[Is] that the government may be preparing to prosecute BP, alleging criminal negligence. BP denies it took any safety shortcuts – despite the shameful history of its Texas City refinery explosion in which 15 workers died – and insists it is doing everything possible to put things right in the Gulf of Mexico.
But the American government and media seem to have decided the oil company put profits above safety in its list of priorities. Nor is there any reason to suppose British politicians and journalists would behave any differently if it was an American company that suffered similar setbacks here.
Or is there? When the Piper Alpha rig exploded in the North Sea in July, 1988, no fewer than 167 workers died and environmental damage pushed insured losses to £1.7bn. It was the worst offshore oil disaster in the world at that time and feelings ran high in Aberdeen, where many families suffered bereavement and financial loss.
But I do not recall Margaret Thatcher seeking to make political capital out of that tragedy by using inflammatory language about having her boot on the throat of Occidental Petroleum, the American oil giant which operated Piper Alpha. Oxy, as it was known because of the Los Angeles-based company’s New York Stock Exchange ticker, did not become the target of any government-sponsored hate campaigns in Britain.
Of course, that’s because Margaret Thatcher wasn’t a self-serving, opportunistic demagogue looking to advance an anti-capitalist, anti-petroleum agenda whilst simultaneously trying to deflect attention from her government’s lack of experience with anything outside of a faculty lounge.
BP cut lots of corners, they are in the business to make money and making money always requires finding cheaper ways of doing business. Be they through technology, lobour, chemistry etc.
Sooner or later there is only so much you can do before you get caught with making irrational decisions or greed becomes the overlying factor. Then there are bodies to clean up as well.
It is called the tipping point for a reason!
No doubt BP has much to answer for in this disaster. But the administration’s response has been so typical and telling. They are more concerned with recriminations and hyperbole for the cameras (“boot on the throat”) than with dealing with the task at hand. They need to be marshaling the resources required to get this problem under control before they start playing the blame game.
Who could’ve guessed an empty suit whose resumé is heavy on the whole “street agitating” thing and thin on the whole “executive management” thing would prove to be such an incompetent national leader? Oh, anyone with a brain and who didn’t become voluntarily intoxicated by flowery platitudes and a cult of personality.
You can bet that no one – not the whining Floridians, not the posturing politicians, not the I-told-you-so environmentalists – is more distressed about this than the management at BP.
They are the best hope for getting the flow stopped and the mess cleaned up.
Some American people are finally waking up to the fact that we have a Blackberry computer in charge of the White House.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/21/barack-obama-blackberry-national-security
If a 50 percent majority of voters (polled) want a certain direction,
Obama turns on his Blackberry and goes in that direction;
this recent prosecution and hatred of BP for instance-
spur of the moment knee jerk (polled) reactions, never considering the consequence of his actions.
Never considering that his actions could destroy the very people that are working on the problem.
The best presidents in office had a feel for the job. They became father figures and some even went against the majority polled because they had love/feelings for the ‘silent majority’ and best interests of the country, not just those polled sitting at home drawing a government check.
Obama has no feeling for a problem, and like an abused child he looks to his father figure,
the Blackberry for help.
We now believe that BP can only survive until December, they might declare bankruptcy even sooner and walk away.
What will Obamas Blackberry tell him to do then-
pray?
Nothing will cheer up Obama’s benighted followers like a good old fashioned show trial.
does anyone else feel this accident will be the cause of US legislation to cease all off-shore drilling, and Obama is smiling on the inside with every day that passes and the leak still isn’t plugged?
All the screaing and outrage at BP cannot change this single mathematical reality for the US:
US daily national oil consumption = 20 million barrels.
US daily national oil production = 6 million barrels.
The US must purchase 14 million barrels (70 percent of its needs) from somewhere else EVERY DAY.
Occidental Petroleum. That’s the second big enviro-disaster that company was involved in.
Funny how their bought and paid for politicians, Al Gore Sr. and Jr., became so environmentally concerned when it suited Jr.
Fearless leader – if BO was lead by polls he never would have pushed obamacare through, nor would he still be pushing cap and trade and dozens of other neo-communist policies.
What I would have liked to see is a ‘national oil response’. The best of the best are recruited from all companies to deal with the spill. BP and the contractors can take the lead but the others are drafted as it were and BP picks up the compensation.
I get pretty tired of listening to lefties scream about trading oil for profits.
They couldn’t afford to fart if engineers were to design everything to be guaranteed to never fail.
In critical situations, I’ve done designs that were suitable for four simultaneous independent failures and two simultaneous intentional misoperations. (Plugged sparger, rupture disc not functional, failed PSV, pump deadheaded, intentionally running hot, and intentionally disabling alarm systems.) Standard industry practice typically doesn’t usually consider more than two simultaneous failures.
