Explosion – Deep Water Horizon Drilling Rig in GOM, USA

[James McLauchlan]

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP

BP plc is a global energy company headquartered in London, United Kingdom.
It is the third largest energy company and the fourth largest company in the world.
The name "BP" derives from the initials of one of the company’s former legal names, British Petroleum.
A multinational oil company ("oil major"), BP is the United Kingdom’s largest corporation, with its head office in St James’s, City of Westminster, London.
BP America’s headquarters is in the One Westlake Park in the Houston Energy Corridor, Texas.
The company is among the largest private sector energy corporations in the world and is one of the six "supermajors" (vertically integrated private sector oil exploration, natural gas, and petroleum product marketing companies).
The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Type
Public limited
(LSE: BP)
(NYSE: BP)

Industry
Oil and natural gas, alternative fuels

Founded
1909 (as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company)
1954 (as the British Petroleum Company)
1998 (merger of British Petroleum and Amoco)

Headquarters
City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom

Area served
Worldwide

Key people
Carl-Henric Svanberg (Chairman)
Tony Hayward (CEO)
Byron Grote (CFO).[1]

Products
BP petroleum and derived products
BP service stations
Air BP Aviation Fuels
Castrol motor oil
ARCO gas stations
am/pm convenience stores
Aral service stations solar panels

Revenue US $246.1 billion (2009)
Operating income US $26.43 billion (2009)
Net income US $16.58 billion (2009)
Total assets US $236.0 billion (2009)
Total equity US $101.6 billion (2009)

Employees 80,300 (Dec 2009)

Website BP.com

[Craig Thorngren]

Damn boys, don’t be so freakin sensitive… There’s no need to get your panties in a wad over "BP, British Petroleum" or what ever you want to call it. It’s a recognized reference to a company, that’s it. There’s no ulterior motive or conspiracy. If anything, I was taking a swipe at CNN because they were the one’s with the web page that was inaccurate.

Chief

[Ray Shields]

There’s no need to get your panties in a wad over "BP, British Petroleum" or what ever you want to call it.

I want to call it what its name is, BP. It’s the American administration and news that seems to want to call it by its old name as if to distance itself from America.

The latest is that BP are getting the blame for the early release of the Lockerbie bomber because they wanted oil rights in Lybia!

[Craig Thorngren]

The latest is that BP are getting the blame for the early release of the Lockerbie bomber because they wanted oil rights in Lybia!

Ray,

This whole British victimology thing is a joke… Whether you want to call it "Anglo-Persian Oil Co.", "Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.", "British Petroleum", "Beyond Petroleum" or "BP" really is irrelavant. I mean British Petroleum with it’s distinct British history, is part of the British fabric. As much as The Queen, Tea and Soccer are…

For the record, I haven’t heard anyone blame British Petroleum for the early release of a terrorist. We lay that right at the feet of the scottish government where it so rightfully belongs…

Chief

[baglimit]

http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article222463.ece

Oil spill witness goes AWOL before hearing

Anthony Guegel 19 July 2010 21:23 GMT

The joint Coast Guard – Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement investigation adjourned earlier than planned this afternoon after the final witness scheduled to testify today about the incident failed to appear.

Tyrone Benton, a remotely operated vehicle technician for Oceaneering, was expected to provide information on leaks associated with the blowout preventer stack on BP’s Macondo well in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico.

He was to appear once the panel re-convened at 3:30 pm.

However, he did not show and could not be located on the premises at the Radisson New Orleans Airport hotel in Kenner, Louisiana.

“We have not been able to locate our next witness,” Coast Guard Captain Hung Nguyen announced about 15 minutes later. He then adjourned the hearing.

The hearing is scheduled to resume at 8:00 am tomorrow.

[outsider]

I might be repost if so sorry, but this make’s interesting reading.

Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post · Saturday, Jun. 26, 2010

Some are attuned to the possibility of looming catastrophe and know how to head it off. Others are unprepared for risk and even unable to get their priorities straight when risk turns to reality.

The Dutch fall into the first group. Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. "Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour," Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.

