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Risk taking rises ... 'Tread Carefully, Mr Obama' |
Tread carefully, Mr Obama. You need big oilThe Times reports the threats to ... ... Joe Plumber and every American who objects to $3 gasoline ... It ends by telling us that ... ... the big issue for Mr Obama is not safety but energy. He will set out his aims — clean, safe energy — but he knows, deep down, that there is no such prize. That's self-evidently true, as the ongoing attempts to block the Gulf oil spill confirms. Quite how such spillages keep gasoline below $3 is not explained.
The relationship between nature loss and economic harm is much more than just figurative, the UN believes. Like the rest of us, some time this century 'Joe Plumber' will have to face up to the fact that we should only extract from the planet that which can be renewed,
whereas currently what we extract is that which cannot be renewed, as 'peak oil' will confirm.
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Risk-Taking Rises as Oil Rigs in Gulf Drill Deeper
The $3 billion rig, called Perdido, can pump oil from dozens of wells nearly two miles under the sea while simultaneously drilling new ones.
It is part of a wave of ultra-deep platforms — all far more sophisticated than the rig that was used to drill the ill-fated BP well that blew up in April.
These platforms have sprung up far from shore and have pushed the frontiers of technology in the gulf, a region that now accounts for a quarter of the nation’s oil output.
Major offshore accidents are not common. But whether through equipment failure or human error, the risks increase as the rigs get larger and more complicated.
Yet even as regulators investigate the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the broader dangers posed by the industry’s push into deeper waters have gone largely unscrutinized ...
NYT 29 Aug 2010 Peak Oil Peak Oil: Not If but When
Job Losses Over Drilling Ban Fail to Materialize
"Global deepwater oil production is expected to double by 2030"
Deepwater oil drilling has played an increasingly important role in world energy markets in recent years, and that has not changed after several accidents in the waters of Australia, Britain, Mexico and the United States.
Since 2006, nearly half the total oil and gas reserves added worldwide have been in deepwater areas.
Six million barrels of oil a day, or 7 percent of total global production, are now produced in deepwater areas.
Global deepwater oil production is expected to double by 2030.
With the world becoming increasingly dependent on deepwater oil supplies, the BP spill has so far had a very limited effect on drilling around the world.
Britain has stepped up inspections of offshore rigs. Brazil has announced a safety review that will take a year to complete before it makes any regulatory changes related to its fast-growing offshore drilling industry. Angola has increased inspections.
But there are few signs of any slowdown in drilling.
In Norway, which already has strong regulations, the BP accident at first shook the industry.
An auction of about 100 offshore lots was initially postponed, but in the end, only six lots in environmentally sensitive areas were kept off limits.
In Nigeria and Ghana, some government officials have expressed caution about deepwater drilling, but there have been no significant delays ...
NYT 24 Aug 2010 Peak Oil
BP oil leak victims face strings on $20bn spill fund
Victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill will waive their right to sue BP staff and the energy major if they take money from the official $20bn (£13bn) compensation fund ...
Thousands of people have joined in class-action lawsuits claiming loss of earnings related to the BP oil spill.
However, they will be faced with a tough choice of receiving immediate money from the compensation fund or putting themselves through a lengthy legal process in the hope of extracting more.
The developments come the day after new claims that a huge cloud of oil is still lurking under the surface of the Gulf of Mexico's waters ...
Experts from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts said they have found a 22-mile "mist" of oil that is not degrading very fast ...
Thad Allen, the incident commander working for the US government, said there would now be tests to see "how clean is clean" along the coastline ...
Telegraph 20 Aug 2010 Corporate Sociopathy
BP oil spill: scientists find giant plume of droplets 'missed' by official account
Scientists have mapped a 22-mile plume of oil droplets from BP's rogue well in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, providing the strongest evidence yet of the fate of the crude that spewed into the sea for months.
The report offers the most authoritative challenge to date to White House assertions that most of the 5m barrels of oil that spewed into the Gulf is gone.
"These results indicate that efforts to book-keep where the oil went must now include this plume," said Christopher Reddy one of the members of the team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
The report, which is published in the journal Science, also said the plume was very slow to break down by natural forces, increasing the likelihood that oil could have travelled long distances in the Gulf before it was degraded ...
Guardian 19 Aug 2010US scientist retracts assurances over success of cleanup
Oil Plume Is Not Breaking Down Fast
Scientists dispute White House claim ...
Oil Rig’s Owner Had Safety Issue at Three Other Wells
In response to “a series of serious accidents and near-hits within the global organization,” Transocean ... commissioned the risk management company Lloyd’s Register to investigate its Houston headquarters and three other gulf rigs besides the Deepwater Horizon to assess its safety culture.
The confidential internal reports, obtained by The New York Times, offer an unusually candid view of safety and maintenance concerns within the world’s largest offshore drilling company ...
Transocean has 14 rigs now operating in the Gulf of Mexico, and 139 worldwide, and these documents raise concerns about locations beyond Deepwater Horizon, especially the three additional gulf rigs that were recently investigated ...
The new documents ... indicate that there were problems with the Deepwater Horizon’s ballast system that was responsible for keeping the rig afloat and stable.
If the rig had not sunk, the leak might not have occurred. Federal investigators have questioned whether deferred maintenance and other factors had played a role in the sinking of the rig ...
A lack of hands-on experience for workers and managers has contributed to safety concerns at the company, and a stifling bureaucracy imposed by onshore management has led to widespread resentment among rig workers, the investigators found.
Nearly 40 percent of workers interviewed on the four rigs said that past problems were typically investigated by company officials strictly to attribute blame ...
A ... worker on Transocean’s Marianas rig said that the safety manual seemed to be “written for the courtroom, not the oil field.” ...
NYT 04 Aug 2010 Corporate SociopathyIn Gulf, Good News Is Taken With Grain of Salt
BP gears up to halt oil spill confirmed 'world's worst'
The US government has said the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the biggest oil leak ever, as BP prepares its "static kill" operation to permanently seal its well.
A new government estimate suggests BP's Macondo well leaked 4.9 million barrels of oil before being capped last month.
Scientists said only a fifth of the leaking oil - around 800,000 barrels - was captured during the clean-up ...
The BP spill is greater than the 1979 Ixtoc I leak in the Gulf of Mexico, which gushed 3.3 million barrels.
Only the intentional release of an estimated eight million barrels of oil into the Gulf by Iraqi troops during the Gulf War in 1991 was greater ...
BBC NEWS 03 August 2010Confronting Collapse
Deepwater Horizon alarms were switched off 'to help workers sleep'
Alarms and safety mechanisms on gulf disaster oil rig were disabled, chief technician at Transocean reveals ...
