Posts Tagged ‘Halliburton’
Pots, kettles and oil, all black…
In the latest from the MDL litigation, Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon, alleged that their contract with British Petroleum, the leaseholder of the Macondo Well, had indemnified them against any liabilities for pollution underneath the surface of the Gulf, and also against any civil penalties under the Clean Water Act or punitive damages from being declared grossly negligent. British Petroleum, of course asserted otherwise, as did the US Department of Justice.
Well, yesterday Judge Barbier issued his rulings. He decided the contract did indeed clear Transocean from those damage claims occurring below the surface of the water, it is British Petroleum who will be the responsible party for pollution damages from the 4.9 million barrels that leaked directly from the Macondo Well. Barbier also ruled the contract did not shield Transocean from any liability for punitive damages should their company be declared grossly negligent, nor did it indemnify them from any potential civil penalties under the Clean Water Act.
Transocean, of course, declared this ruling a victory, “This confirms that BP is responsible for all economic damages caused by the oil that leaked from its Macondo well, and discredits BP’s ongoing attempts to evade both its contractual and financial obligations. Transocean is pleased to see its position affirmed, consistent with the law and the long-established model for allocating risks in the offshore oil and gas industry…”
This only makes sense.
You see, BP was trying to skirt their responsibilities under the law and Barbier set them straight.
British Petroleum also felt themselves to be quite victorious, “Today’s ruling makes clear that contractors will be held accountable for their actions under the law. While all official investigations have concluded that Transocean played a causal role in the accident, the contractor has long contended it is fully indemnified by BP for the liabilities resulting from the oil spill. The Court rejected this view…”
This too only makes sense.
You see, Transocean was trying to skirt their responsibilities under the the law and Barbier set them straight.
And with spin factories so readily engaged, victory toasts were had all around.
Executives clapped lawyers on backs and lawyers hit speed dials to their favorite banking institutions to check account balances.
And with all these companies claiming all these victories over all these decisions, when the dust settled and the cheering finally dissipated into idle conversations about Super Bowls and stock options, it was almost kind of easy to forget that when it comes to this catastraphuk that unleashed 4.9 million barrels of oil after an explosion that killed eleven people, just how there really were no victories to be had here…
When it comes to the worst environmental disaster to hit the United States, British Petroleum had a hand in it, and so did Transocean, and for that matter so did Anardarko and Halliburton…and no matter how Barbier ruled yesterday, not one person from any of these companies has yet to spend a day in jail.
So yeah…Transocean claims victory. British Petroleum claims victory. Transocean calls British Petroleum liable and vice versa, yet eleven people are still dead while thousands of others still wait to be made whole, and all cheering aside, that’s something someone should be liable for…criminally.
Read the article:
Judge says Transocean will be shielded from paying pollution claims
Have a nice day.
Reason #183 BP’s cleanup was about PR from the very beginning…
Kneel before Zod, bitches!
Can’t you just imagine BP’s control room after the oil gushing into the Gulf hit mainstream news worldwide?
Bunch of sweaty suits and PR flacks sitting around, not concerned about the truth per se, but more about how to spin what couldn’t be denied, that the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Coast were about to be really screwed, and for a long time… Oil companies had already become the bane of everyone’s existence as their profits skyrocketed even higher than gas prices. British Petroleum’s safety record was full of fuck-ups, their previous mishaps had killed their employees before and now, they had unleashed the mother of all fuck-ups and killed eleven more people.
Good lord was it ever public relations time! PR departments were invented for these kinds of situations.
No, British Petroleum would not admit this was their fault, but they would work with the Obama administration to come up with a $20 billion dollar compensation fund and they’d go all over the news to talk about making things right, about making the Gulf whole again…about doing whatever it could, as an ethical company to make sure this never happened again and also to mitigate the damages as much as technologically and humanly possible.
And they put their efforts all over the television, the radio, the internet.
Course, as we approach the two-year anniversary and all the mainstream new outlets are gone, as the American public has stopped paying attention…as public relations become increasingly unnecessary, British Petroleum has decided the oil spill was never their fault at all, and they want their money back, every last fucking dime from the real culprit…
Halliburton.