To protect against the possibility that its equipment wouldn’t capture all the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch also offered to prepare for the U.S. a contingency plan to protect Louisiana’s marshlands with sand barriers. One Dutch research institute specializing in deltas, coastal areas and rivers, in fact, developed a strategy to begin building 60-mile-long sand dikes within three weeks.

The Dutch know how to handle maritime emergencies. In the event of an oil spill, The Netherlands government, which owns its own ships and high-tech skimmers, gives an oil company 12 hours to demonstrate it has the spill in hand. If the company shows signs of unpreparedness, the government dispatches its own ships at the oil company’s expense. "If there’s a country that’s experienced with building dikes and managing water, it’s the Netherlands," says Geert Visser, the Dutch consul general in Houston.

In sharp contrast to Dutch preparedness before the fact and the Dutch instinct to dive into action once an emergency becomes apparent, witness the American reaction to the Dutch offer of help. The U.S. government responded with "Thanks but no thanks," remarked Visser, despite BP’s desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer –the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge. Even after the U.S. refused, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby, hoping the Americans would come round. By May 5, the U.S. had not come round. To the contrary, the U.S. had also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments, most of them with superior expertise and equipment –unlike the U.S., Europe has robust fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.

Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn’t good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million — if water isn’t at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.

When ships in U.S. waters take in oil-contaminated water, they are forced to store it. As U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the official in charge of the clean-up operation, explained in a press briefing on June 11, "We have skimmed, to date, about 18 million gallons of oily water–the oil has to be decanted from that [and] our yield is usually somewhere around 10% or 15% on that." In other words, U.S. ships have mostly been removing water from the Gulf, requiring them to make up to 10 times as many trips to storage facilities where they off-load their oil-water mixture, an approach Koops calls "crazy."

The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer — but only partly. Because the U.S. didn’t want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained.

A catastrophe that could have been averted is now playing out. With oil increasingly reaching the Gulf coast, the emergency construction of sand berns to minimize the damage is imperative. Again, the U.S. government priority is on U.S. jobs, with the Dutch asked to train American workers rather than to build the berns. According to Floris Van Hovell, a spokesman for the Dutch embassy in Washington, Dutch dredging ships could complete the berms in Louisiana twice as fast as the U.S. companies awarded the work. "Given the fact that there is so much oil on a daily basis coming in, you do not have that much time to protect the marshlands," he says, perplexed that the U.S. government could be so focussed on side issues with the entire Gulf Coast hanging in the balance.

Then again, perhaps he should not be all that perplexed at the American tolerance for turning an accident into a catastrophe. When the Exxon Valdez oil tanker accident occurred off the coast of Alaska in 1989, a Dutch team with clean-up equipment flew in to Anchorage airport to offer their help. To their amazement, they were rebuffed and told to go home with their equipment. The Exxon Valdez became the biggest oil spill disaster in U.S. history–until the BP Gulf spill.

– Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers.

It will be interesting to see if this comes out when the lynch mob gets to court 🙁

[James McLauchlan]

…………….For the record, I haven’t heard anyone blame British Petroleum for the early release of a terrorist. We lay that right at the feet of the scottish government where it so rightfully belongs…

Chief

You are probably right but US Politicians are certainly looking into it right now…..

Meanwhile, Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, joined calls for an investigation into allegations BP played a lobbying role in al-Megrahi’s release.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/07/20/national/w000857D20.DTL&type=politics#ixzz0uE2HAOck

Under heavy criticism over the Gulf disaster, BP faces demands from U.S. lawmakers for an official inquiry into whether it had a hand in the release of the Libyan convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Read more: http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFN2010237120100720?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

From what I am reading US politicians have spat the dummy out and appear more interested in punishing BP any way they can (on a global basis) rather than concentrate on the job in hand. What the hell BP’s involvement, if any, with the Lockerbie issue has to do with the GOM beats me! Also, it seems there are calls (again from the US) for investigations in BP’s activities in Lybia.