Mike Williams, who was in charge of maintaining the rig's electronic systems, was giving evidence to the federal panel in New Orleans that is investigating the cause of the disaster on 20 April, which killed 11 people.
Williams told the hearing today that no alarms went off on the day of the explosion because they had been "inhibited".
Sensors monitoring conditions on the rig and in the Macondo oil well beneath it were still working, but the computer had been instructed not to trigger any alarms in case of adverse readings.
Both visual and sound alarms should have gone off in the case of sensors detecting fire or dangerous levels of combustible or toxic gases.
The evidence of deliberate dilution of the rig's safety mechanisms is likely to have wide ramifications for BP and Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling company.
It switches the spotlight of blame away from BP and towards the subcontractor which took the decisions ...
Williams said he discovered that the physical alarm system had been disabled a full year before the disaster.
When he asked why, he said he was told that the view from even the most senior Transocean official on the rig had been that "they did not want people woken up at three o'clock in the morning due to false alarms" ...
Guardian 23 July 2010 Corporate SociopathyHow the Sun King sank BP
BP admits it 'Photoshopped' official images
For the second time in two days, the company was identified to have doctored images posted on its official website that were supposed to show how it was responding to the oil crisis in America.
In the latest image, a photo taken inside a company helicopter appeared to show it flying off the coast near the damaged Bluewater Deepwater Horizon.
But it was later shown to be faked after internet bloggers identified several problems with the poorly produced image that contradicted the appearance that it was flying.
Among the problems identified included part of a control tower appearing in the top of the top right of the picture, different shades of colours, its pilot holding a pre-flight checklist and its control gauges showing the helicopter’s door and ramp open and its parking brake engaged ...
Telegraph 22 July 2010 Corporate Sociopathy
BP accused of ignoring internal report of Deepwater leak
... while the capping of the well may be going well, developments onshore continued to prove what an enormous task BP faces in trying to repair its public image.
In Louisiana an investigative hearing into the leak heard testimony from a BP official who said the firm had ignored warnings ahead of the disaster.
Ronald Sepulvado, a BP well site leader, said he had reported a leak on a critical safety device at the rig to more senior company officials, but it seemed his warnings had not been passed on to the government regulating body, the Minerals Management Service.
"I assumed everything was OK, because I reported it to the team leader and he should have reported it to the MMS," he told the hearing.
The leak was on a control pod connected to the blowout preventer on the rig, whose failure proved critical in causing the disaster ...
Guardian 20 July 2010 Corporate SociopathyBP Oil Spills
Oil Spills
After Oil Spills, Hidden Damage Can Last for Years
On the rocky beaches of Alaska, scientists plunged shovels and picks into the ground and dug 6,775 holes, repeatedly striking oil — still pungent and dangerous a dozen years after the Exxon Valdez infamously spilled its cargo.
More than an ocean away, on the Breton coast of France, scientists surveying the damage after another huge oil spill found that disturbances in the food chain persisted for more than a decade.
And on the southern gulf coast in Mexico, an American researcher peering into a mangrove swamp spotted lingering damage 30 years after that shore was struck by an enormous spill.
These far-flung shorelines hit by oil in the past offer clues to what people living along the Gulf Coast can expect now that the great oil calamity of 2010 may be nearing an end ...
NYT 17 July 2010 Eating the Future Trashing the Environment
The oil spill is under control – now it's time to count the ecological cost
... the damage yet to be revealed will be far worse than a few dead birds and tar balls along 500 miles of coast.
Dolphins, whale sharks and sea turtles numbers will almost certainly have been hit hard, and some populations may not recover for years.
Fish and shrimp-breeding habitats will have been hit. Deep coral reefs, which can take centuries to grow, may also have been affected.
Furthermore, the ecological damage done in the last three months is made far more serious because it comes on top of years of man-made degradation of the Gulf environment.
The Gulf is also heavily polluted by nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilisers and livestock waste washed down the vast Mississippi river from farms and industry.
Every year, a massive oxygen-starved region known as the "dead zone" develops off the coast of Louisiana in which nothing can live.
Last month, the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said it expected this year's "zone" to be between 6,500 and 7,800 square miles, the 10th largest ever ...
Guardian 16 July 2010Scientists are confronting growing evidence that BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is creating oxygen-depleted "dead zones" where fish and other marine life cannot survive.Biologists find 'dead zones' around BP oil spill in Gulf
In two separate research voyages, independent scientists have detected what were described as "astonishingly high" levels of methane, or natural gas, bubbling from the well site, setting off a chain of reactions that suck the oxygen out of the water.
In some cases, methane concentrations are 100,000 times normal levels ...
Guardian 30 June 2010 Eating the Future Trashing the Environment
Senate may investigate BP's role in release of Megrahi
The Secretary of State said she had received a letter from four Democrat senators alleging that BP put pressure on the Scottish government to release Libyan Abdel Basset al-Megrahi to help the company's efforts to win drilling licences put up for tender by Tripoli.
Megrahi was released in August last year after doctors in Scotland said he was suffering from developed prostate cancer and had just three months to live.
Reports from Libya suggest that his health has improved, and it is thought that he could now live for another decade.
"It is shocking to even contemplate that BP is profiting from the release of a terrorist with the blood of 189 Americans on his hands," one of the senators, Frank Lautenberg, wrote in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ...
BP is expected to start drilling for oil in the Gulf of Sidra off Libya within the next two weeks after being granted concession rights in 2007.
Independent 15 July 2010 Corporate Sociopathy Log Deepwater HorizonBP oil spill cap ready for testing
US moves to block new BP oil leases
As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Billions From Subsidies
When the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform set off the worst oil spill at sea in American history, it was flying the flag of the Marshall Islands.
Registering there allowed the rig’s owner to significantly reduce its American taxes.
The owner, Transocean, moved its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Cayman Islands in 1999 and then to Switzerland in 2008, maneuvers that also helped it avoid taxes.
At the same time, BP was reaping sizable tax benefits from leasing the rig. According to a letter sent in June to the Senate Finance Committee, the company used a tax break for the oil industry to write off 70 percent of the rent for Deepwater Horizon — a deduction of more than $225,000 a day since the lease began.
With federal officials now considering a new tax on petroleum production to pay for the cleanup, the industry is fighting the measure, warning that it will lead to job losses and higher gasoline prices, as well as an increased dependence on foreign oil ...
According to the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, released in 2005, capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry ...