No, British Petroleum never meant to be the penitent company they played while the cameras were bright. That was just a show, a sham, a staged media event and now that nobody’s paying attention, now that fewer mainstream journalists are around to call them a bunch of fucking weasels…
British Petroleum is blaming everybody else.
And they’re suing Halliburton for the entire cost of cleanup – $42 billion dollars – and hey, even if the suit doesn’t work, maybe it’ll help them avoid a declaration of gross negligence, which would vastly increase their oil spill fine…
Disingenuous assholes.
Yes sir, British Petroleum is again engaging in the egotistical, do no wrong kind of behavior that makes an increasing percentage of Americans hate said oil companies or maybe a better way of putting it would be that as the media’s cameras turn off for good, BP is again free to be BP…an irresponsible, ethically challenged, profit before worker and environmental safety oil company who’ll try to do whatever it can to walk away from their clusterfuck of almost two years ago at the expense of…whomever.
Course, that’s just my opinion…
Read the article:
BP sues Halliburton over $42 billion oil spill bill
Have a nice day.
Halliburton responds to accusation: “BP’s just pissed they didn’t think of it first…”
So...disappointed...
Okay, not really…
But you were thinking it, weren’t you?
In case you don’t know what this is about, British Petroleum has accused Halliburton of intentionally destroying test results showing samples of the cement they used to seal the Macondo Well were unstable, in addition to the suppression of computer models that might have also showed them at fault.
In truth, Halliburton said they are reviewing the filing…
And that’s about all the truth you’re going to get, especially from companies like British Petroleum who, lest we forget, fought to keep the press out of the Gulf, has made it next to impossible for independent scientists to get the oil samples they need to do testing in the Gulf, as well as buy up scientists throughout the Gulf region.
Now, British Petroleum would maintain the latter was done so the cleanup wasn’t affected, that they are just following procedures and were trying to find the best and the brightest to help them with the expertise needed to make the cleanup a complete and rousing success…except of course, for the obvious, which is no pictures, no evidence, no way a scientist can testify against us now that you’re entire science department signed the confidentiality clause…
Yeah, BP’s full of it, duh…but nonetheless it leaves me to scratch my head and say, when it comes to accusing Halliburton of concealing or destroying evidence in the Gulf:
Jealousy will get you nowhere.
Read the articles:
Halliburton Unit Destroyed Evidence in Gulf Oil-Spill Case, BP Tells Court
BP says Halliburton destroyed Gulf spill evidence
Have a nice day.
Feds, Coast Guard, join BP to prove they’ve learned very little…
This was very unlikely to not have happened, or not ever happen again...maybe...
In two developments this past week, British Petroleum officially welcomed the Coast Guard and the Federal Government to their party that history forgot. Behind the ivy covered walls, steel doors and security guards of BP headquarters, Bob Dudley toasted Coast Guard Captain, Julia Heim and BOEMRE head, Michael Bromwich, celebrating a rousing relapse of maritime irresponsibility and forgetfulness. Toast completed, Bob turned on the tequila fountain, shaped like a deepwater oil rig, and they all took an extra shot for luck…
Whereupon a few Gulf Coast journalists decided to go and wreck the party by writing a few editorials to ask Julia and Michael…um, what the hell, remember the whole oil spill, corporate irresponsibility thing?
Julia and Michael, you remember all that, right?
Well, apparently Julia, the Coast Guard Captain, doesn’t remember shit because while the Coast Guard signed an agreement with BP, transitioning the clean-up portion of the response towards one of coastal recovery, she seemed to forget a few very important details. Not only does the agreement allow BP to pretty much weasel their way out of any more clean-up and its accompanying costs, she forgot to specify any long-term monitoring of the Gulf Coast. Captain Hein also left out any part where BP continues to pay for aerial monitoring of the Macondo well site.
Yeah, bang-up job, Ms. Hein.