If everything were designed this way nobody would be able to afford anything.
“But I do not recall Margaret Thatcher seeking to make political capital out of that tragedy by using inflammatory language about having her boot on the throat of Occidental Petroleum, the American oil giant which operated Piper Alpha.”
This made me laugh a lot.
Does anybody want to know why she kept her mouth shut? Probably not.
But I’ll let you know all the same.
Thatcher had a public relations advisor called Gordon Reece. He worked with her on and off throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In fact, he was appointed as one of her main PR people during the 1987 election and continued in that post – in a low profile manner – for the rest of her term (which included the Piper Alpha incident). A very interesting and capable gentleman who Thatcher famously regarded as “one of us”.
Oh and did I mention that he worked with Occidental Petroleum during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Before he joined Occidental, he played a key role in helping Thatcher win the 1979 election. Nor was he just a regular employee at Occidental Petroleum; he was given an important post by none other than Armand Hammer, the head of Occidental.
Oh, and Armand was a also a good friend of one Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
Critical thought has deserted some of our commentators.
Obamugabe is in a tough spot. He is going to wear the spill fallout despite his lack of culpability (slow and inadequate cleanup response notwithstanding). He is becoming a victim of the mentality that elected him.
His response of increased thuggery and looting is playbook Randian villainesque.
Who cares about British pensions? If BP goes under, who’s going to compensate all those people, whose lives have been disrupted? Pension fund managers make bad investments all the time. I’m sure some had Union Carbide in their portfolios. I’ll bet they were pissed about all those whining Indians, after the Bophal “accident”.
The beautiful thing about being a lefty is that you never have to acknowledge that there is any connection between company profits and pensions. You can simultaneously decry and depend on them at the same time with no thought whatsoever as to the inherent contradiction.
BP Idiots sheared off the crimped oil pipe without having the ‘top clamp’ on site ready for quick installation.
What idiots. Should be barred from oil operations anywhere within North American territoial boundaries.
TG- Of course they’re idiots. Every time something like this happens, you can round up the usual suspects; BP, Amaco, Exxon,..
It’s the only thing O-bummer learned to do. Blame & sue.
And man how it shows now.
I’M surprised no-one is mentioning the regulatory regime in the U.S. re off-shore wells. The fact that Obama put in place a former Clinton staffer in the Interior Dept. (left for the Bush years) to run the regulatory agency responsible and the agency failed miserably at it obviously, should be stated. Where is the fail safe, where is the contingency?
“Never considering that his actions could destroy the very people that are working on the problem.”
That’s what I thought too. The premature announcement of a criminal investigation is the kind of one-dimensional reaction you’d expect from a third-world leader. Never mind “thinking outside the box”, these guys are incapable of thinking outside their blocks. BP has lost tens of billions of dollars of much-needed market capital since the criminal investigation announcement. The pressure on shareholders, engineers and field personel must be enormous, something this Afro-Marxist jughead and his court jesters have never experienced. It’s the job of the media and press to apply the pressure. Instead they’re leading the Obama glee club. Sombody has to bang the gong on this amature shit-show soon.
Arty- Is that how it should work? The media should keep the industry honest? That’s not how it works in Alberta. We have something called the ERCB, a government agency that regulates and monitors the oil and gas industry. They make all the rules, and enforce them. Do you consider that a Marxist institution? If a disaster like this one happened in Alberta, the ERCB could suspend all of BPs operations, both drilling, and production. They would not be allowed to operate until they could prove their operation had been repaired.
“Arty- Is that how it should work?”
No, you mis-read. The media should be asking why the Obama administration is packed with “special olympians” that can’t do anything right, why they’re insensitive to what’s going on around them, why unemployment is at 10%, where all of the money is going, if there’s such a thing as playing too much golf, how many vacations he needs and how many parties and celebrities he’s planning on hosting. In other words treat this president the same way they treated the last.
Sigh. Nothing quite like telling BP that they need to focus on legal defenses and/or places to hide overseas, to drop the spill-plugging work to #2 priority.
Just watch, oil is going to follow the automotive, financial, health, and media sectors into nationalization just as soon as they realize that scaring capitalism away from the energy business means no gas for the voters to burn.
So when BP shares dip to around £2 each and China buys the company up will Obummer be satisfied then? Does he honestly think the Chinese will give a toss about safety and environmental issues?
I’m pretty sure most Canadians think that BP is the only bad guy in this fiasco.
Remember Canadians like government regulation that is expensive, ineffectual and guaranteed to be there.