Titans of Industry category archive

Fresh Air interviewed Henry Fortune, a science reporter for the New York Times. Here’s part of the description of the interview:

Science reporter Henry Fountain has been covering the environmental disaster for The New York Times. In an interview with Fresh Air’s Dave Davies, Fountain explains how deep-water drilling works thousands of feet below sea level and what may have gone wrong on the Deepwater Horizon.

More than anything else I have read or heard, this interview got into the nuts-and-bolts of what actually goes on on drilling platforms, how they work, and their day-to-day operations. Follow the link to listen or to read highlights from the transcript.

My title is a little misleading. Comparing the investigation of Deepwater Horizon with the investigation of the space shuttle Challenger, Mr. Fortune suspects that it will be at least six months before there is a sound theory of what actually happened and a couple of years before preventive action is possible.

From an update on BP’s wild well at Facing South:

BP has tried to stop the oil assault with boom, the now-infamous tubes of absorbent material laid along the coast.

But the boom has proved no match for the steady stream of spilled oil flowing to the shore. In the Barataria Bay where Facing South explored, much of the boom had fallen apart or drifted away.

Even where the has flimsy boom has survived the battering of ocean waves and weather, ocean surges easily push the oil over the small protective barriers — allowing oil to drench coastal land, and trapping it there to cause further damage.

Also, what Brendan said.

Via Seeing the Forest.

Addendum:

Skepticism.

Michael Klare, writing in the Asia Times, points out that one of the contributors to BP’s wild well was searching for oil in more difficult–they say “extreme”–locations. He goes so far as to call it an “inevitable result,” which I find rather a stretch.

It was certainly an inevitable result when drilling in an extreme location is compounded by cutting corners on safety, failing to install back-up equipment, and ignoring warnings.

When recklessness mates with incompetence, inevitability is the offspring.

To illustrate his points, the writer posits four hypothetical locations for the next failure; they are not science fiction, though they read like it. Follow the link for the very detailed explanation:

Aside: Field had a post about the situation in Nigeria a couple of days ago.

How to apologize to BP.

Via Seeing the Forest.

Mudflats has a report from Professor Rick Steiner, a marine conservation biologist who has been advising on dealing with BP’s wild well.

Read it. If nothing else, you will find it refreshing to hear from someone who is qualified to pundificate on this.

Michael Tomasky reports, in the Guardian, that Exxon still hasn’t finished paying off claims from the Exxon Valdez. A nugget:

. . . O’Neill says that his clients are still awaiting their late installments, 21 years on.

Do you really want that to happen to the people of the gulf? The Republican Party functionally does. They wouldn’t say it that way, . . . .

Addendum:

Jay Bookman in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

But the evidence is strong that overall, Barton’s sentiment permeates the conservative movement, from pundits to politicians. That deference to corporate power is the default position. Even in a catastrophe, this is where their first loyalty lies. The instinct that in this case has driven conservatives to defend BP is the same instinct that has driven Shelby and others to defend Wall Street and the banks in the economic collapse.

In fact, the parallels between the Gulf tragedy and Wall Street’s meltdown are manifold. The conditions that created one disaster created the other as well. In both cases, government regulators were declawed and seduced, greed-driven executives were freed to take big risks, industry hubris created a false sense of confidence and a disaster that we were assured could never happen did indeed happen.</blockquote>

June 21, 2010 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Titans of Industry | Bookmark this post

Because the oysters are in decreasing supply:

The refrigerated trucks that deliver Gulf of Mexico oysters to Sam Rust Seafood in Hampton have dwindled from two a week to one – and it’s only half full.

The piles of oysters shucked by Shores & Ruark Seafood in Urbanna have shrunk by as much as 60 percent. And L.D. Amory & Co., a seafood processor on the Hampton waterfront, trucked 35 bushels of oysters last week to a Chicago buyer that normally gets 50.

Seafood operations up and down the Virginia coast hook a large part of their business to the fishing industry in the Gulf. Many have suffered a drop in sales since the BP oil spill led to the shutdown of large fishing areas along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

Much more at the link.

From the oldie but moldy department, here is a history of BP’s involvement in turning Iran into an enemy of the West.

Short version: BP wanted the oil and, through the British government, using the spectre of Communism, convinced the United States to overthrow the legitimately elected government of Iran.

(In those days, you could say “Communist” to the United States and it would do whatever you asked, then sit on its hindquarters and beg for a doggie bone. Yeah, it was stupid. But there it was.)

BP has not an honorable history. It still breaths the breathe of empire and believes the myths of Kipling.

Most oil companies have skeletons in their closets.

