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Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster - Myra Bronstein - 08-06-2010

[Emphasis mine.][B]

Alec Baldwin
[/B] / Actor
Posted: June 7, 2010 08:52 AM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/this-crisis-is-an-opportu_b_602640.html

I was speaking to a neighbor recently, out here on the East End of Long Island, about the BP Oil disaster and the impact the spill is having on the Louisiana coast, it's wildlife and fishing industries. Eastern Long Island may be vastly different from the Gulf Coast in terms of culture and politics. However, both regions share a deep and historic link to their waters. Even today, areas on Long Island stretching from Riverhead to both Orient and Montauk Points seem linked, in a rather romanticized way, to a fishing past that has dwindled sharply over the past 40 years.

And yet, like my neighbor, I cannot imagine facing, here where I live, what Gulf Coast residents are facing now. The destruction in the Gulf region, like the Katrina debacle and the September 11th attacks, reminds us that we are one country and that the sudden loss or destruction of our nation's freedoms, monuments, culture, servicemen and women, natural resources, you name it, casts into sharp focus what is ours to protect and defend.

The Gulf of Mexico, at least that part of it that is ours to maintain and fish and enjoy, belongs to every American. Just like the Great Lakes, the Grand Canyon, Monterey Bay, The Rocky Mountains, Cape Cod, Park Avenue, the Lincoln Memorial, the Little League ball field in your town, the place you have coffee at every morning, or take yoga or the place you go to have coffee and make fun of yoga . What is happening down there is happening to you and to me. Because resources like the Gulf ARE this country. They belong to us. And if you aren't so goddamned fed up with this crap from the oil industry that you want to scream, then maybe you need to have some tar balls fall out of the sky on to your front lawn before you get it.

I wrote in a previous post that a major global oil company would have to go out of business as a sign that we were on the right track regarding effective energy policy reform. Let that company be BP. In the process of being litigated by the government of this country in pursuit of remediating this problem, let BP die. The oil business can only sustain itself through the corruption we now know was (is?) rampant at the Minerals Management Service. Some of those in charge at that agency should be put on trial for treason. Some of the neocons that visits this site will nonetheless defend BP. They'll say they broke no law. That the government approved everything that went on down there.

My response to that is "What government?" Disasters like this remind us of what we have that matters most. They also sadly remind us of what we don't have that we desperately need. When it comes to the oil industry, we have no government. We have just a bunch of drunken, thieving whores who shilled for Big Oil called the Minerals Management Service.


Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster - Peter Presland - 08-06-2010

Myra Bronstein Wrote:Fun game everybody! Guess what Gulf of Mexico animals these used to be! Yay! Games!!!

Photos are attached. Don't cheat now.
Personally, I find these and the masses of other image and footage of the devastation in the GOM difficult to look at and the vast scale of the whole thing just depresses the hell out of me - and I'm in the UK!. So how must those living in the GOM coast lands be feeling right now?

There are those in the 'alternative news/blogsphere who poo-poo 'peak oil' theory as another establishment scam. However, the plain fact is that, unless 'Abiotic' oil is a reality - and it seems to me that the evidence for that is scant indeed - then oil is a finite resource. Apart from Iraq, Iran and the Caspian Basin, we have already pretty well used up the easy to get-at stuff; which of course explains much about the West's military subjugation of those benighted regions. Which in turn means that, in order to maintain global production at the levels necessary to maintain our non-negotiable life-styles (let alone for others to aspire to similar profligate levels) it has become absolutely necessary to go after the difficult to get-at stuff.

The implications of all this are crystal clear to me; but there remains near absolute denial that there is any such issue and that it will be back to business as usual just as soon as we can root out al Qaeda and get everyone borrowing and consuming again.

It is indeed a blind, stupid, crazy world we inhabit and I look to the future with considerable foreboding


Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster - Carsten Wiethoff - 09-06-2010

From http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/06/the-rigs-on-fire-i-told-you-this-was-gonna-happen/57775/

'The Rig's on Fire! I Told You This Was Gonna Happen!'

A prominent Houston attorney with a long record of winning settlements from oil companies says he has new evidence suggesting that the Deepwater Horizon's top managers knew of problems with the rig before it exploded last month, causing the worst oil spill in US history. Tony Buzbee, a lawyer representing 15 rig workers and dozens of shrimpers, seafood restaurants, and dock workers, says he has obtained a three-page signed statement from a crew member on the boat that rescued the burning rig's workers. The sailor, who Buzbee refuses to name for fear of costing him his job, was on the ship's bridge when Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell, a top employee of rig owner Transocean, was speaking with someone in Houston via satellite phone. Buzbee told Mother Jones that, according to this witness account, Harrell was screaming, "Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen."