NYT 04 July 2010 Corporate Sociopathy Log Eating the Future
Like Being Blind on the Moon
The Trouble with Deepwater Oil Exploration
Last Tuesday managers working in the international oil industry gathered for a gala dinner in London.
Beforehand, though, they made a serious appeal to the US President.
"Obviously we are concerned", says Steven Newman, head of Transocean -- the company whose drilling platform, the Deepwater Horizon, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20 this year.
Newman was not talking about the approximately nine million liters of crude oil flowing into the sea every day at the site of the accident.
The chief executive officer of Transocean meant the moratorium that President Barack Obama had declared, which put a halt to deepwater drilling for six months.
Newman's colleagues agreed that it was a dangerous overreaction by the US administration ...
Ten weeks after the drilling platform disaster and oil continues to flow into the Gulf of Mexico.
So far, according to some estimates, ten times more oil has leaked into the water than spilled from the Exxon Valdez when it struck an Alaskan reef in 1989.
So there is an element of impudence to the oil companies' berating politicians for the deepwater drilling moratorium.
But a fundamental reconsideration of our dependence on oil? Never. Large energy companies rely on humankind's greed for oil.
In fact the governor of Mississippi, Hayley Barbour, a Republican, considers the moratorium a far worse thing than the oil leak itself.
It is "not only bad for the region, it's bad for America," Barbour said ...
Der Spiegel 28 June 2010
Shell: deep-water oil drilling will go on
Royal Dutch Shell's boss, Peter Voser, insisted that today it was not possible to satisfy the world's growing energy demands without drilling for oil in deep-water reserves, despite the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico ...
... Voser defended the oil industry's push into deeper oil reserves and said Shell would continue to play its part, even as a tropical storm threatened to disrupt BP's efforts to clean up oil off the coast of Louisiana.
"Given the rise in the population and the rise in the developing world of energy needs, we will have to develop those resources in deep waters, so my expectation is that we will go forward with it, but it will need some changes," Voser told the Fortune Global Forum in Cape Town ...
BP's failure to cap the [Deepwater Horizon] leak has put the oil industry's safety record under fierce scrutiny, with environmental campaigners demanding that deep-water drilling is banned until safety measures have been improved.
Voser, though, implied that the Macondo well would not have erupted with such devastating consequences if Shell, rather than BP, had been in charge ...
Guardian 27 June 2010 Eating the Future Peak OilShell's subtle switch from renewables ...
Shell dumps wind, solar and hydro power in favour of biofuels
Shell’s Game
Royal Dutch Shell
BP Is Pursuing Alaska Drilling
... about three miles off the coast of Alaska, BP is moving ahead with a controversial and potentially record-setting project to drill two miles under the sea and then six to eight miles horizontally to reach what is believed to be a 100-million-barrel reservoir of oil under federal waters.
All other new projects in the Arctic have been halted by the Obama administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling, including more traditional projects like Shell Oil’s plans to drill three wells in the Chukchi Sea and two in the Beaufort.
But BP’s project, called Liberty, has been exempted as regulators have granted it status as an “onshore” project even though it is about three miles off the coast in the Beaufort Sea.
The reason: it sits on an artificial island — a 31-acre pile of gravel in about 22 feet of water — built by BP ...
Rather than conducting their own independent analysis, federal regulators, in a break from usual practice, allowed BP in 2007 to write its own environmental review for the project ...
... scientists and other critics say they are worried about a replay of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico because the Liberty project involves a method of drilling called extended reach that experts say is more prone to the types of gas kicks that triggered the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon ...
NYT 23 June 2010 Peak OilLiberty Development Project
Judge who overturned drilling bans had shares in the oil industry
Yesterday, a Louisiana-based judge Martin Feldman ruled that Barack Obama's six-month drilling moratorium in the Gulf was unjustified because it assumed that all deepwater drilling was as dangerous as BP's.
The White House promised an immediate appeal.
Meanwhile environmental groups have said Feldman's ruling may have to be rescinded because of the possible conflict of interests.
Feldman's most recent financial disclosure forms show that he was paid dividends from his shares in Transocean, the firm that owned the Deepwater oil rig that exploded in April killing 11 oil workers, prompting America's worst environmental disaster.
The forms, which relate to the calendar year 2008, also show that he sold shares in Halliburton, which was also involved in the disaster.
Feldman's other interests included Ocean Energy, Quicksilver Resources, Prospect Energy, Peabody Energy, Pengrowth Energy Trust, Atlas Energy Resources, and Parker Drilling ...
Guardian 23 June 2010Louisiana court overturns Barack Obama's ban on oil drilling in Gulf
Superheroes and supervillains
Its very name — the blind shear ram — suggested its blunt purpose. When all else failed, if the crew of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig lost control of a well, if a dreaded blowout came, the blind shear ram’s two tough blades were poised to slice through the drill pipe, seal the well and save the day ...Failure of Rig’s Last Line of Defense Tied to Myriad Factors
An examination by The New York Times highlights the chasm between the oil industry’s assertions about the reliability of its blowout preventers and a more complex reality.
It reveals that the federal agency charged with regulating offshore drilling, the Minerals Management Service, repeatedly declined to act on advice from its own experts on how it could minimize the risk of a blind shear ram failure.
It also shows that the Obama administration failed to grapple with either the well-known weaknesses of blowout preventers or the sufficiency of the nation’s drilling regulations even as it made plans this spring to expand offshore oil exploration.
“What happened to all the stakeholders — Congress, environmental groups, industry, the government — all stakeholders involved were lulled into a sense of what has turned out to be false security,” David J. Hayes, the deputy interior secretary, said in an interview ...
NYT 20 June 2010BP says oil spill costs have reached $2 billion
Gulf oil spill: A hole in the world
How long will it take for an ecosystem this ravaged to be "restored and made whole" as Obama's interior secretary has pledged to do?
It's not at all clear that such a thing is remotely possible, at least not in a time frame we can easily wrap our heads around.
The Alaskan fisheries have yet to fully recover from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill and some species of fish never returned ...
This Gulf coast crisis is about many things – corruption, deregulation, the addiction to fossil fuels.
But underneath it all, it's about this: our culture's excruciatingly dangerous claim to have such complete understanding and command over nature that we can radically manipulate and re-engineer it with minimal risk to the natural systems that sustain us.
But as the BP disaster has revealed, nature is always more unpredictable than the most sophisticated mathematical and geological models imagine ...
Virtually all indigenous cultures have myths about gods and spirits living in the natural world – in rocks, mountains, glaciers, forests – as did European culture before the scientific revolution.
Katja Neves, an anthropologist at Concordia University, points out that the practice serves a practical purpose.