So, all this means that if/when oil comes into the Louisiana wetlands and marshes it will now be up to the public to discover and report it. Then, the state will have to prove it is actually BP oil, which as the oil degrades will become increasingly impossible to do, which in turn will leave the state on the line to pay for the clean-up. When Tropical Storm Lee hit on Labor Day and dumped tar mats, tar balls and other assorted tar products…BP’s clean-up was very slow and when the next storm hits, it will be even slower, or not come at all…thanks to the Coast Guard and their bullshit agreement. Not to mention all those oil slicks they kept discovering this fall by the Macondo Well. Remember? BP and the Coast Guard denied the slicks even existed, until they were photographed by a non-profit group. Then they denied the slicks were in the vicinity of the Macondo site, until it was shown they were, and finally, they then denied the oil actually came from the Macondo well until journalists had tests run, proving them wrong for a third time.
Now, any more monitoring is on the state dime.
Garret Graves, chairman of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority said of the Coast Guard’s relationship with BP, it’s “like they’re a victim of Stockholm Syndrome,” referring to a phenomenon in which hostages become sympathetic to their captors, but I disagree. The Coast Guard never seemed like a hostage at all, more of a willing participant or co-conspirator in this agreement, one which Louisiana representatives refused to sign, a fact Julia and the Coast Guard simply ignored, going ahead with the agreement regardless. No, that ain’t a hostage, that’s someone with an open invite to party with Bob.
Which brings us to the other party guest, Mr. Michael Bromwich…
This individual currently runs what was formerly the MMS, that lovely regulatory agency that was doing blow and hookers with the oil company reps they were supposed to be monitoring. No wonder the Deepwater Horizon blew up, hard to see a design flaw in the specs when the design prints are on a table covered with empty beer cans. Now, as we all know, the MMS is the BOEMRE, a much more catchy acronym that stands for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, and with this new moniker came a brand new seriousness about safety, or so we’ve all been told, but then they go and release to the public a draft called the “Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement.” The point of the BOEMRE’S OCSOGPEIS is to analyze and weigh the “environmental implications of continued drilling in federal waters between 2012 and 2017,” also, “the economic analysis associated with the new impact statement projects the potential for future spills and the damage they might cause based on all “spills from 1964-2010 excluding the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon (DWH) event.””
Wait, what?
So, when this agency estimated environmental impacts and possibilities of a spill by analyzing data from the past, they decided to leave out the economic and environmental impacts of the biggest oil spill in United States history?
Why, because it screwed up the curve?
Believe it or not…that’s precisely why. From the report and accompanying article, “If a more recent period is chosen (1990-2009)” for the risk analysis. For instance, using only the 19 years prior to the BP spill in the environmental analysis, the report concludes, this would further “decrease the anticipated environmental costs” of continued drilling.”
You see, if we just kind of leave out the whole millions of barrels spilled, millions of gallons of Corexit dispersant dumped, eleven people dead thing from last summer, well then, deepwater drilling not only looks more economically beneficial but damnit, wouldn’t you know it is environmentally sound, too? Really, no fooling.
Course another take on it could be: “By omitting the nation’s largest environmental disaster from its calculation of the environmental costs of drilling, BOEMRE continues to bury its head in the sand and pretend that the Deepwater Horizon accident never happened,” Catherine Wannamaker, with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said in an emailed statement. Wannamaker said that even low-probability events such as the Deepwater Horizon blowout must be included when looking at the economic and environmental costs of offshore drilling, “BOEMRE tries to move forward without truly accounting for these risks and costs,” Wannamaker said. “This is not a responsible course of action for a supposedly reformed agency.”
How much you wanna bet Ms. Wannamaker never gets invited to any of Bob’s parties.
Well, she wouldn’t be the only one because it sure seems these get togethers are not meant for you and I, especially if we have a vested interest in not only ensuring BOEMRE fulfills its responsibilities by monitoring the oil companies and all of these wells, but also that British Petroleum is not allowed to walk away from their responsibilities in the Gulf as they seem hell-bent on doing, with the complicity of BOEMRE, the Coast Guard and the Obama Administration.