Whoever was on the other end of the line was apparently trying to calm Harrell down. "I am fucking calm," he went on, according to Buzbee. "You realize the rig is burning?"
At that point, the boat's captain asked Harrell to leave the bridge. It wasn't clear whether Harrell had been talking to Transocean, BP, or someone else.
On Friday a spokesman for Transocean said he couldn't confirm or deny whether the conversation took place. He was unable to make Harrell available for an interview.
During hearings held late last month by the Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service, Harrell denied any conflicts with his BP or Transocean bosses. He said that he did not feel pressured to rush the completion of the well, even though the rig had fallen behind schedule.
Yet Buzbee's claims add weight to other statements that contradict Harrell's version of events. Testifying before the Coast Guard and MMS panel last month, Douglas Brown, the chief mechanic on the Deepwater Horizon, said that on the morning of the day that the rig exploded Harrell had a "skirmish" over drilling procedures during a meeting with BP's "company man," well site leader Robert Kaluza. "I remember the company man saying this is how it's going to be," Brown told the panel. As Harrell was leaving the meeting, according to Brown, "He pretty much grumbled, 'I guess that's what we have those pincers for,'" referring to the blowout preventer on the sea floor that is supposed to be the last resort to prevent a leak in the event of an emergency. The blowout preventer failed following the explosion on the rig, causing the massive spill. (Transocean's chief electronics technician, Mike Williams, also recalled the argument but named a different BP "company man," BP's top official on the rig, Donald Vidrine).
In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, Transocean appeared to back the claims that Harrell had feuded with BP: "The testimony certainly seems to suggest that [Harrell] disagreed with the operator's instructions, but what those were and why he disagreed are matters that will ultimately be determined during the course of investigations."
Other rig workers have also claimed that they were pressured by BP and their supervisors to cut corners. Transocean roustabout Truitt Crawford told the Coast Guard that he overheard senior management saying that BP was "taking shortcuts" by replacing drilling mud in the well with saltwater, which would have provided less weight to contain the well's surging pressure. Transocean's Williams told 60 Minutes that a supervisor had dismissed evidence that the well's blowout preventer had been damaged. And workers with Halliburton, the well's cementing contractor, had complained that BP's use of cement "was against our best practices" and told the oil company that it would likely have "a SEVERE gas flow problem" unless the well's casings were centered more carefully.
Buzbee told Mother Jones that the sailor's version of Harrell's phone conversation following the explosion was corroborated by a statement from a second crew member who says he also overheard the call. Both statements were taken in-person by Buzbee's investigator and safety consultant, who has interviewed some 60 people involved in the disaster, and signed by the witnesses, he said. Buzbee declined to make the full statements available to Mother Jones because, he said, "it is work product, meaning that it is something that I do not have to produce or disclose in litigation but that can be used at the right time in the litigation." He added that he intends to take a deposition from the crew members at a later time.
Buzbee's case against the operators of the Deepwater Horizon is hardly his first foray into suing major oil companies. After a BP refinery in Texas City exploded in 2005, killing 15 workers and injuring dozens more, he won $100 million in punitive damages from the company. In the wake of the 2002 shipwreck of the Prestige oil tanker, which devastated the coast of Galicia, he won a $70 million settlement for Spain's Basque government from the American Bureau of Shipping, which had inspected and approved the vessel. And he's also nabbed $15 million from Transocean and $6.2 million from Halliburton for injured offshore oil workers.
Yet Buzbee is convinced that the Gulf oil spill lawsuit will be his biggest ever. "It's the grandaddy of all cases," he said. "This is going to define BP and whether BP survives. This is going to be the biggest case in the history of the United States, no doubt about it."
This piece was produced by Mother Jones as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.


Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster - Peter Presland - 10-06-2010

Schadenfreude anyone?

The sick, slick (pun intended) trendy, glossy PR face of BP bites it on the backside.


Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster - Peter Lemkin - 10-06-2010

Scientists with the University of South Florida say laboratory tests have confirmed that oil spewing from the blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico has accumulated in at least two extensive plumes deep underwater. The researchers said in Baton Rouge, La., on Friday that their tests confirmed initial findings based on field instruments.

The lab tests are the most conclusive evidence yet in a vigorous scientific debate about where much of the oil is ending up. The researchers say the extensive layers of oil are sitting far beneath the surface miles from the site of the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion. The university is collecting data for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Government scientists, including NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco, had been reluctant to blame underwater plumes on the catastrophic well blowout that has been spewing oil into the gulf since April 20. Tony Hayward, chief executive of oil giant BP, which leased the rig, last week cast doubts on the scientific reports, saying the company had found no evidence of large underwater plumes.