Calling the Earth "sacred" is another way of expressing humility in the face of forces we do not fully comprehend.
When something is sacred, it demands that we proceed with caution. Even awe.
If we are absorbing this lesson at long last, the implications could be profound ...
Guardian 19 June 2010 Eating the FuturePartner puts blame on BP as spill costs grow
BP boss plumbs depths of contrition
The torrent of abuse directed at Tony Hayward might have been even more telling had we observed similar scenes directed at Union Carbide in the aftermath of the Bhopal catastrophe."I think it's really too early to reach conclusions, with respect," attempted Mr Hayward, whose only consolation as the lone witness of the day was occasional sips from a cup of water.
Too many Americans are extraordinarily ill-informed as to their own misdeads on foreign soil, going back to the days when United Fruit treated Latin America as a private fiefdom, and when Col Smedley was making countries like Nicaragua 'safe' for corporate exploitation.
It surely doesn't help him that an oil-man from central casting he is not ...
His hosts were looking for theatre, of course. They have audiences in their home constituencies. But they did get very irritated very quickly.
"Any one of us could do his job," one Congressman blurted caustically as members shuffled out of their seats at the start of one of two recesses ...
Independent 18 June 2010 A Violent, Aggressive CultureObama’s Twist of BP’s Arm
US oil firms 'unprepared' for major offshore disaster
Major oil firms drilling off the US coastline are as unprepared as BP for a large-scale spill, the head of a Congressional panel has said.
Edward Markey told the House energy and commerce sub-committee Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell all have identical response plans to BP ...
He called the five firms' responses "cookie-cutter" plans and "paper exercises", adding: "BP failed miserably when faced with a real leak and one has to wonder whether... [the others] would do any better."
Echoing the words of former President George W Bush, Mr Waxman said the US was "addicted to oil".
"This addiction is fouling our beaches, polluting our atmosphere and undermining our national security," said Mr Waxman ...
BBC NEWS 15 June 2010$20bn compensation and no BP dividends
BP credit rating slashed as oil spill costs mount
"Fitch thinks" ... there's an oxymoron for starters.• Fitch ratings agency concerned about short-term costs
This is one of those rating agencies that failed to spot the credit crunch, because it was being paid by the banks it was rating, and they might have cut of the funding if they didn't like the message.
• BP rating cut from AA to BBB
• Head of BP America to appear before Congress today
• Fitch thinks dividend could be cut ... Fitch cut its rating on BP from AA to BBB this morning, a day after US politicians demanded the company deposits $20bn (£13.58bn) in an escrow account to cover the cost of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
The ratings agency said it was concerned that the balance between long-term and near-term cost payments would become "skewed much more heavily towards the near-term than previously anticipated" if the escrow account was created.
Fitch also said it was concerned that BP will find it hard to access the capital markets for funding while the full cost of the oil leak remains unclear.
"In addition, Fitch would be surprised if BP did not suspend quarterly cash dividend payments until the operational and financial impact of the incident is clearer," it added ...
Guardian 15 June 2010 'Greed is Good'$20bn compensation and no BP dividends
Barack Obama compares oil spill to 9/11
Buried beneath reactions to the comparison with 9/11, Obama seems to have got the real message from the Deepwater Horizon catastropheIn the Politico interview, Obama vowed to "move forward in a bold way in a direction that finally gives us the kind of future-oriented, visionary energy policy we so vitally need and has been absent for so long".
"One of the biggest leadership challenges for me is going to be to make sure we draw the right lessons from this disaster."
Obama said he could not predict whether the US would make a complete transition from an oil-based economy within his lifetime.
"Now is the time for us to start making that transition and investing in a new way of doing business when it comes to energy," he said.
"I have no idea what new energy sources are going to be available, what technologies might drive down the price of renewable energies.
What we can predict is that the availability of fossil fuel is going to be diminishing; that it's going to get more expensive to recover; that there are going to be environmental costs that our children ... our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren are going to have to bear."
Guardian 14 June 2010 Alternatives to Fossil Fuel Peak OilBP faces $34bn in fines
Experts double estimate of BP oil spill size
As many as 40,000 barrels (1.7 million gallons) of oil a day may have been gushing out from a blown-out Gulf of Mexico well, doubling many estimates.
The US Geological Survey says that flow rate could have been reached before a cap was put on the well on 3 June ...
Late on Thursday, the Obama administration announced that the chairman of BP, Carl-Henric Svanberg, had been asked to meet Mr Obama and the officer in charge of the relief effort, Adm Thad Allen, at the White House.
The meeting will be held amid growing worry about whether BP would have enough cash to pay for the clean-up operation and compensation for those affected.
US Attorney General Eric Holder has warned that Washington would "not pay a dime" for cleaning up and that BP would be held responsible for all damages ...
BBC NEWS 11 June 2010
BP oil leak aftermath: Slow-motion tragedy unfolds for marine life
The wildlife haven Grand Isle is at the heart of the environmental catastrophe engulfing Louisiana ...
Fifty-three days after BP's ruptured well began spewing crude oil from 5,000ft below the sea, the wholesale slaughter of dolphins, pelicans, hermit crab and other marine life is only now becoming readily visible to humans ...
Rescue teams have plucked hundreds of birds from the muck. But stripping oil from the feathers of stricken birds is a slow and delicate operation, and there is no assurance of the birds' survival. About a third of the rescued birds have died so far ...
Guardian 10 June 2010Oil-affected wildlife
Gulf coast communities face loss of 46,000 jobs thanks to moratorium pending BP inquiry ...Anger over Obama block on Gulf of Mexico oil drilling after BP disaster
Time to find something else to go in the gas tank: like clean electricity and/or hydrogen
A decision by Barack Obama to slap a block on deepwater exploration in the Gulf of Mexico has angered the energy industry and crisis-hit communities that rely on rigs for lucrative jobs.
In a move barely noticed by the public ... the White House ordered a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling, pending new safety standards that will be drawn up by a special presidential commission charged with scrutinising the causes of the worst slick ever to blight America's oceans.
The move was applauded by environmentalists ... the Sierra Club, said the disaster was a wake-up call: "It's time to take offshore drilling off the table for good."
But the move comes at a cost. It will mean a halt to work on 33 drilling platforms, jeopardising as many as 46,000 jobs on land and sea, according to industry figures.
Those rigs, leased by oil companies at a typical cost of $500,000 a day (£340,000), are likely to be loaded onto ships and taken elsewhere – possibly to Brazil, India or the west coast of Africa, where wells are waiting to be drilled ...ikesolemGuardian 09 June 2010 Corporare Sociopathy Log Peak Oil
9 Jun 2010, 5:37PM
A renewable energy industry would more than replace all those jobs - and what about the thousands of tourism and fishing related jobs that have been lost as the result of the spill?