BP has mausoleums in its closet.

So, if they were wiling to foment subversion and overthrow a government, why the heck should we expect them to care about a few dolphins, shrimp, and pelicans. Or fish. Or beaches. Or watermen. Or people. Or societies.

Tradition, baby. BP is all about tradition.

Image via ia Bart Blog.

Family squabbles:

Anadarko Petroleum, which owns a quarter of the ruptured Deepwater Horizon well, refused to accept any blame for the explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the US’s worst environmental disaster.

The company’s chairman and chief executive, Jim Hackett, said in a statement BP’s actions probably amounted to “gross negligence or wilful misconduct”.

BP’s chief executive Tony Hayward, who was grilled about the disaster by Congress for seven hours on Thursday, said he “strongly disagreed” with the allegation and expected the firm’s partners to “live up to their obligations”.

BP seems to think so (emphasis added):

BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg told reporters in Washington: “I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don’t care, but that is not the case with BP. We care about the small people.”

The Times-Picayune tries to cut him some slack:

Svanberg is Swedish, and his comments may have been an unintentional slight.

Er, yeah.

If BP’s flacks had a bb gun, they would shoot their eyes out.

They must sit around in a room and brainstorm ideas about how to make the company look bad, badder, baddest.

Via Mithras.

Andy Borowitz reports:

In what is being called a game-changer for the embattled oil company, British Petroleum announced today that it has developed a new technology to convert lies into energy.

At a press conference at corporate headquarters in London, BP CEO Tony Hayward said that environmentalists would embrace the new technology “because lies are a totally renewable resource.”

It’s not British Petroleum. It’s Bullshit Petroleum.

Read more »

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

In an effort to ensure that businesses and individuals left idle by the massive Gulf oil spill are compensated, White House officials said Sunday that President Obama will legally demand that the oil giant establish an independently administered escrow account to cover claims being made against the company.

In Utah:

A major spill from a Chevron pipeline blackened Red Butte Creek early Saturday, staining scores of birds, prompting the closure of Liberty Park and sending oil as far west as the Jordan River.

The busted pipeline has been shut down, Chevron spokesman Mark Sullivan said Saturday afternoon, but residual oil still could be leaking.

Note that Chevron was able to turn the valve.

Because they had installed one.

Debarment removes a federal grant from the recipient; it the ultimate penalty for misconduct.

Among the types of grants subject to debarment are mineral rights.

Fresh Air interviews ProPublica investigative reporter Abrahm Lustgarten on his investigation of BPs safety practices. From the website:

His findings, published Tuesday in The Washington Post, indicate that BP was well aware of safety and maintenance issues as early as 2001.

“[The documents are] strikingly consistent, which was the first thing that jumped out to us …” Lustgarten tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “You start to see a couple central themes. And those were: internal criticism for a lack of accountability in the company, lack of support for workers at BP and at BP’s contractors. … [There was also] a consistent emphasis of profits over production over safety and maintenance and environmental compliance, meaning they were putting profits ahead of safety. And finally, a systematic disregard for maintenance of their equipment. It’s a process that they call ‘run to failure’ where they would use the equipment for as long as possible while investing as little effort and money in maintaining it as possible.”

Follow the link to listen to the interview or read lengthy selections from the interview.

Andrew Clark, U. S. Business Correspondent for the Guardian, argues against piling on BP. A nugget:

BP hasn’t done itself many favours. Initially, the company woefully underestimated the scale of the spill. And BP’s chief executive has produced a string of cringeworthy remarks. The company was ill-prepared for such an unprecedented disaster but has finally made some progress in plugging the leak. Yet BP has consistently promised to foot the bill for cleaning up the gulf and to meet all valid compensation claims.

Many will argue that BP deserves to die, and anger is entirely understandable. But critics should be careful what they wish for. America is a nation with a tradition of due process and everybody – even “big oil” – is entitled to a fair trial.

I can get behind the part about a trial.

“It cannot be that the only thing our government is good for any more is war . . . .”

Via TPM.

Via Kiko’s House.

BP’s wild well drowning economy as well as living beings. From Bloomberg:

With tar balls washing up on Pensacola, property sales are being renegotiated and buyers are delaying bids, said Theo Baars of Baars Real Estate Services LLC, whose family has marketed property in the city since 1946.

Tourism is taking a hit, too, with only one-fifth of the usual number of people attending the annual sandcastle contest last weekend, Grover Robinson, chairman of the Escambia County Commission, said at a Monday press briefing. The county includes Pensacola, located about 200 miles east of New Orleans.

Much more at the link.