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
Deepwater Horizon
Always read the small print
Investors may have poured their cash into the rogue’s gallery that is the new venture by Tony Hayward and “Nat King Coal” Rothschild called Vallares. As I blogged yesterday, Vallares was over-subscribed raising just over $2 billion to buy assets in the oil and gas sector. Investors were said to be reassured by Hayward’s knowledge … Read More
Hayward and “Nat King Coal” Launch Oil Venture
This could be a toxic mix: take Deepwater-disaster man, Tony Hayward; the new coal baron, Nat Rothschild, and bankers Julian Mertherell and Tom Daniel, the former from discredited Goldman Sachs. Together you have someone who was ultimately responsible for America’s worst ever environmental disaster; someone who obviously does not care about climate change having invested … Read More
The “Spill Amnesia Bill”
A week, they say, can be a long time in politics. A year, therefore can be a lifetime. And long enough to forget. A year on from the Deepwater disaster, Republicans are acting as if the America’s largest ever oil spill did not in fact happen. It was just a distant bad dream. Yesterday, as … Read More
“I don’t see any daylight at the end of this tunnel”
At 10.00 AM today, BP’s 80,000 employees marked a minute’s silence in memory of those who died on the Deepwater Horizon, exactly a year ago. Meanwhile in the Gulf, relatives of the 11 men who died aboard the Deepwater Horizon are flying over the rig site, back to the epicenter of the disaster. On land, … Read More
BP “wanted control of the science”
This Wednesday is going to be a painful day for many. The first Anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon will be a deeply painful day for many of the workers who were on the fateful rig, and the families of the deceased. We must remember that eleven people died that day. At least 40 workers were … Read More
One Year Later: BP’s Contamination Continues
BP’s AGM tomorrow is set to be a tumultuous affair with the oil giant having to absorb criticism over the legacy of the it’s catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, its investment in the dirty Canadian tar sands and its dodgy deal with the Russian Rosneft to drill in the Arctic. Throw in … 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
Safety of Blow-Out Preventers “Just Hot Air”
One of the final puzzles of the Deepwater Horizon disaster has been solved. It is a mystery no more. A question that continues to haunt many in BP and in the oil industry is why did the supposed fail-safe mechanism to prevent a blowout, called the blowout preventer (BOP), actually fail. And fail so spectacularly. … Read More
Two Disasters, One Conflict, One Bad Result
Two years ago the oil price hit the floor at $33 a barrel. Today, on the back of the Libyan conflict, the price for Brent Crude is $116 a barrel. Two years ago, development of the Canadian tar sands was stalling with many projects being put on hold. According to the International Energy Agency, the … Read More