For example: offshore wind turbines, algal biofuel production and refining, solar panel manufacturing and installation - all largely pollution-free, especially relative to deepwater blowouts.
The pay is similar, the work is less dangerous, and there is no risk of destroying the tourism and fishing industry - so don't listen to the lobbyists for fossil fuels who tell you there is no other alternative.Obama orders six-month freeze on offshore drilling
According to new estimates, more than twice as much oil has flowed into the Gulf of Mexico in the last 50 days than was spilled from the oil tanker Exxon Valdez into Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989.Oil Spill's Real Threat Lies Beneath the Surface
But where has all the oil gone?
Relatively little has reached the coasts so far, leading scientists to fear that much of it is still lurking underwater.
And in addition to the oil, the water is contaminated with massive amounts of chemicals that BP workers have been spraying for weeks to disperse the oil ...
[Samantha Joye's] ... team discovered the first signs of the monstrous oil clouds in mid-May. But BP CEO Tony Hayward disputes that the clouds even exist.
"The oil is on the surface," he said. "There aren't any plumes."
He argues that, because oil is lighter than water, it will always float to the surface. BP scientists, at any rate, have found "no evidence" of underwater oil clouds.
The oil executive is trying to prevent the environmental damage from becoming more and more apparent ...
Despite BP's claims, the evidence of submarine pollution is now overwhelming. Scientists at the University of South Florida also recently discovered an enormous amount of oil at about 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) beneath the surface ...
Der Spiegel 08 June 2010Part 2: An Underwater World in Peril
Part 3: Waiting for Research Funding
• US government deflects blame on to companyBP will pay 'many billions of dollars in fines' for oil spill, White House warns
Like Union Carbide did in Bhopal. Not.
• Break up of slick thwarts efforts to keep oil offshore
"We are adapting to an enemy that changes," Thad Allen, the coast guard commander overseeing the response told a White House briefing. "We are no longer dealing with a monolithic spill."
The break-up of the slick into a massive collection of smaller spills was challenging efforts to keep the oil offshore, and crude was now attacking the shoreline from Louisiana to Florida. "I don't think any plan envisioned it would get out that far and disaggregate," Allen said. "If anything is taxing our resources, it's the breadth."
BP confronted a parallel escalation yesterday. Since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig on 20 April, the oil giant has been forced to pay out an increasing sum for clean-up costs and compensation to those put out of work or business because of the spill.
As of yesterday the spill had cost BP $1.25bn (£870m). But the White House, in moves to deflect public anger said BP could expect a final bill for much more ...
Guardian 07 June 2010 Corporate Sociopathy Log Deepwater HorizonBhopal disaster: Unfinished business
BP's Deepwater Horizon costs hit $1.25bn
• Efforts to stop leak, clean-up costs and compensation costing tens of millions a day
• BP shares rise 2.7% this morning on hopes for success and dividend pledge
• Chief executive vows to spend 'what it takes' to fix spill ...
Although BP is now managing to collect some of the leaking oil through the containment cap it installed last week, the spill is expected to continue until August when relief wells have been drilled.
Official estimates put the leak anywhere between 12,000 and 25,000 barrels of oil a day, and it is not clear how successful the containment cap will be.
BP has said it collected around 10,000 barrels on Sunday and hopes to eventually capture most of the leak, but the US coastguard is being much more cautious.
"I'm hoping we catch as much oil as we can, but I'm withholding any comment until production is at a full rate," said Thad Allen, the US coastguard admiral.
Oil from the stricken wellhead has now reached the beaches of Alamaba and Florida ...
Guardian 07 June 2010 Corporate Sociopathy Log
It Was Unclear Who Was in Charge of Rig
New government and BP documents, interviews with experts and testimony by witnesses provide the clearest indication to date that a hodgepodge of oversight agencies granted exceptions to rules, allowed risks to accumulate and made a disaster more likely on the rig, particularly with a mix of different companies operating on the Deepwater whose interests were not always in sync.
And in the aftermath, arguments about who is in charge of the cleanup — often a signal that no one is in charge — have led to delays, distractions and disagreements over how to cap the well and defend the coastline.
As a result, with oil continuing to gush a mile below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico, the laws of physics are largely in control, creating the daunting challenge of trying to plug a hole at depths where equipment is straining under more than a ton of pressure per square inch ...
NYT 05 June 2010 Corporate Sociopathy
Plan for Relief Wells Spurs Hope Amid Caution
As engineers made headway Thursday in containing the oil leak at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, crews on two floating rigs flanking the spot where the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank were doing what rig crews normally do: drilling wells.
The two wells, aimed at the bottom of the runaway well that has spewed millions of gallons of oil into the gulf, represent the most conventional solution to the disaster and the one that experts say is all but certain to succeed ...
Doubters have pointed to past problems with relief wells, including one drilled during a blowout off southern Mexico 30 years ago that was unable to stop the gusher for three months after it was completed, and another off Australia last fall that did not hit its target until the fifth try ...
NYT 03 June 2010 Corporate SociopathyBP hives off 'toxic' Gulf spill operation
Another Torrent BP Works to Stem: Its C.E.O.
BP fails to rule out cut in dividend
BP chief executive apologises for Gulf oil spill
Hayward told the Financial Times it was "entirely fair" to criticise BP for not being better equipped to fight a leak 5,000 feet below the surface.BP lacked the right tools to deal with crisis
It's the dividend, folks. Nothing else matters!
He said the oil giant needed to develop new techniques for such crises, rather than using decades-old methods.
"What is undoubtedly true is that we did not have the tools you would want in your toolkit," said Hayward in an interview with the FT.
His comments came as US politicians demanded that BP should suspend dividend payments to shareholders while it battles the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In an open letter to Hayward – who recently told the Guardian his job was on the line – Democratic senators Charles Schumer and Ron Wyden said it would be wrong for BP to pay investors a dividend until it knows the full cost of the disaster ...
Shares in BP rose by over 4% this morning to 448p, indicating that traders remain confident that the the annual dividend will be paid ...
Guardian 03 June 2010 Corporate SociopathyBP to go ahead with $10bn shareholder payout
Will Deepwater sink the 101-year-old BP?