For an explanation on how underwater oil can damage deep-sea life, read Times staff writers Bettina Boxall's and Alana Semuel's report here.


Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster - Jan Klimkowski - 10-06-2010

Peter Presland Wrote:Schadenfreude anyone?

The sick, slick (pun intended) trendy, glossy PR face of BP bites it on the backside.

Quote:BP: We're bringing oil to American shores...

:captain:

Right up there with the military-industrial-intelligence complex's unfortunate:

Quote:Lockheed Martin: We never forget who we're working for...



Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster - Ed Jewett - 11-06-2010

Chairman of Goldman Sachs International Was - Until Last Year - Also Chairman of BP

[Image: picture-7813.jpg]
Submitted by George Washington on 06/10/2010 00:48 -0500




Janine Wedel has written extensively on how the "shadow elite" rule the world and about the "flexians" - the movers and shakers of the shadow elite who glide across borders, and structure overlapping (and not fully revealed) roles in government, business, media, and think tanks to serve their own agendas.

Wedel says that flexians wear many hats both within and outside of government, and use their networks of contacts to influence policy - are warping our democracy and the rule of law.

Peter Sutherland is the quintessential flexian.

According to his September 2009 bio:
Peter Sutherland is chairman of BP plc (1997 - current). He is also chairman of Goldman Sachs International (1995 - current). He was appointed chairman of the London School of Economics in 2008.... Before these appointments, he was the founding director-general of the World Trade Organisation. He had previously served as director general of GATT since July 1993 ...
Sutherland resigned as BP's chairman in 2009, but apparently still serves in various key capacities.

Sutherland is managing director - as well as chairman - of Goldman Sachs International (Goldman Sachs International is the very powerful subsidiary of the Goldman Sachs Group, of which Lloyd Blankfein is CEO). Sutherland is also an Advisory Director of Goldman Sachs Group.

Sutherland is also European Chairman for the Trilateral Commission.

He has, at various times, attended Bilderberg meetings.

As if that is not enough, Sutherland also serves in the following capacities (click on "Read Full Background"):
Mr. Sutherland served as an Attorney General of Ireland and also served as European Commissioner from 1985 to 1989 where he was responsible for competition policy.... He serves as the Chairman of British Petroleum, BP Amoco PLC and United Kingdom. From 1989 to 1993, he served as the Chairman of Allied Irish Bank. .... He serves as a Non-Executive Director of Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson. He serves as a Director of Goldman Sachs International. He has been Member of Supervisory Board at Allianz SE since January 2010 and serves as its Member of International Advisory Board .... Mr. Sutherland served as a Non Executive Director of BP Plc since July 1995. He serves as a Member of Foundation Board of World Economic Forum. He served as an Independent Non Executive Director of National Westminster Bank PLC since January 2001. He served as an Independent Non Executive Director of The Royal Bank Of Scotland Plc from January 2001 to February 6, 2009.... In addition, he serves on the board of Allianz, Koc Holding A.S. and is a member of the advisory board of Eli Lilly.... He served as a Director of LM Ericsson Telephone Co since 1996, Ericsson SPA since 1996 and Investor AB since 1995. He served as a Non Executive Director of Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc from January 2001 to February 6, 2009.
Sutherland is - literally - like Lloyd Blankfein and Tony Hayward rolled into one. But unlike Blankfein and Hayward, he has also held numerous powerful governmental and quasi-governmental positions.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/chairman-goldman-sachs-international-was-until-last-year-chairman-bp?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29&utm_content=Google+Reader


Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster - Ed Jewett - 11-06-2010

Thursday, June 10, 2010

June 10 2010: BP, Forrest Gump, Mr. Bean and the White House


[Image: BrownPelican1.jpg]
Charlie Riedel A Last Farewell June 3, 2010
Brown Pelican covered in oil on the beach at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast



Ilargi: Matt Simmons knows oil. His "Twilight in the Desert" is one of the best books on the topic, highly recommended. Simmons also knows finance; he’s, after all, an oil banker. And he insists that both the Gulf spill is in fact much worse than BP and the White House are willing to admit, and that BP's liability commitments will bankrupt it within weeks. While there will always be the notion that Simmons says what he does in order to turn a profit, I personally lend quite a bit of weight to what he's been saying since the spill started. SImmons is one of the few voices left in the drama worth listening to.

