Comments on: Smart Pig:BP's OTHER Spill

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 06:38:41 +0000

BP is the establishment. BP is heavily vested in cap and trade. Once the market for CO2(air) gets rolling it will make the oil industry look like a lemonade stand.

Machiavellian tactics perhaps? There's a reason these people rule us, we never seem to catch on. Maybe they'll let us have enough oil for our bicycle chains as they tax our very breath. All for the earth of course!

By: Pete Wilson

Pete Wilson — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:26:50 +0000

The thing people to forget here is that you all play a part in this through dependence on oil and gas. It pervades everything, from medicine to plastics, fertiliser, food production, war, transport, finance and manufacturing. All oil companies cause problems on various scales, it is part of the process, and investors will happily take their dividends and pensioners take their pensions while turning blind eye to the problems and the real damage and suffering caused to real people. It is hypocracy not to acknowledge that and just pontificate over these outrages. Of course the companies make alot of effort to aid you in being blind to all this. The problems like these spills and massive polution and exploitation in places like Nigeria and elsewhere will only increase as oil and gas become harder to access. As oil supplies decline, as is now acknowledged by IEA and governments, people are going to have to get used to the fact that everything will beome more expensive because everything in the global economy depends on cheap energy to maintain the fantasy of eternal growth. If people don't want disasters like these spills they will themselves have to start changing their behaviours and force the governments to change theirs and the corporates behaviours. I'd suggest you start looking at the issue of Peak oil/Energy as it will be the single most transforming factor for the globe in the next 5-15 years, and it won't be easy. All the people now living in the extreme cold regions and dry regions are likely to have to migrate to the temperate zones to survive if they can't pump water, transport food and keep themselves warm etc. Global warming will also drive this as water supplies get compromised and more land is inundated by the sea which makes land no good for food crops. Oil/gas dependence is clearly connected to this. So, what sacrifices are people prepared to make themselves to help avoid problems like we see in the Gulf and elsewhere. It is a shared responsibility which you cannot reasonably deny.

By: joe blow

joe blow — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:19:06 +0000

Wow, 48 hours and you still have not "moderated" my post. Question: In your article above are you asserting that the trans-Alaska pipeline was shut down due to corrosion in 2006? When you say a smart pig had not been used in 14 years previous to 2006, is it the trans-Alaska pipeline you are writing about?

By: Robert Cooper

Robert Cooper — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 09:12:08 +0000

Greg,
Thanks for your response which has prompted me to look further.
I stand corrected with regards BP's involvement with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
Indeed it appears that they were part of the initial survey prior to the pipeline construction.
I'm not sure of the involvement of Standard Oil which you say funded the project. I've looked on Wikipedia but can't find anything about them on the history of the pipeline. I'd be grateful for further evidence of Standard Oil's involvement.
You mention BP's ownership reaching 51% which does not quite add up.
BP today, after the purchase of ARCO in 2000 still only own 46.93%.
Don't forget the rest of the shares are owned by Conoco Phillips, Exxon Mobile and Unocal. (Unocal are now Chevron) But you say the 100% responsiblity lies with BP.
Going back to the Exxon Valdez which spilt the oil in 1989.
This ship was owned and operated by Exxon, but you say it was all BP's fault as they owned Alyeska. (Which is not entirely true as they did not partly own the pipeline until 2000).
As you brought it up let's discuss "Brits"
BP currently own 46.93% of Alyesha the rest is owned by American companies. In turn almost half of BP is owned by American investors. So around 80% of all this is an American problem. But as you might say these Yanks are not so dumb, they know when to create a great smoke screen.
Take a look a Wikipedia:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Alaska_Pipeline_System
Scroll down to "Economy of Alaska" which provides interesting reading.
Also:
"The wealth generated by Prudhoe Bay and the other fields on the North Slope since 1977 is worth more than all the fish ever caught, all the furs ever trapped, all the trees chopped down; throw in all the copper, whalebone, natural gas, tin, silver, platinum, and anything else ever extracted from Alaska too. The balance sheet of Alaskan history is simple: One Prudhoe Bay is worth more in real dollars than everything that has been dug out, cut down, caught or killed in Alaska since the beginning of time.[93]"
Alaska historian Terrence Cole