How the Sun King sank BP
Delays in sealing oil pipe fan doubts over BP's survival
The previous chief executive of BP, Lord Browne of Madingley, revealed in a recent autobiography entitled Beyond Business that he took BP to the brink of a merger with Shell six years ago only to be thwarted at the last minute by opposition from a handful of his own board members. "We missed the boat. We estimated that a merger could create synergies of around $9bn a year in three to five years' time."
But there were also reports that Hayward had held similar discussions in 2007 when BP's share price had been weakened by the Texas City refinery fire, in which 15 workers died. The plunging value of BP is a blow to British pension funds as it is estimated to provide £1 in every £7 paid in dividends by FTSE-100 companies.
BP is also a big provider of revenue to the exchequer. It said last night that it paid $6.3bn in global corporate income tax, of which $1.1bn (£690m) was in the UK. BP expects to pay about $4bn in 2009 in production taxes globally, of which £130m would be in Britain.
Duncan Exley, of lobby organisation FairPensions, cautioned investors: "Social and corporate governance issues have a history of precipitating crises which damage our economy and our investments."
Guardian 02 June 2010 Corporate Sociopathy
Dougie Youngson, oil analyst at Arbuthnot, said: "This situation has now gone far beyond concerns of BP's chief executive Tony Hayward being fired, or shareholder dividend payouts being cut – it's got the real smell of death. This could break BP.Billions more wiped from BP's value as shares plunge on oil spill failures
"I'd like my life back" - Tony Hayward
"Given the collapse in the share price and the potential for it to fall further, we expect that it could become a takeover target – particularly if its operating position in the US becomes untenable."
Hayward has come under fire in the US for his handling of the crisis and drew further criticism when he appeared make an insensitive remark when asked about the impact of the spill.
"I'm sorry. We're sorry for the massive disruption it's caused their lives. There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I'd like my life back," he said ...
Guardian 01 June 2010Billions more wiped from BP's value as shares plunge
BP to promise $10bn payday
How much worse can it get for BP?
Deep Underwater, Oil Threatens Reefs
A Waiting Game for Fishermen
BP's management faces an immense challenge
Rising Cleanup Costs and Numerous Lawsuits Rattle BP’s Investors
BP's clumsy response to oil spill
US reveals criminal probe over BP spill
BP clashes with scientists over deep sea oil pollution
Obama team 'incensed at being kept in the dark' as company denies existence of underwater oil clouds ...
BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, said it had no evidence of underwater oil clouds. "The oil is on the surface," he said. "Oil has a specific gravity that's about half that of water. It wants to get to the surface because of the difference in specific gravity."
Hayward's assertion flies in the face of studies by scientists at universities in Florida, Georgia and Mississippi, among other institutions, who say they have detected huge underwater plumes of oil, including one 120 metres (400ft) deep about 50 miles from the destroyed rig ...
Guardian 31 May 2010
BP oil rig registration raised in Congress
Political ripples from the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster have travelled as far as the north Pacific, where authorities of the remote Marshall Islands have been found to be the ones technically responsible for scrutinising safety standards on the doomed BP rig.
The rig, which was owned by Transocean, but under lease to BP when it exploded and sank on 20 April, is regarded as an ocean-going vessel in legal terms.
In common with 34 other Transocean oil rigs, Deepwater Horizon was registered under the flag of convenience of the Marshall Islands ... (which) ... means the Marshall Islands' shipping registry was responsible for ensuring compliance with quality standards for construction, equipment and operation on the rig ... (it) ... is also obliged to investigate any accidents that occur on its maritime vessels, including the loss of the Deepwater Horizon ...
Questions have been raised in the US Congress about why Transocean registers its rigs in a country 7,000 miles from Washington with a gross domestic product of $133m – 700 times less than BP's market capitalisation ...
Guardian 30 May 2010 Corporate Sociopathy
As the investigation into the BP oil rig explosion accelerates, new information has been surfacing in congressional hearings in Washington pointing to possible problems with the casings that were put around the bore hole in the sea bed and the cementing that is critical to sealing it up.What was Halliburton's role in US oil spill?
Honour among thieves?
Halliburton did the cementing at the well, under contract to BP. It was to inject the cement to seal the casing in the bore hole to make any seepage of gas and oil impossible, and insert the cement plug that would have allowed BP to return at a later date to begin production.
Last August, Halliburton was involved in the cementing of a well in the Timor Sea off the coast of Australia that similarly blew out, sending thousands of gallons into the ocean ...
The notion that blame for the blast could eventually be put on Halliburton might be tempting for BP. Indeed, at early hearings, BP seemed to point fingers both at Halliburton and at Transocean ... prompting a rebuke from President Obama.
From the start, Halliburton's lawyers have insisted that its men on the rig were simply following specifications and instructions from BP ...
Transocean has made a similar case that as the owner of the lease on the well, BP must be ultimately responsible.
Independent 30 May 2010 Corporate SociopathyOil spill creates huge undersea 'dead zones'
Documents Show Early Worries About Safety of Rig
Internal documents from BP show that there were serious problems and safety concerns with the Deepwater Horizon rig far earlier than those the company described to Congress last week.
The problems involved the well casing and the blowout preventer, which are considered critical pieces in the chain of events that led to the disaster on the rig.
The documents show that in March, after several weeks of problems on the rig, BP was struggling with a loss of “well control.” And as far back as 11 months ago, it was concerned about the well casing and the blowout preventer.
On June 22, for example, BP engineers expressed concerns that the metal casing the company wanted to use might collapse under high pressure ...
NYT 29 May 2010How the Sun King sank BP
BP shares drop as clean-up cost approaches $1bn
City informed that 'top kill' procedure to block oil leak in Gulf of Mexico will not work on its own as ocean experts warn of 'unprecedented disaster' ...
The spill, which has seen oil spewing into the ocean for more than a month after the explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig on 20 April, has cost the company $930m (£640m) so far, it told the City this morning. The cost has gone up steadily from the $625m estimate it issued on 18 May ...rezaa 28 May 2010, 3:56PMDeepwater Horizon 28 May 2010
ONLY $1 billion??!! BP made $5.75 billion profit in the first 3 months of 2010. My heart bleeds for poor BP.
LostintheUS 29 May 2010, 2:39AM
... The drilling engineer is the absolute top dog on a drilling rig. They are the captain of the ship.
Deepwater Horizon was way over budget and BP was putting pressure on to speed up production on that well.
BP's drilling engineer was the one who pulled rank and made the decision to ignore test data that "screamed" that a catastrophe was about to happen.
BP is clearly to blame in this catastrophe ...