BP has now officially, as I've said was likely to happen, seamlessly moved from "just" an environmental disaster into an economic calamity as well. Don’t underestimate the impact of this. BP is the planet's fourth largest enterprise. For one thing, this means the company has vast political influence, especially in the US and UK. I saw a line today I had been waiting for for some time, in this Reuters article:
Under pressure over BP, PM Cameron says UK ready to help
Britain stands ready to help BP with its clean-up efforts following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday as he came under intense pressure at home to stand up for the oil giant. In his first public comments about the crisis, Cameron said he would raise it with U.S. President Obama when they next spoke. That will be a delicate balancing act between upholding British interests and nurturing a key diplomatic relationship.

BP [..] accounts for 12-13 percent of dividend payouts in Britain. Pension funds and other investors are heavily reliant on it.
The BBC has this:
Why is BP important to the UK economy?
"The government must put down a marker with the US administration that the survival and long-term prosperity of BP is a vital British interest," the former British ambassador to the US, Sir Christopher Meyer, has told the BBC. He urged Prime Minister David Cameron to raise the issue in his scheduled conversation with US President Barack Obama over the weekend.[..]

"When you consider the huge exposure of British pension funds to BP it starts to become a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the airwaves," [London Mayor] Boris Johnson said.

UK pension funds do indeed have big holdings of BP shares and the company says that £1 of every £7 paid in dividends to pension funds by FTSE 100 companies last year came from BP. It is estimated that about 18 million people in the UK either own BP shares or pay into a pension fund that holds BP shares.
That should put you right in line with what will be playing out now. BP's bankruptcy looks like a foregone conclusion. That is, unless the US and UK governments step in, and do so broadly and very loudly. With both money and legal changes. The former, because BP faces far more in lawsuits and damage claims than it has in liquidity (its shares are now worth less than its assets, always an alarming sign). The latter, well, for more or less the same reason.

One party you don’t want to be when BP's bankruptcy lands square squash on the table is a Louisiana fisherman or a Florida tourist operator. British pensioners first! Sure, Obama has declared that BP is liable for all damages yada yada, but there’s a long list as we speak of Gulf Coast residents who can’t hardly squeeze a penny out of the company even now, and that’s before any serious litigation has started.

It’s all just posturing. By the time the real claims arrive, BP will likely be very deeply mired in interminable Chapter 11 and/or subsequent proceedings, and the little man will be dead broke and waiting for years to see if he may ever get a single penny for what he worked long and hard to build up, whether he’s Forrest Gump in Terrebonne Parish or Mr. Bean in Coventry.

Don’t help the little man, help BP, says the British government. And that will be the political stance, though certainly not the public message, going forward, on both sides of the pond. Nothing has changed as of yet and nothing will until Gump and Bean reach for their pitchforks.

Goldman Sachs or BP, the politicians’ reaction remains the same. Screw whoever’s not in your circle, and use (your power over) their money to pay off who is. Corporations rule this planet, not the people that live on it.

BP will be a showcase for several nations at once, a shining example for how much of the political power really is in the hands of the people. I for one hold out very little hope, as long as the present corporate political systems remain in place. Britain, I bet you, will use its pensioners’ tax money to "save" BP in order to save its pensioners. And so forth. And then somewhere down the road that money will get lost. Think AIG.

All we're left with to live in is a hologram. And we can just wait and see, because the time will come, till all we’ve left to spend, grow and eat also exists only in a parallel universe.

Unless and until we find ourselves some sand, oil-stained or not, to draw a line in.

And don’t kid yourselves, it’s not about BP, one single oil company, and it’s not about Obama or Cameron, about single politicians. With perhaps slight differences, Shell and Exxon perform within the same dismal agenda's BP does, and there's no politician left in our Western hemishpere who rises to true power and has not been pre-empted by the system he or she voluntarily chooses to function in, and who doesn't voluntarily participate in perpetuating the hologram their voters long for in order to continue their feeling of comfort, so they can sit in their oversized homes and watch pictures of dying birds on oversized plasma TV's.

And please don’t be too eager to proclaim you're different, or better than that. That’s nothing but the easy way out.

Remember, you’re not watching real life with real people, you’re watching a 24/7 theater play that has no other reason to be than to provide you with what it knows beforehand you will respond positively to. Remember that, and then look at the dying pelicans. You may be running out of chances to make it right. Is that the way you want your life to be?












[URL="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/09/bp-worth-more-dead-than-alive_n_606968.html"]BP Now Worth More Dead Than ALive
by AP [/URL]
The financial toll of the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico escalated Wednesday as BP's stock plummeted to a 14-year low and fishermen, businesses and property owners who have filed damage claims with the company angrily complained of delays, excessive paperwork and skimpy payments that have put them on the verge of going under. The oil company captured an ever larger-share of the crude gushing from the bottom of the sea and began bringing in more heavy equipment to help in the effort, including a production ship and a tanker from the North Sea that will allow the system to process larger quantities of oil and better withstand tropical storms.