Remember back when the oil spill first happened? Congress was truly up in arms and they promised to regulate this, enforce that, do whatever they had to do to ensure a preventable tragedy such as the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon could never happen again…so they declared, promised, wrote out in blood, but when push came to shove, Congress passed nothing. Well, the Coast Guard’s bullshit agreement and BOEMRES skewed numbers are just more of this same pattern. Both agencies like to talk about the unlikelihood of such catastrophic events. Yeah, that’s great and all, this ongoing unlikelihood…but it sure as hell don’t keep the coast safe and it didn’t keep those eleven men on the Deepwater Horizon alive.
What the Gulf Coast and this entire country needs, right now, is for the government to finally step up and proceed with true regulation and actual enforcement of industry, because if there’s one thing we know, they sure as hell aren’t going to do it themselves.
Have a nice day.
British Petroleum: (still) encouraging the responsibility of others…
You could be forgiven for thinking that large object in the background is a crystal chandelier, but you'd be wrong...that's actually a specially built clear glass container where Bob keeps his ego. Yes I know, don't worry, the brand new, much larger container will be installed next Friday.
Bob Dudley announced Monday that British Petroleum had come to terms with Anadarko, which has agreed to give up its 25% stake in the Macondo Well and pay British Petroleum $4 billion dollars as its share of damage claims and cleanup costs.
“I am very pleased that they stepped in and are now shouldering some of the responsibilities,” BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley said. He went on to add the agreement was not an admission of liability from either party, but the settlement is “favorable for both companies.”
Well, of course nobody is liable, of course, but favorable to both Anadarko and British Petroleum…how might that be?
Well, simply put, British Petroleum has estimated total costs in cleanup and damages will eventually reach $42 billion dollars. Anadarko could have potentially been on the line for 25% of that due to its 25% ownership of the well. However, if Anadarko had been able to prove in its lawsuit that British Petroleum was grossly negligent, then they would have been financially off the hook altogether. So, essentially Anadarko chose to cut their losses, with BP agreeing to the company paying only 10% of projected damages and cleanup costs, while Anadarko also gives up its pursuit of proving BP was grossly negligent in the spill.
And in case one needs reminding, a proven designation of gross negligence would raise BP’s fine by $18 billion dollars, because the fine per barrel under such a designation would increase from $1,100 per barrel to $4,300 dollars.
And that’s getting expensive, really expensive, so though Bob was glad to see Anadarko “shouldering some of the responsibilities,” what BP really wanted was for the company to stop pursuing this designation, same as they want to settle with Transocean and Halliburton more than likely under the same terms, possibly saving British Petroleum billions… billions that would go towards the restoration of the Gulf Coast, billions that would certainly constitute BP fulfilling their sense of responsibility, and potentially coming closer to finally making the coast whole again.
So yeah, when Bob Dudley says on Monday, “There is clear progress with parties stepping forward to meet their obligations and help fund the economic and environmental restoration of the Gulf, it’s time for the contractors, including Transocean and Halliburton, to do the same,” that’s pretty damned annoying to hear from the CEO of British Petroleum, and pretty self-serving too.
I get that as a profit-making company, Bob and BP are beholden to their shareholders. I also understand it only makes sense in our current system for a profit-making company to try real hard to not pay out damages, regardless of who or how many it hurts, while at the same time, giving the impression they are doing all they can to make things right.
Okay, understood.
But Bob? Mr. Dudley?
To those of us who pay close attention to this story, we do see what is going on here. Your company complains Ken Feinberg is paying too much to claimants. Your company bought off scientists from universities all over the Gulf Coast in hopes of furthering your advantage in upcoming court proceedings. Your company killed eleven people in this catastraphuk alone. Your company is making it very difficult for researchers to get their hands on necessary oil samples so they can find ways to restore the coast your company fucked up. Your company stands accused of harassing plaintiffs who have filed lawsuits against it.
And yes, your company is fighting the designation of gross negligence while at the same time urging other companies to own up to their obligations and responsibilities.
In other words, Bob, you’re full of shit.
Your company is grossly negligent. There is little to dispute about that, but what, unfortunately, is very much in dispute is whether you sons of bitches are going to be able to buy your way out of it.
Read the article:
BP gets $4bn from Anadarko as part of a Gulf settlement
Have a nice day.