There are no mysteries about this. Read the back stories of the Times-Picayune and Oildrum.com to learn from people in the industry.'Top kill' operation fails
Anger grows along oil-ravaged beaches
BP Engineers Making Little Headway
The Oil Drum
BP launches ‘junk shot’ to stem Louisiana oil leak
The US Government released data yesterday showing that the oil was leaking at up to 19,000 barrels per day — nearly four times higher than BP’s previous estimate of 5,000 barrels.
The oil giant initially claimed after the Deepwater Horizon rig sank on April 22 that just 1,000 barrels per day were leaking from the well.
The latest figures indicate that between 18.6 million gallons and 29.5 million gallons of crude oil have leaked into the sea — outstripping the 11 million gallons spilled in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster ...
More than 1.8 million feet of boom have been laid to protect some of the most ecologically valuable areas.
BP yesterday stood down 125 of the civilian boat crews who have been assisting the programme after 11 fishermen fell sick with nausea, dizziness, headaches and chest pains after working close to the oil in Breton Sound, to the east of New Orleans. One was taken to hospital by air ambulance.
Biologists from the US Fish and Wildlife Service who are patrolling beaches and wetlands along the Gulf Coast have recovered 492 birds and 228 sea turtles, some dead. They believe that thousands of creatures will die unseen or unrescued.
Times 28 May 2010
BP Used Riskier Method to Seal Oil Well Before Blast
Several days before the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, BP officials chose, partly for financial reasons, to use a type of casing for the well that the company knew was the riskier of two options, according to a BP document.
The concern with the method BP chose, the document said, was that if the cement around the casing pipe did not seal properly, gases could leak all the way to the wellhead, where only a single seal would serve as a barrier.
Using a different type of casing would have provided two barriers, according to the document, which was provided to The New York Times by a Congressional investigator.
Workers from the rig and company officials have said that hours before the explosion, gases were leaking through the cement, which had been set in place by the oil services contractor, Halliburton.
Investigators have said these leaks were the likely cause of the explosion ...
NYT 26 May 2010Panel Suggests Signs of Trouble Before Rig Explosion
Washington and BP -- 'Like a Junkie Controlling His Dealer'
Despite Moratorium, Drilling Projects Move Ahead
Agency Orders Use of a Less Toxic Chemical in Gulf
How the Sun King sank BP
Deepwater Horizon survivor describes horrors of blast and escape from rig
These things Stephen Davis cannot banish from his memory from that night of chaos aboard the Deepwater Horizon: the sensation of being flung into a wall by a powerful explosion, the desperate, muddy scramble on a deck lit only by the reflections from a huge pillar of flame; the look in men's eyes before they jumped 18 metres into the water ...
For Davis, the events of that night, when the rig exploded killing 11 of the 126 crew, was only the beginning of his ordeal.
He says he and other survivors were to spend the next 40 hours in isolation – barred from phoning their families – while his lawyers believe Transocean, the owners of the rig, readied its legal defences. Seventeen crew members were seriously injured in the incident ...LostintheUSGuardian 20 May 2010 Eating the Future
20 May 2010, 9:55PM
You folks have heard of the Gulf Stream, right? As soon as those submerged and floating oil masses round up the Atlantic coastline of Florida, they will be drawn into the Gulf Stream.
And where does the Gulf Stream end up?
The UK.
Most of the world's oil skimming equipment should be in the Gulf of Mexico right now.
One of my relatives retired from the engineering petroleum field and used to work for BP. He said BP is clearly to blame.
Here is an excerpt from today's New Orleans Times-Picayune:
"BP hired a top oilfield service company to test the strength of cement linings on the Deepwater Horizon's well, but sent the firm's workers home 11 hours before the rig exploded April 20 without performing a final check that a top cementing company executive called "the only test that can really determine the actual effectiveness" of the well's seal.
A spokesman for the testing firm, Schlumberger, said BP had a Schlumberger team and equipment for sending acoustic testing lines down the well "on standby" from April 18 to April 20. But BP never asked the Schlumberger crew to perform the acoustic test and sent its members back to Louisiana on a regularly scheduled helicopter flight at 11 a.m., Schlumberger spokesman Stephen T. Harris said.
At a few minutes before 10 p.m., a belch of natural gas shot out of the well, up a riser pipe to the rig above, igniting massive explosions, killing 11 crewmembers and sending millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf. The rig's owner, Transocean, blames failed cement seals, installed by Halliburton, for the disastrous blowout."
No mystery here, folks. BP made the decision not to conduct the time-consuming final acoustic test. And Halliburton was using an experimental cement for the cement seal.
The long-term risk is in the potential for harsher industry-wide regulations, both in the US and other oil-producing nations ...Oil is sinking amid 'oceans of public debt'
The Torygraph is concerned lest the Gulf oil spill should lead to 'tighter regulation'
For example, the intense focus on the quality of the sunken rig’s safety valve – its blowout preventer – makes it likely that a more expensive remote activation button will become compulsory at a cost of $500,000 (£343,000) per well.
In addition to extra safety devices, there is expected to be more paperwork plus higher insurance premiums.
There is also the prospect of pecuniary punishment from President Obama’s team, which has grown increasingly frustrated with BP’s inability to stop the leak.
In return for the bad publicity, it could well end the industry’s $36.5bn in tax breaks and hand subsidies over to eco-friendly wind or biofuel projects.
Edward Morse, an analyst at Credit Suisse, has estimated that a tightening of regulations will “potentially raise the cost of finding and developing a barrel of oil in deep water by 10pc to 15pc, or $5 to $10 a barrel. We don’t expect anything to impede drilling entirely, just delay it and potentially raise costs.” ...
Telegraph 16 May 2010Danger for Florida
BP insists oil spill impact 'very modest'
Marine scientists study ocean-floor film of Deepwater oil leak
One analysis suggests gusher is 70,000 barrels daily, or an Exxon Valdez every four days, and 12 times more powerful than estimates by Coast Guard or BP ...
Guardian 13 May 2010 Deepwater Horizon survivor describes horrorsBlowout preventer 'faulty' - Congress
Oil spill puts survival of BP at stake
As a high-stakes operation to shut off a blown-out oil well unfolded on the seabed and a 130-mile wide slick menaced the coastline of four US states, a top US official was warning that the survival of BP as a company was under threat ...
The leak, which is spewing more than 200,000 gallons a day — or 2.5 million gallons since the blowout two weeks ago — has overtaken the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in terms of volume ...
The disaster has not daunted big oil. Shell urged an appeals court in Oregon to allow it to drill in the Arctic, countering a challenge by environmentalists.
The Louisiana Oil and Gas Association admitted that while it expects to be hit with tighter safety regulations, the industry must stand firm.