The containment efforts played out as investors deserted BP amid fears that the company might be forced to suspend dividends, end up in bankruptcy and find itself overwhelmed by the cleanup costs, penalties, damage claims and lawsuits generated by the biggest oil spill in U.S. history. Shrimpers, oystermen, seafood businesses, out-of-work drilling crews and the tourism industry all are lining up to get paid back the billions of dollars washed away by the disaster, and tempers have flared as locals direct outrage at BP over what they see as a tangle of red tape.

"Every day we call the adjuster eight or 10 times. There's no answer, no answering machine," said Regina Shipp, who has filed $33,000 in claims for lost business at her restaurant in Alabama. "If BP doesn't pay us within two months, we'll be out of business. We've got two kids." An Alabama property owner who has lost vast sums of rental income angrily confronted a BP executive at a town meeting. The owner of a Mississippi seafood restaurant said she is desperately waiting for a check to come through because fewer customers come by for shrimp po-boys and oyster sandwiches.

Some locals see dark parallels to what happened after Hurricane Katrina, when they had to wait years to get reimbursed for losses. "It really feels like we are getting a double whammy here. When does it end?" said Mark Glago, a New Orleans lawyer who is representing a fishing boat captain in a claim against BP.

BP spokesman Mark Proegler disputed any notion that the claims process is slow or that the company is dragging its feet. Proegler said BP has cut the time to process claims and issue a check from 45 days to as little as 48 hours, provided the necessary documentation has been supplied. BP officials acknowledged that while no claims have been denied, thousands and thousands of claims had not been paid by late last week because the company required more documentation.

At the bottom of the sea, the containment cap on the ruptured well is capturing 630,000 gallons a day and pumping it to a ship at the surface, and the amount could nearly double by next week to roughly 1.17 million gallons, said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is overseeing the crisis for the government. A second drilling vessel that will arrive within days is expected to greatly boost capacity. BP also plans to bring in the tanker from the North Sea on Monday to help transport oil and an incinerator to burn off some of the crude. The tanker is currently used to shuttle oil from North Sea rigs to the shores of Scotland, and its deployment in the Gulf has been part of the broader plan to expand the amount of crude brought to the surface once a new and improved cap-and-collection system is installed over the leaking well.

The government has estimated 600,000 to 1.2 million gallons are leaking per day, but a scientist on a task force studying the flow said the actual rate may be between 798,000 gallons and 1.8 million. Crews working at the site toiled under oppressive conditions as the heat index soared to 110 degrees and toxic vapors emanated from the depths. Fireboats were on hand to pour water on the surface to ease the fumes. Allen also confronted BP over the complaints about the claims process, warning the company in a letter: "We need complete, ongoing transparency into BP's claims process including detailed information on how claims are being evaluated, how payment amounts are being calculated and how quickly claims are being processed."

The admiral this week created a team including officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help with the damage claims. It will send workers into Gulf communities to provide information about the process. He also planned to discuss the complaints with BP officials Wednesday. Under federal law, BP is required to pay for a range of damage, including property losses and lost earnings. Residents and businesses can call a telephone line to report losses, file a claim online and seek help at one of 25 claims offices around the Gulf. Deckhands and other fishermen generally need to show a photo ID and documentation such as a pay stub showing how much money they typically earn.

To jump-start the process, BP was initially offering an immediate $2,500 to deckhands and $5,000 to fishing boat owners. Workers can receive additional compensation once their paperwork and larger claims are approved. BP said it has paid 18,000 claims so far and has hired 600 adjusters and operators to handle the cases. The oil giant said it expects to spend $84 million through June alone to compensate people for lost wages and profits. That number could grow as new claims are received. When it is all over, BP could be looking at total liabilities in the billions, perhaps tens of billions, according to analysts.

BP stock dropped $5.45, or 16 percent, Wednesday - easily its worst day since the April 20 rig explosion that set off the spill. In the seven weeks since then, the company has lost half its market value. The latest slide came after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar promised a Senate energy panel to ask BP to compensate energy companies for losses if they have to lay off workers or suffer economically because of the Obama administration's six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.

Calculating what is owed to victims of the spill has proved challenging. David Walter owns an Alabama company that makes artificial reefs that anglers buy and drop in the Gulf to attract fish, but state regulators stopped issuing permits for the reefs on May 4 because of the oil spill - effectively killing off $350,000 in expected business. When Walter called a claims adjuster working for BP, he was told to provide four years of invoices for May, June and July along with tax returns for those years. Walter said he sent the forms by overnight mail, but the adjuster assigned to his case changed offices and could not be found. The documents were lost.