More agendas than shrimp in the Gulf…
Yes, this many agendas...
It’s got to be hard to be a shrimper.
I know I certainly don’t envy anyone who makes their living by what they catch from Gulf waters, be they shrimpers or fishers or whoever, because things don’t seem to be getting much better. The catch, especially the shrimp catch is way off, with some shrimpers estimating their catch to be off by 80%. In one article I read, a company used to taking in ten thousand pounds of shrimp per day has taken in about 41,000 pounds all season.
And it isn’t just the shrimp.
Many have read reports of the killifish, and the cellular damage done to its reproductive functions and gills as a result of hydrocarbon poisoning. Many also are aware this small minnow like fish is near the bottom of the food chain and is considered a good indicator of the Gulf’s general health.
Even Ken Feinberg seemed to backtrack the other day on his estimation of a recovered Gulf by 2013 when he said of the shrimp catch, “We are monitoring this, and we are sensitive to these concerns. We reserve the right to change the formula if anecdotal and empirical evidence justifies it.” And that’s about as close to an admission of error as one’s likely to get from Ken, not that he’ll actually change anything but I suppose admitting to a problem is the first step.
Oh and let’s see, what else? Ah yes, though the FDA has maintained the Gulf seafood is safe to eat, a new study has challenged this assumption, reporting the FDA’s qualifications on what constitutes safe are incredibly flawed.
So…bad catches, sick fish, FDA screw-ups…yep, it’s got to be hard to be a shrimper, a fisher, anyone working the Gulf waters these days…and besides the fact the oil’s still out there, you know what else isn’t helping, what’s making this whole Gulf Coast mess even worse?
Eighteen months later, the information is still inconsistent. We’ve been treated to eighteen months of profit margins, legal maneuverings and a whole range of answers and/or denials to every goddamned question…
Everyone has been forced to endure eighteen months of agendas.
The EPA, the FDA and the NOAA all appear to have an agenda designed to make it seem the Gulf is perfectly fine. British Petroleum’s agenda is all about savings and profit margin, all the time, and their stance too is that everything is okay in the Gulf. The Obama Administration has their own agendas, their own problems. For starters, they’re not seen as trustworthy, having initially ceded far too much control to British Petroleum in the capping of the well and the clean-up, and now, today, they are widely perceived as having forgotten the Gulf Coast even exists at all…
And all these agendas, they all bring us back to the seafood industry.
What exactly is a fisher supposed to make of all this? That person who is just trying to get their life back to normal, who wants to get back to work, but also doesn’t want to make anybody sick; what the fuck are they supposed to do? Who are they supposed to believe? Who are they supposed to trust? BP? The government? The FDA and NOAA? All these entities telling them everything is fine, or the increasingly negative academic studies, not to mention the fishers own years of experience in the Gulf waters, showing them that something appears to be wrong out there…
So hard to know for sure, and such an unenviable place to be.
And you know what really pisses me off?
It didn’t have to be this way, not at all.
If British Petroleum had stuck to their promises to make people whole. If Feinberg had stuck to his promises to take care of the people in the Gulf British Petroleum hadn’t gotten to, perhaps then the financial pressures could have been eased off on everybody. If the Obama Administration had done more than toss out a fucking speech and Barack had come down to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and done more than look concerned, pick up a tarball or eaten a damned shrimp…if Obama had worked, as a leader and kept the Gulf, and everything the Gulf means to this country in the foreground of American consciousness…maybe then these problems would seem more manageable today, to everybody.
If the only agenda in the Gulf had been to make sure people were taken care of and those responsible for this mess were held accountable…yes, if that had been the only agenda, then today in the Gulf we might at least have trust.
Instead, all we got are versions of what’s real: BP’s version, Obama’s version, the FDA’s version, the NRDC’s version, LSU’s, the shrimper’s, Halliburton’s and the GCCF’s version…just to name a few.
And that ain’t helping anybody.
Certainly not the public, and certainly not the people who continue to suffer as a result of BP’s catastraphuk.
So what now?