The latest outbursts smack very much of nothing other than retaliatory action against the company (Not Scotland or the rest of the UK) yet, oddly enough, I don’t recall a peep out of the US on BP in the near term run up to the GOM oil spill but since then… calls for all sorts of investigations into BP’s world wide activities.. mostly coming from America.

It appears that our US politician cousins want BP to suffer as much as possible any way possible…… whether it’s connected with the GOM spill or not has no bearing on how they might achieve this.

Battering BP may seem gratifying at the outset (in an immature kind of way) but it’s short sighted and will not achieve much, other than move one step closer to a whole load of people being laid off, many Americans included!

Cameron has made clear he will defend BP, saying it must remain "strong and stable" to make good on its promise to compensate oil spill victims and for the sake of employees and people with pension funds invested in the company in both countries.

Obama, whose approval ratings have been undercut by public anger over the disaster, has taken a hard line with BP, although his rhetoric has softened recently amid criticism his administration had gone too far in bashing the company.

Read more: http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFN2010237120100720?pageNumber=3&virtualBrandChannel=0

At some point, in the not too distant future, BP will probably announce that, due to the financial pressure being piled on them lay-offs, running into the thousands will need to be made throughout it’s global work force to reduce operating overheads.

Laugh you may, but I would suggest that number will happen not too long after the well has been intercepted/killed and a new BP CEO is installed
.
They’ll need to recoup costs somehow… and they won’t be happy to just allow profit from other operations do it alone as that will not suit investors.

Just found this:

Bye-bye BP? The British oil company faces a dramatic restructuring after Gulf Coast oil spill

BP may sell off its gas stations and scale back US operations, a British newspaper reported Sunday.

Even as the news from the Gulf Coast looked bright – the cap on the broken well continued to hold back the oil gusher for a third day – the firm’s future seemed to darken.

The Sunday Times of London reported that directors at the oil giant once known as British Petroleum had been discussing a dramatic restructuring of the company with major shareholders.

Options reportedly include splitting up the conglomerate by selling off its refineries and gas stations, and doing more engineering in-house rather than outsourcing it.

The restructuring of BP could render it a significantly smaller firm focusing primarily on exploration in emerging oil regions in Africa and Latin America.

Read more at: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/07/18/2010-07-18_byebye_bp_the_british_oil_company_faces_a_dramatic_restructuring.html

[Paul]

Whether the Dutch oil spill systems are more efficient than US systems, I can’t say, I’ve never seen them in operation. But having worked with MSRC and witnessed first hand their methods of oil recovery, I can say it is a very inefficient, time consuming, labor and resource intensive operation. As I posted earlier in this thread, I didn’t believe then, and I think the unfolding of events has proven my forecast to be correct, that the US was prepared for an oil spill of this (or even a fraction of this) magnitude. I was very disappointed to hear that the US had declined help from other agencies and countries.

Now excuse me while I take cover as I’m sure "Chief" will have a comment on this soon… 😉

[Rons_ROV_Links]

Whether the Dutch oil spill systems are more efficient than US systems, I can’t say, I’ve never seen them in operation.

Now excuse me while I take cover as I’m sure "Chief" will have a comment on this soon… 😉

The Dutch skimmers were offered to the US Government appr. 3-4 days after the Deepwater Horizon accident by the Dutch Government, but the US refused the offer.
These skimmers have been used with major oil spills before (Erika, Prestige and Sea Empress) and are manufactured by Koseq.
T&T Salvage is using the skimmers as far as I know.

Here are some Youtube videos about these skimmers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrv9bqIarPQ

[Craig Thorngren]

NC/Paul,

No need to take cover, I wholeheartedly agree we were, are now and will be in the near future unprepared for an oil spill of this magnitude.

The problem I see is people are making this a national pride issue, i.e. The Dutch gear is better. Does it really matter where it comes from? Then you have politician from both sides throwing little soundbites out there that for the most part are meant to inflame public opinion one way or the other.

Normally I would say the Dutch gear is unacceptable because the "normal" size of spill we deal with on a daily basis are smaller and the discharge of oil is not acceptable from the skimming equipment. However in this case, if it can capture 90% of the oil, then dump 10% back over, I say it’s worth changing our policy/laws to allow that in certain catastrophic incidents.