After making more inquiries, Walter said, he was instructed to gather the same documents and this time go to a claims office. There, an adjuster told Walter he would be eligible for only a $5,000 payment since his tax returns showed a technical business loss when depreciation was factored in. "I said that's not fair because if you say that, then I have to go out of business and I lose everything," Walter said. He is now working with an accounting firm to calculate his losses. Not everyone had complaints about the claims process.

Bart Harrison of Clay, Ala., filed his first claim on Wednesday morning for lost rental income on his coastal property and expected to have a check for $1,010 within a few hours. The only documentation required was tax returns and rental histories for his units, which were both easy to provide. "The guy I talked to was knowledgeable and respectful. It seemed like he really wanted to write a check and please me since it was my first time in," Harrison said.
[URL="http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/09/news/companies/simmons_gulf_oil_spill.fortune/index.htm"]The Gulf Coast oil spill's Dr. Doom
by Nin-Hai Tseng - Fortune [/URL]
As an oil and gas industry insider, Matt Simmons speaks with a bold voice and makes even bolder predictions. His 2005 book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, which argued that Saudi Arabia's oil supplies are way more limited than most people think, raised his profile as an authority on the industry.

For more than 35 years, Simmons has run a Texas-based boutique investment bank, Simmons & Co., which specializes in the energy industry. At times, with his somewhat doom-and -loom-like take on things, there's a hint of conspiracy theorist in his tone. But it's hard to ignore that Simmons is deeply connected and has been pretty much right on in the past: When oil was $58 a barrel the year Twilight was released, Simmons predicted prices would be at or above $100 within a few years. By 2008, when Fortune profiled Simmons, the price of crude had hit $147 a barrel.

As a big believer that wind power is the way of the future, Simmons says the era of easy oil is over and that world oil production will eventually fail to meet expected future demands.These days, Simmons has been weighing in on BP and the worst oil spill in U.S. history, following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. As BP struggles to permanently stop the gush of oil, Simmons has been warning that the scale of the spill is much bigger and that there's a larger leak several miles away.
Simmons also thinks that perhaps the only way to seal the gush of oil is by doing what the Soviet Union did decades ago -- setting off a bomb deep underground so that the fiery blast will melt the surrounding rock and shut off the spill.
Fortune caught up with Simmons this week to hear his thoughts on the Gulf Coast oil spill, the future of BP and what's ahead for offshore drilling.
Experts forecast an active hurricane season this year. We know it could disrupt efforts to stop the spill, but how else do you think storms could impact the Gulf Coast?
We've got to stop the gusher first. Then we have to deal with the other issues. There's a lake at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico that's over 100 miles wide and at least 400 to 500 feet deep of black oil. It's just staying there. And only the lightest of that is what we're seeing hitting the shores so far. If a hurricane comes and blows this to shore, it could paint the Gulf Coast black. We should have been pumping this oil out onto other tankers weeks ago.
How do you think the U.S. government should handle this disaster?
I think the government should ask BP to leave the United States and turn its operation over to the military. Put the U.S. Navy in charge. Have all the contractors report to the Navy -- the cleanup efforts, the whole nine yards. Because as long as it's in BP's hands, they're going to spin the information as long as they can.
What do you think is in store for the future of BP?
They have about a month before they declare Chapter 11. They're going to run out of cash from lawsuits, cleanup and other expenses. One really smart thing that Obama did was about three weeks ago he forced BP CEO Tony Hayward to put in writing that BP would pay for every dollar of the cleanup. But there isn't enough money in the world to clean up the Gulf of Mexico. Once BP realizes the extent of this my guess is that they'll panic and go into Chapter 11.

There's currently a ban on new deepwater oil projects for six months to prevent other disasters. What lies ahead for offshore drilling?
First of all, to the industry's credit, we went 41 years in the United States without an oil spill. In a minor sense, this is what happened to the Challenger. We had so many successful shuttle takeoffs that the space station got kind of casual about this. But this is worse. BP was so certain that there wasn't any risk that three years ago they thought the insurance industry was ripping them off, so they're self-insured on this. How stupid! It was the best thing that ever happened to the insurance industry.
How do you think the Gulf Coast oil spill will change the energy business, if at all?
Profoundly. We're going to have to go back and re-examine all of our regulatory rules and realize the easy stuff is imminent and the rest of the stuff we do is really risky. We have to start questioning whether it's worth the risk, and do we need to get really serious about developing some alternative energy sources? Now I'm working on a big project in mid-coast Maine called the Ocean Energy Institute, and we're hoping that within the next year we can actually create 50 megawatt offshore wind turbines -- one every five miles a part -- and turn that offshore electricity into desalinated sea water and liquid ammonia. It could replace motor gasoline and diesel fuel.
What are the lessons learned from this environmental disaster?
That oil peaked. The easy stuff is over. We have to continue drilling in shallow water, but we probably need to take a deep breath and step back. Until we develop a new generation of equipment that can respond to these accidents, just don't go into the ultra-deep water and deep formations because it's just too risky.


