PRECISELY why there should not be too much baying for blood and pre-judging of the sentence. For if we aren't very careful,if and when the US government requests the extradition of the parties concerned, their lawyers will stand up in front of the court and argue that they would not receive a fair trial. Now whereas the British Government may well share the view that President Obama is a sacred figure, there really is no accounting for what a British judge might rule. Especially if someone whispered in his ear about the European Human Rights Act. So this is why I urge caution, because too much excitability could mean that the BP board don't stand trial as they certainly should.

[JimboUK]

The latest news I have heard, is that there will be a trial. Even Mr. Obama is choked to hear how much coruption and "giftgiving" that took place between BP and the controlling authority.

Yes, it´s nice someone do the job, and find some hard needed energy for us. But do it right. Not by spoiling everything else in greed for quick gold.

I am always amused to hear Europeans view Obama as the American messiah, this disaster makes Katrina look like a walk in the park...his (Obama's) watch and nothing but rhetoric. Given BP's safety record or rather lack there of,merits a closer examination by the senate oversight investigation. BP's accidents and scandals have ranged from a refinery explosion that killed 15 people in Texas City in 2005 to a 212,000-gallon oil spill in Alaska from a corroded pipeline that had not been thoroughly inspected in years. Both came in a five-year period during which BP earned $70 billion in profit.

 

The European media may well see Obama as the messiah but everyone I know sees him as another Tony Blair, a slick salesman with nothing of substance to back it up. Something needs to be done about all of the oil companies including BP, corruption is rife throughout the industry. We only have to look at the likes of Nigeria and Iraq. The main offenders are European and American companies, there is no reason why governments on both sides of the pond can't deal with the problem.

[Vagrant0]

In an issue like this, the only ones who will pull out ahead are the lawyers. BP will be fined to oblivion, the government will end up having to bail them out or allow them to file for bankruptcy, the people living along the coast will have their lives ruined, and ultimately the American Taxpayer will end up footing the bill. Rather than seeking vengeance and being concerned with who's being punished (will tell you right now that it won't be the oil company), perhaps we should be more concerned about stopping the leak and cleaning up the damage.

[ginnyfizz]

Exactly my way of thinking, leave enough of BP standing to foot as much of the bill as possible. BP still in existence means they have profits to be garnished to pay for the clear up and for the stopping of the well (which I understand is now beginning to work), and to compensate the fishing and tourism and other affected communities. I am not sure what President Obama is leading up to, although I think I can guess, with his ramping up of the anti-British rhetoric and spitting out the name British Petroleum. The company hasn't been known as that for many a year and is no longer in any real sense a British company. That is just cheap political stunting and NOT helpful to those affected.

[Vagrant0]

Exactly my way of thinking, leave enough of BP standing to foot as much of the bill as possible. BP still in existence means they have profits to be garnished to pay for the clear up and for the stopping of the well (which I understand is now beginning to work), and to compensate the fishing and tourism and other affected communities. I am not sure what President Obama is leading up to, although I think I can guess, with his ramping up of the anti-British rhetoric and spitting out the name British Petroleum. The company hasn't been known as that for many a year and is no longer in any real sense a British company. That is just cheap political stunting and NOT helpful to those affected.

Yes, it is political, but would have not been needed if not for the mindless saps (most of whom who watch FOXNews) who think that it's somehow up to the President to get personally involved. Rest assured, the political garbage here is only there to keep the groundings distracted from the real problems.

[JimboUK]

If their share price falls much further they'll be swallowed up by another company and nobody will get anything.

[Dark0ne]

In an issue like this, the only ones who will pull out ahead are the lawyers.

 

And the people buying their shares now at the massively reduced price.

 

BP are unlikely to go under from this. Worst number forecasts for dealing with this entire mess are at around $35b...guess how much BP has in liquid cash for such occurances? About the same. Sort of on par with Microsoft having around $56b in quick access funds for massive law suits. Give it 3 years and BP will have bounced right back. Their shares are currently around the £4.33 mark in the LSE and gained some on Friday. That's actually only 30p lower than where they were a year ago, and £2 lower than their highest price of the year so far. 33% is quite a drop, but it's nothing that can't be dealt with and this is an oil company; the type of company that shows remarkable resiliance when it comes to stocks.