“We don’t stop because we’ve run up against the wall,” Don Briggs, its president, said. “There are 250 million vehicles in this country and 96 per cent of them run on oil.”
Times 08 May 2010Obama: No more cosying up to oil industry
An Exxon Valdez every four days
Tread carefully, Mr Obama. You need big oil
Gulf oil spill could be unprecedented disaster - Obama
What a difference an oil spill makes.Mr Obama said his government would do whatever it takes to clean up the oil, adding that BP was responsible and must pay.
Back in the dim and distant - 31 March 2010 to be precise - blogger okubax told The Guardian that the US had 'the right' to drill for oil 'in it's own offshore locations' following Obama's decision to overturn a 20-year on drilling off the coast of Virginia.
The President's assertion that the catastrophe was the fault of BP ignores the claim made by a spokesperson for the Gulf Restoration Network that BP would not have been allowed to drill in European waters without installing “blowout preventers” which shut the well down in an emergency.
She further claimed this is not a requirement under US regulations, though the Times report suggests that these failed rather than they were not fitted.
Hindsight, of course, is a wonderful thing.
Perhaps, however, it might occur to Presidents, Prime Ministers, and energy chiefs, that the money spent on causing - and cleaning up after - this catastrophe, might have been better spent on searching for ways of extracting hydrogen from water in a way that does not use more energy than it recovers. [EROEI]
He said the focus was now on preventing any further damage to the Gulf coast.
BP says it will be at least a week before temporary measures to stem the leak are in place.
But it could take up to three months to drill relief wells that could fully contain the spillage, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar warned on Sunday.
BBC News 03 May 2010Oil spill disaster is now 'out of control'
... criticism of BP was intensifying for apparently underestimating the scale of the disaster.Oil spill disaster is now 'out of control'
The British oil giant faces questions over how much it knew about previous problems with “blowout preventers”, the giant underwater valves designed to shut down oil flow in the event of accidents.
The valves on the rig failed to work after it exploded on April 20. BP technicians have been unable to activate them even though they appear to be undamaged by the blast ...
The Times 02 May 2010
Conservationists warn of 'true catastrophe' for wildlife
"It seems to me yet another man-made environmental tragedy on our hands," said Martin Spray, chief executive of the UK Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. "The coast of Louisiana has about 40% of the US coastal wetlands so it's a seriously important area. These are incredibly important for their fisheries as well, so there are human livelihoods involved as well."
"The terrible loss of 11 workers may be just the beginning of this tragedy as the oil slick spreads toward sensitive coastal areas vital to birds and marine life and to all the communities that depend on them," said Melanie Driscoll, a conservation director based in Louisiana for the US National Audubon Society (NAS). "For birds, the timing could not be worse - they are breeding, nesting and especially vulnerable in many of the places where the oil could come ashore." ...
Guardian 30 Apr 2010
BP Is Criticized Over Oil Spill, but U.S. Missed Chances to Act
The federal government also had opportunities to move more quickly, but did not do so while it waited for a resolution to the spreading spill from BP, which was leasing the drilling rig that exploded in flames on April 20 and sank two days later.
Eleven workers are missing and presumed dead ...
NYT 30 Apr 2010
US president will modify 20-year ban to exploit reserves off Virginia's coast as officials claim plan will end reliance on fuel imports ...Barack Obama to allow offshore oil drilling
okubaxGuardian 31 Mar 2010
31 Mar 2010, 5:22PM
... America needs to be self sufficient on it's energy needs and this is just one way to go about it, why have oil lying dormant in your backyard when you can use it.
So what most of you are implying is that America doesn't have the right to drill for oil in it's own offshore locations because of climate change ? .....please!
Whether most of you like it or not, oil and its derivatives are still going to be the primary source of energy for nations for decades to come.
Troubled Waters
BP’s hapless and obfuscatory response to the spill casts a pall on two reputations. The first is the company’s.
BP depicts itself as a force for clean energy and a greener world, yet it has produced an emerging environmental catastrophe whose effects it underestimated and whose dangers it failed to communicate.
The second is that of Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive.
To his credit, Mr Hayward immediately grasped the potential catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. He flew promptly to Houston, he summoned a huge containment operation and, rather than engage in an effort to lay the blame on Transocean, which was running the Deepwater Horizon operation, he squarely assumed BP’s responsibility for the disaster.
Yet faced with a human tragedy and ecological disaster, he has appeared dilatory and ineffectual. Eleven people died in the initial explosion on the rig, huge stretches of American coastline and marshland are threatened, and marine life is at risk.
Mr Hayward has been co-ordinating the company’s containment operation. In that task he has been neither effective nor visible.
BP initially estimated the leak of crude oil from the damaged rig amounted to 1,000 barrels a day. It took nine days for the company to admit that this was a serious underestimate, and that the true figure was five times that amount ...
Times 02 May 2010Deepwater Horizon oil spill sparks calls for ... drilling ban
BP profits jump after oil price rise
"We still need oil and gas" Manouchehr Takin tells The Guardian. And there's the problem: as demand expands, the need to replace these two finite resources with sustainable substitutes becomes more imperative. Instead, the search is directed at finding gas and oil reserves in "more hostile and challenging environments", probably because no current form of 'renewables' will replace the multiplicity of jobs which gas and oil perform.BP has smashed City forecasts with a 135% jump in profits, thanks to rising oil prices.
The energy giant reported profits of $5.6bn (£3.6bn) in the first three months of 2010, up from $2.4bn a year ago ...
Guardian 27 Apr 2010
Deepwater Horizon disaster reflects the increasing danger in extracting reserves from more and more hostile environments ...Oil rig sinking puts 'bad boy' industry in spotlight again
The Gulf of Mexico accident has once again focused attention on the industry's safety record as oil companies drill ever deeper and in more hostile and challenging environments.
Although figures for global safety show improvement in recent years, the data masks some worrying trends.
In 2008, the most recent data available from the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (OGP), the injury rate for workers involved in exploring for oil and gas was one-third higher than the average for the previous five years; in Africa this rate was four times higher.
With companies pushing the boundaries of exploration to regions such as northern Siberia, it is no surprise that fatality rates are on the rise.
Exploration is particularly risky because it often involves drilling in areas which have not been mapped, so little is known about the geology and about any hydrocarbons lying beneath the seabed.
... Manouchehr Takin of the Centre for Global Energy Studies said:
"Perhaps I'm biased. But accidents like this one will amplify the image of the industry as a bad boy. That is unfair, I think. We still need oil and gas."
Guardian 26 Apr 2010They wait for oil. But the sea brings death instead
Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion
Natural gas reserves