[I skipped the embedded Jon Stewart video....]




[URL="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10282777.stm"]Why is BP important to the UK economy?
by Anthony Reuben - BBC News [/URL]
"The government must put down a marker with the US administration that the survival and long-term prosperity of BP is a vital British interest," the former British ambassador to the US, Sir Christopher Meyer, has told the BBC. He urged Prime Minister David Cameron to raise the issue in his scheduled conversation with US President Barack Obama over the weekend.

London Mayor Boris Johnson has expressed concern about the "anti-British rhetoric that seems to be permeating from America". Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said that he "would like to see a bit of cool heads rather than endlessly buck-passing and name-calling". So why is there so much concern about the effect on the British economy?

BP is a huge company, but its shares have almost halved in value since the explosion that set off the spill in the Gulf of Mexico on 20 April. Its stock market value has fallen from about £125bn to about £70bn, which may make other oil companies think about making a takeover bid, although shareholders would be unlikely to accept an offer at the current levels. There is also a chance that BP will end up not paying dividends this year and it is almost certain that the amount BP is having to pay out for the clean-up in the US will eventually affect the dividend.

"When you consider the huge exposure of British pension funds to BP it starts to become a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the airwaves," Boris Johnson said. UK pension funds do indeed have big holdings of BP shares and the company says that £1 of every £7 paid in dividends to pension funds by FTSE 100 companies last year came from BP. It is estimated that about 18 million people in the UK either own BP shares or pay into a pension fund that holds BP shares.

BP paid £930m in UK tax on its profits in 2009, which was well down on the £1.7bn it had paid in each of the previous three years. The company employs 10,105 people in the UK. The employees paid £490m in income tax and National Insurance on their earnings, while BP paid £110m in employer's National Insurance contributions. If you add together the corporation tax and production tax paid by BP, together with the National Insurance and income tax paid by its employees and the VAT and fuel excise duty paid by its customers, you get £5.8bn, which is about enough to fund the entire budget of the Department for International Development. It is not just the UK economy that is vulnerable to BP's problems. The company employs 22,800 people in the US.

BBC business editor Robert Peston points out that 39% of the company's shares are held in the US, about a third of them by individuals rather than institutions. He adds that those US shareholders might not be happy that every time the US president lays into BP, they find themselves a bit poorer.
[URL="http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/10/news/companies/BP_stock/?postversion=2010061007"]BP: 'Not aware' of reason for stock plunge
by Julianne Pepitone - CNN Money [/URL]
BP, in a statement issued Thursday, said it "is not aware of any reason" for its shares' 16% plunge in U.S. trading the day before. On Day 52 of the Gulf oil spill, BP said it "faces this situation as a strong company" and it will "continue to keep the market fully informed of further developments." BP said it is "generating significant cash flow" and has a "strong and valuable" oil reserve, both of which will help it survive the response to the spill. The statement helped push BP's U.S. shares up 11% in premarket trade, but its London stock was off 5.6% in regular-hours trading.

BP's shares tumbled $5.48 to $29.20 Wednesday on volume nine times above normal. The drop came amid some speculation about the company's future -- in a Fortune interview, oil analyst Matt Simmons said BP's "lawsuits, cleanup and other expenses" will force the company into bankruptcy within the month. It's been more than seven weeks since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 people and causing the oil spill. On April 19, the day before the disaster, BP shares closed at $58.86. Since that time the stock has plunged by 50.4%.

