It’s been a good few days for BP. The company’s share price surged 5.1 per cent this morning after it was announced that Anadarko Petroleum will pay $4 billion to settle all claims for last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The US-based Anadarko Petroleum was a part-leaseholder of ill-fated Macondo well. As part of … Read More
offshore drilling
Rick Perry’s predictable energy plan
I wasn’t bowled over with surprise to hear news of Rick Perry’s energy plan today. I could have written it myself. The plan is a fossil fuel industry wish list. Open everything up and dismantle any regulation that might get in the way of digging, drilling, fracking and burning. It’s not really news. It wasn’t … Read More
“Very Close Match” Between New Spill And BP’s Well
A renewed push for permits by oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico is being overshadowed by a row over whether BP’s capped Macondo well is actually leaking oil. If the well is somehow still leaking this would have major ramifications for BP, but also the wider industry that is gearing up for further drilling … Read More
“Cowboy” Cairn Gags Greenpeace
One of the many ways in which powerful polluters try to silence their critics is through legal intimidation. And Cairn Energy, which is involved in controversial drilling in the Arctic, is no exception. For months Cairn has been dogged by Greenpeace, which has been campaigning against its Artic operations off Greenland. On Monday about 60 … Read More
BP: Back in the Gulf
With a haste that many will regard as reckless and a disregard for those who died in the Deepwater accident, BP will resume drilling in the Gulf of Mexico as early as July this year. So fifteen months after Deepwater, the concept of the disaster being some kind of game-changer that shifted the US towards … Read More
Free at Last?
For 300 long years Greenland has been part of Denmark. Denmark pumps $620 million into Greenland’s anaemic economy every year—more than $11,000 for each Greenlander. But this may be all about to change. In November 2008 its citizens voted overwhelmingly for increased independence from Denmark, which has officially ruled Greenland in some form since 1721. … Read More
Preventing Another “National Scandal”
We already know that the official Commission into the Deepwater disaster criticised BP for systematic management failures. But the Commission is set to criticise the Obama administration later today when the full and final report is launched at the National Press Club. It will argue that the Administration has not gone far enough to reform … Read More
After a Pause for Breath, Let’s Drill Baby…
It was always a matter of time before the Obama Administration buckled under the intense pressure of the oil industry and Gulf States and let drilling resume in the Gulf. Weeks earlier than expected, the administration lifted the moratorium on deep-water drilling, that was put in place in the aftermath of the Deepwater disaster. “We … Read More
Chevron Safety Inspections Could be Compromised
Late last week, the British government gave the goahead for the American oil company, Chevron to start drilling a deepwater exploratory well as part of its Lagavulin project in the waters north of the Shetland Islands. In a highly controversial move, it is the first time the new British Coalition government has granted permission for … Read More
“Deep-water drilling will continue because that’s where the oil is..”
The Washington Post this morning asks a fundamental question that has been played out in countless meetings of oil companies, government officials and environmental NGOs: “Will the oil spill make a drop of difference regarding our attitudes?” Some five months later, was the spill a game changer like many predicted? And the results seem to … Read More