You say it's all BP's fault perhaps if they are 100% responsible they are also 100% resonsible for the tremendous wealth that has been generated in Alaska where the occupants now live off the proceeds of oil ( or as you would say British Petroleum )

By: Greg Palast

Greg Palast — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 20:51:50 +0000

Robert,
Yes, it is true that BP did not acquire ARCO and its share of the Alaska Pipeline until after the Exxon spill. But careful: BP operates under 300 corporate names, including Sohio, which BP acquired in 1969 for the specific purpose of giving it a key ownership and operational role in the Alaska Pipeline at a time when Congress was thinking of making it an "All-American" project. BP arranged that their ownership would only reach 51% when the oil flow-through reached the 450,000 barrels per day mark. Sohio was merely BP's beard.

Not so dumb, these Brits, eh?

The old Standard Oil subsidiary borrowed 100 times its net worth to fund the pipeline, only possible because of the mother corporation across the sea.

Here's a link to a Sohio/BP Alaska Pipeline stock certificate, framed, which you can buy on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B0027J4Y4A/ref=dp_image_text_z_0?ie=UTF8&s=miscellaneous

By: Robert Cooper

Robert Cooper — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 06:28:10 +0000

Greg,
You say BP was responsible for the Exxon Valdez disaster which happened in 1989.
According to information I have found...
The Exxon Valdez was owned and operated by Exxon Shipping Company and has never been owned by BP.
BP did not have anything to do with the Alaskan Pipeline until BP purchased ARCO in 2000.
Interesting that you say it was BP's fault when they were not involved with ARCO until 11 years later.
But hey don't let the facts get in the way....

By: Spoiled

Spoiled — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:59:59 +0000

There is not much that will help but to take the personal road. My advice would be:
list names + details of lawyers, judges, executives
add their photos
where they live

Google will do the rest. That information, their involvement in this scandalous theater will live on forever. Everybody is sensitive for their bad stuff being spread over the internet, but when you get close to their private life they will feel it more intense.

By: Fred Blank

Fred Blank — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 05:10:36 +0000

Shades of John Davison Rockefeller and John Pierpont Morgan. The flying saucer was invented in the 1900s, the electric car in 1930s and still we suffer from the problems of the elite controlling the rest. Keep this crap up and soon we can all have oil in our coffee, chemicals in our bodies and bioweapons and chemtrails in the air we breath.

By: Brian Champness

Brian Champness — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 19:39:01 +0000

To all limey haters:
1. BP has not been called 'British Petroleum' for 10 years, since it combined with Amoco to form a joint US-UK company. Obama's calling it 'BRITISH Petroleum' in his earlier speeches was a deliberate stiring of the hate pot that seems to swirl around your otherwise great country.
2. The US-UK company BP has many more employees in USA than UK.
3. It provides billions of dollars of profits and dividends in USA, resulting in the payment of large sums of tax to the US Treasury.
4. BP has always subcontracted the running of the broken oil well head to two US companies; we haven't heard a squeak out of them - or even about their doubtful role in the accident.
5. Obama's and the hysterical US Media's continuing to scream daily against BP, thus forcing down the share price, will badly affect hundreds of thousands of US citizens whose pensions are invested in BP, making the whole situation worse and worse. The destruction of BP would result in disaster for tens of thousand of US citizens.

BP is a great US-UK company vital to both our economies. It has owned up to a terrible accident and has promised to pay fully for cleaning up the mess and compensating all those whose lives have been spoiled. It has the resources do to so. So let the President, your government and the rest of us hold BP to its promises, put pressure on it where necessary, but without the self-defeating daily vituperation that could bring it down.

By: anon

anon — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 21:35:08 +0000

I'm starting to think BP is trying to destroy the entire United States ecosystem single handedly. Their corporation should be dying more quickly than all the animals in the Gulf
waters. I curse them to the third generation. They should all be as barren as everything they have destroyed. Throw them out on their keister!!!