 

If my money wasn't all tied up in the current oil boom going on in the Falklands (hello Argentina, perhaps you shouldn't have thrown all your toys out the pram and torn up the agreement to share resources from the Falklands back in 2007?) I'd seriously consider pumping some money in to BP stocks right now. If it goes below the £3.75 I'd say it's a risk worth taking because, with the high chance of BP surviving this, their price will bounce back up within a couple of years to the £6 mark. 75%+ profit on shares is pretty damn good.

 

Of course this is just money chat. What's gone on has been terrible and the pictures we get from the UK are not pretty. Similarly the company name itself probably isn't doing great for the British image across the pond. But shock; a corrupt oil company? Just like pretty much every top 100 company from Microsoft and Google all the way to the gold, oil and coal miners. They're all as bad as each other. The BP case is brought in to the lime light only because they've been caught and screwed up royally.

[Fifoo]

Everything is a question of monopoly.

 

Despite laws against monopolies that exist in some states, as is the case in the U.S., from the moment the Trust-companies have a great influence on the economy of a country, they create some kind of indulgence from the policy. And nothing will prevent them from continuing to ignore everything related to the deterioration of our planet. In most cases, for large companies the only thing that interests them at the highest point is to make profit. That is the harsh law of the market and how the liberal world economy works.

 

So of course we can be indignant about when this kind of disaster happens, and indeed it's very unfortunate, but in reality nothing will change as attitudes remain the same point. This is the least of their worries in their policy of exploitation, and anyway the insurance will do the rest. Their great concern is to recover maximum crude that continues to escape from the leak, not to bemoan the consequences of the accident that have, anyway, a strong impact on the environment.

The oil "is spread over a 320 km radius around the wellhead, where it is leaking right now, and it is not a monolithic sheet," said Thad Allen, commander of the guard U.S. Coast. "There is literally hundreds of thousands of small webs".

The CEO of BP, Tony Hayward, said that about 10,000 barrels were collected daily through the funnel installed Thursday. This is "probably the vast majority" of crude escaped, he said. It is unclear however how much is discharged each day from the well since the explosion on April 20 and then sank two days later from the Deepwater Horizon platform, operated by BP. The estimates are between 2 and 3 million gallons per day. - Quoted from Le Monde's article of 06/06/2010: BP ensures that the funnel gets the "vast majority" of oil leakage.

 

I would not wish to throw the first stone, but the media in France have discussed the case by disclosing, by the confession of the said company that the operators of the drilling platform have neglected the principles of safety when alarms were triggered by three times, before the disaster happens, leading to what are known. As luck - from the moment the U.S. has demanded that "light be made" on the causes of that disaster, the company leading this oil revealed the facts of growing concern, as and when as the days passed. What a mess, and what did they have to gain? To be an indictment for a possible court appearance. Then, of course, one may wonder whether cooperation would be the same if this had happened in a part of the world where population facing less pressure, and more geographically remote, or even a country lost to the other end of the world. Of course, for the oil-company, economic issues are not the same...

 

Do you really think they can take the risk to stop any exploitation of the deposit and so losing their investment? Well, by force of circumstances, it is ultimately the disaster that was responsible for putting an end to exploitation of this deposit, and optics to continue the operation of the so famous and precious black gold will be seriously compromised there, for a long time if not more, and the U.S. are considering now challenging the operation of these resources under certain conditions - at least near the coasts of the United States. But make no mistake, energy demand is increasingly growing, and the drilling conditions and resource exploitation are increasingly difficult as the years pass, which necessarily increases proportionally the chances of accidents and the seriousness of these, needless to say... But history will repeat itself and we will forget all this soon enough until the next disaster. :dry:

 

All that the world has earned it, is one more ecological disaster on our hands over to manage with all that entails negative. Thank you to those who are responsible, and too bad for others who have to suffer the consequences... There is food for thought and in any case, it is a good lesson to think, because we're all involved in it to a greater or lesser degree, this concerns us all without exception.

Edited June 6, 2010 by Fifoo