Wish I knew…all I hope for at this point is that Feinberg, for once, can be taken at his word, and he actually will take a long, hard look at the recovery estimates he based his methodology upon…because if you work harder to catch only 20% of the shrimp you normally get, the payment methodology needs to be changed.
Oh, and to the BP spokesman who said the 80% drop-off in the shrimp catch is within the normal range of good and bad seasons, you are just one more bullshit microphone with another ethically conflicted agenda, and you should be tossed into the next oil sheen spotted on the Gulf’s surface above the Macondo wellhead.
So, to sum up…a corporation screwed up and did billions in financial damage to an entire region of the country, not to mention the emotional toll on people and the physical toll on the environment. The people have recourse to the law, but that is a process that could take decades. The government issues false platitudes and seems to disappear just when they are needed most, almost as if they are backing the corporations that did the damage rather than the people who got screwed.
And nobody goes to jail.
Hey, now that I think about it, sure sounds familiar, kinda like what those people in New York are so pissed off about.
Maybe its time to occupy British Petroleum.
Have a nice day.
BP: encouraging the responsibility of others…
Personally, I'd love to meet him...
So, when the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement hit British Petroleum and their contractors with 15 “incidents of non-compliance,” BP expressed their hopes that now, finally, Transocean and Halliburton would admit responsibility, quit their complaining and put in the effort necessary to join BP in their current “safety first” environment.
“BP said it has taken steps to enhance safety and the sanctions show that its contractors also played a role in the spill, “We continue to encourage other parties, including Transocean and Halliburton, to acknowledge their responsibilities in the accident,” BP said in a statement.”
Because over the past 18 months, isn’t safety for the environment all British Petroleum has strived for? Of course, certainly…since the Macondo Well was plugged, BP has given nary a thought to profit and/or saving money. It is quite likely a moment of pure coincidence that such an admission of guilt by Transocean or Halliburton, as BP has asked for, would certainly bolster BP in their lawsuits against the two companies and/or avoid a declaration by the courts of “gross negligence.”
And I’m sure the savings involved in such possible events, why they never ever entered the mind of BP’s corporate personhood. Really, British Petroleum, in their new-found sense of responsibility is now all about safety, and only about safety, so it would make perfect sense for them to hope and pray that Halliburton and Transocean also make such strong safety goals a priority, you know, just like BP has and…wait, what?
Oil giant BP believes a worst-case oil spill nearly a mile below the Atlantic off Scotland would dwarf the U.S. Gulf oil spill, internal documents indicate. The contingency plans for a worst-case spill from a proposed exploratory well in wildlife-rich British waters off the Shetland Islands indicate a sea-floor oil gusher would spew 75,000 barrels of crude oil a day for 140 days before it could be capped — more than double the Gulf of Mexico spill’s 88-day average 53,000 barrels a day from April 20-July 15, 2010, the documents reviewed by Britain’s Independent newspaper indicated. The Gulf spill’s wellhead released about 4.9 million barrels before it was capped. The proposed North Uist exploratory well’s worst-case gusher would release 10.5 million barrels, the BP documents forecast.
Environmentalists say the well’s planned seabed location is in waters among the most wildlife-rich in all of Britain. Seabirds, including many rare species, are found in enormous concentrations, along with large numbers of whales, dolphins and seals and substantial fish stocks.
A BP spokesman told the newspaper the global oil and gas company was required by law to model the worst-case scenario, “But the reality is, the chances of a spill are very unlikely,” he said.
“Very unlikely,” he said.
Okay, that begs a question: what did BP consider the chances of the Deepwater Horizon blowing up to be?
Really likely? Kind of likely? Maybe kinda sorta once in a blue moon likely?
No, probably about as likely as Transocean and Halliburton are to suddenly acknowledge their responsibilities in the Macondo blowout. Or maybe just as likely as British Petroleum is to finally make all the Gulf Coast residents whole again…
No, I know, BP considered the possibility of the Deepwater Horizon exploding about as likely as BOEMRE again granting their company deep water drilling leases in the Gulf.
Wait…what?
U.S. Allows BP to Return to Gulf-Lease Bidding
Fuck.
Well, that isn’t encouraging at all.
Have a nice day.