Chief

[Paul]

@Ron – I’m not arguing with you. I just didn’t want to pass judgment on a system that I didn’t have personal, first hand, got oil on my feet, experience with. As for MSRC, I do have direct knowledge and experience with their operations and that is the basis for what I’ve written above.

[Craig Thorngren]

James,

I find it interesting (disturbing actually) that in the article you linked to, it quotes BP as admitting it "Urged the UK government to sign a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya".

How many Libyan prisoners does the UK hold, and how many were released in the exchange? Were any UK prisoners released?

When Scott first brought this up, I thought "No way" could this have happened. Now I think a lot of people are waking up and asking some pretty tough questions.

Let me be rather blunt, that if there was a deal made (directly or indirectly) and British Petroleum had anything to do with it, the bloodletting that you’ve seen so far will seem like a walk in the park. Just my opinon…

Chief

[outsider]

Chief,

Best hope that they don’t send George Gallway to any Senate Hearings as their representative, his last visit he tore the commitee a new one 😈

Clasic Gallway

As they did not seem to have even done any basic research and that could easily happen now; BP are not the only company looking at Libya there are a lot of US companies smoothing the course of commerce with asistance to the community projects 😯
How will that sit with famlies of the victims?

Also there is a serious lack of attention in the press to BP’s partners and the sudden unavailability of key witnesses

It also emerged today that Donald Vidrine, who was in charge of operations on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig at the time of its explosion, on 20 April, will not testify before a key hearing in the US. He cited health issues for his inability to attend a hearing in Louisiana held by the US department of the interior and the US coastguard, which began yesterday.
It is the second time he has declined to give his account of events on the day of the disaster, after his failure to attend hearings in May.

I’m not condoning in any way what has happened but in the persuite of profit Big Oil is ruthless in the extreme, we all know that ❗

And yes you are quite correct it is or has been a very nationalistic issue and Chief no matter how many times you say British Petroleum its still BP an International Oil Company.

As for tough questions, I think you can be fairly sure that BP will have briefed their mouth piece properly this time along the line of the YouTube clip, rather than the muppet they put up last time.

Can you imagine the situation, "Why did you not have equipment avaliable to clean up?" Answer "we did but YOU the USA did not permit us to bring it in!!!!"
Could make for interesting viewing…..
As for the Libyian angle again who many US companies are "lobbying" in order to get contracts signed.

😈 👿 😯 😮

[James McLauchlan]

I do not agree with any company becoming involved with such things as the Lybian prisoner issue, as has been suggested BP might have done

It is in nobody’s longer term interest (in these tough financial times) to go on a blood-letting spree and shut BP down! 80,000 jobs might go and those people may not be easily find new ones in a hurry. That’s not even taking into consideration, on both sides of the pond, the loss of tax revenue governments would see, lost pensions, and third party subcontractors that would lose out. The knock on effect would be enormous!

So how clever would that be??

The bigger picture should be considered. American politicians should not simply pursue a knee jerk the reaction of…. Lets take BP down for the hell of it approach, which is an initiative that appears to be gaining momentum.
If they do succeed, they will surely get a name for themselves but not in the way they might hope.
They’ll be remembered as those that needlessly caused the loss of tens of thousands jobs (in America, UK and globally) plus caused untold financial worries for many thousand of others not even connected with the oil business. Why? Because they feel better at having kicked some large corporate entities arse into insolvency. Whoopee do…

[Craig Thorngren]

James,

I agree 100% that it’s in no one’s best interest for them to go bankrupt, though there are those progressive’s and liberals who think otherwise.

I’ve said to many people that the accident in the GOM is BP’s fault, the disaster lies at the feet of the US Government, plain and simple. Actually, once the "anointed one" (that’s what we Independts refer to our President as) said "we have the heel of our boot on British Petroleums neck" everything, good or bad becomes the responsibility of the government from that point forward.

Chief

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