Dividend worries: In addition to the bankruptcy fears, there's concern about BP's quarterly dividend that is slated to be paid out June 21. On Tuesday, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., sent a letter to BP chief executive Tony Hayward saying it was "unfathomable that BP would pay out a dividend ... before the total cost of [the] oil spill cleanup is estimated." Schumer and Wyden cited a Credit Suisse report that said the total cleanup cost could reach $37 billion if oil continues gushing until a relief well is completed in August.
[URL="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bps-market-value-halves-as-spill-costs-loom-large-2010-06-09"]BP hit by doubts over ability to pay for costs of oil spill
by Steve Gelsi & Alistair Barr - MarketWatch [/URL]
BP PLC shares slumped Wednesday, leaving its market value halved in fewer than seven weeks, while the oil giant's bonds were crushed as questions mounted over whether it can afford to clean up the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. Oil-industry insider Matt Simmons, head of the Texas-based, energy-focused investment bank Simmons & Co., told Fortune magazine Wednesday that BP will run out of cash from lawsuits, cleanup costs and other expenses. "They have about a month before they declare Chapter 11" bankruptcy, Simmons said.

"One really smart thing that [President Barack] Obama did was about three weeks ago, he forced BP CEO Tony Hayward to put in writing that BP would pay for every dollar of the cleanup," he added. "But there isn't enough money in the world to clean up the Gulf of Mexico. Once BP realizes the extent of this, my guess is that they'll panic and go into Chapter 11." BP's U.S.-traded shares slumped 16% to close at $29.20 on heavy volume. It's the lowest level for the stock since 1996. The shares traded above $60 before April 22, the day the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform sank off the coast of Louisiana.

BP's 2013 bonds, which carry a 5.25% coupon, slumped on Wednesday, pushing the yield above 8%. BP already has spent more than $1 billion dealing with the spill, and some analysts estimate the disaster could cost up to $40 billion. The company also has said it will pay for all cleanup costs and will cover all "legitimate" claims.

Art Hogan, market strategist for Jefferies & Co., said traders at the firm cited speculation that BP was talking to bankruptcy lawyers as one instigator of the selloff on Wednesday. "It's hard to calculate the ultimate cost of the spill," Hogan commented. "No one even knows how much oil is coming out of the well and there could be more impact from a hurricane. With all the new technology nowadays with remote-controlled robots and video cameras, it's happening in real time in front of everyone all day long. It's a torrential disaster."

BP spokesman John Pack said the company remains on solid financial footing, with 18 billion barrels of proven reserves. "I have no idea where that rumor is coming from," he replied, when asked if BP was talking to bankruptcy lawyers. Pack pointed to a statement made last week by BP's chief executive. "Under the current trading environment, we are generating significant additional cash flow," Hayward said. "In addition, our gearing is currently below the targeted range, and our asset base is strong and valuable, with more than 18 billion barrels of proved reserves and 63 billion barrels of resources. All of this gives us significant flexibility in dealing with the costs of this incident."

Twelve angry jurors
Gregory Evans, a partner at Milbank Tweed Hadley McCloy LLP who has represented large corporations in environmental suits, said BP may have to pay billions of dollars in an environmental lawsuit. "The [liability] exposure is very high for BP, because there appear to be statements that would indicate this was potentially more than negligence," he commented. "As we know from Exxon Valdez and other serious catastrophic mass tort cases for environmental-damage litigation, juries can become very angry with management and express that anger in very high punitive-damages awards."

Still, punitive damages will likely be kept on par with whatever BP pays for compensatory damages, a rule laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court in its decision to reduce damages in the Exxon Valdez case, Evans noted. Those damages were awarded after many years of court battles, and also included payments from insurance companies. Evans said he had no reason to believe that BP would file for bankruptcy in the near future, but even if it did, claims against it would still be paid under a provision called the estimation process. "The estimation process in bankruptcy can be efficient and it can lead to full payment of claims," he added.

Ahead of BP's big slide on Wednesday, analysts at Tudor Pickering Holt indicated that talk had been escalating about a bankruptcy, but concluded that BP is worth more to the government and to investors if it keeps operating. "There is a frenzy for sources/experts/analysts to one-up each other on the assessment of fines and liability and talk about BP as a donut-hole stock (zero)," the Tudor analysts said. "We have a really hard time getting there from a practical perspective, as BP is worth more alive than dead to the U.S. government and all those that want milk from this future cash cow."



Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster - Jan Klimkowski - 11-06-2010

Ed Jewett Wrote:Chairman of Goldman Sachs International Was - Until Last Year - Also Chairman of BP

Good stuff. The big game hunting just netted a shadow government player in Peter Sutherland ....


Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster - Dawn Meredith - 13-06-2010

Now we are beginning to get news black outs in the NO area.
Video is all over facebook. Wish there was a way to share from there to here.
Also great videos and on how to fix this problem..microbes that literally eat the oil. Not being used, instead dangerous "fixes" which will just make the matter worse.
Do you suppose this is all on purpose?

The spill and all ongoing since. Not sure why BP would want to destroy its own company, but there were stock sales prior, just like with 9-11.

Dawn