When the Exxon Valdez oil spill happened the chair of the Trustees panel said simply: “lawyers not yet born will work on this one”. His prediction essentially came true as the spill lawsuits grinded backwards and forwards through the courts as Exxon did everything in its power to delay and derail the legal process. As … Read More
Deepwater Horizon
“Of particular concern is the ability to stop a blowout once it has begun.”
When Time magazine compiled a list of its “Dirty Dozen” people it held responsible for BP’s oil spill it is hardly surprising that BP’s two recent CEOs John Browne and Tony Hayward topped the list. Number three on the list, though, was a name most people had never heard of: Chris Oynes. Oynes was the … Read More
The Special Relationship Stops at the Pump
Maybe it’s just the media, but Britain is obsessed over the strength of the so-called special relationship between the US and UK. In times of war and peace, through different Presidents and Prime Ministers, the bond is deemed to be strong. But what about that bond and oil spills?
Scientists Attack White House Spin
The fall-out continues from the US government report saying that 75 per cent of the spilled oil from BP’s macondo well has gone. Scientists say it is “just not true” that the vast majority of oil from the BP spill has gone and in fact the opposite is true – that up to 75 per … Read More
“Its too early to make any conclusions about the true scale of the damage.”
Yesterday the reporting on this issue went like this: BP has successfully plugged the well, and the US government said that 75 per cent of the oil had been cleaned up. This means the Gulf disaster was exaggerated, Tony Hayward was right after all about a small drop in a large ocean and, hey presto … Read More
The Good News, the Bad and the Ugly
First the good news. BP says its “static kill” on its Macondo well has succeeded so far, describing the moment as a “significant milestone”. The “static kill”, which started yesterday, involved pumping heavy drilling mud from the top of the well slowly down, pushing the oil back down into the reservoir. The oil was stopped … Read More
BP: The Biggest Polluter as spill confirmed as “world’s worst”
Whatever happens today when BP begins to finally cap its Macondo well with a “static kill”, latest estimates are that the spill is the world’s biggest accidental oil leak. An estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil gushed from the well before it was capped last month. When the spill first occurred back in April, people … Read More
“Carpet bombed” dispersants act as a “delivery system” for oil
As BP prepared over the next few days to permanently seal its Macondo well, there is growing evidence that its use of dispersants is going to have severe political, ecological and legal ramifications. The political fall-out from their use intensified last week. Ed Markey, the Chair of the Committee on Energy and Commerce wrote to … Read More
NWF Attack Oil Industry’s “Assault on America”
Yesterday Shell waded into the Deepwater fall-out by defending deep-water drilling. Peter Voser, Shell chief executive, argued that deep-water drilling still had an important role to play in global energy supply. “We have got growth potential there”. But what cost is this growth? Even the industry’s own trade magazines are questioning the business as usual … Read More
The Boom Times Are Back
From one disaster to another.. Early on during Deepwater, I blogged on how the Canadians were looking to exploit the spill to push their dirty oil. The fact has not been lost on the industry bible, the Petroleum Economist, (PE) which notes in its July edition that “whisper it, but the US’ misfortune could be … Read More