BP Permanently Seals Gulf Oil Well

rexjoec writes "BP has finally plugged the Macondo well. This announcement came yesterday after $9.5 billion (through September 17) in expenditures and five months of continuous effort." From the LA Times: "Of the estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil that gushed from the well, 25% was burned, skimmed or piped to tanker ships. A second 25% has evaporated or dissolved, according to government estimates. Another 25%, classified by the government as 'residual oil,' consisted of light sheens on the water, thick goo on the shore and tar balls. The tar balls, though not harmful to humans, are likely to wash up on shore for some time."

Comments

You know what I find hilarious?

[Pojut]

The "potential" for conflict can raise the cost of oil by 5-10 cents in less than a week. The "potential" for supply problsm can raise the cost of oil by as much as 50 cents over the course of a couple of months.

Millions of gallons leaking into the Gulf, however, seem to have had pretty much zero effect on gas prices. Am I wrong? Please put some numbers up showing that I am...I'd really be pissed off if I'm right about that.

Re:You know what I find hilarious?

[east coast]

Assuming that the 4.9 million barrels of oil number can be believed? That's the US consumption in about 6 hours. Pretty much a drop in the bucket when it comes right down to it.

Re:You know what I find hilarious?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Millions of gallons leaking into the Gulf, however, seem to have had pretty much zero effect on gas prices. Am I wrong?

The Maconodo well was in the process of being converted from exploration to production. A non-producing well didn't come into production, not 'a producing well went out of production'. So, the supply wasn't impacted. If demand was level then the price should have stayed mostly level.

Only if oil futures had figured in the Macondo production already, or speculators thought that BP's costs would somehow drive up the world market costs (why would Exxon increase its prices?, e.g. - they wouldn't) would this have affected oil prices. The biggest supply risk right now is from the US Government, but it seem unlikely they're going to undertake the draconian options at this point.

Re:You know what I find hilarious?

[Zeek40]

It's not a 'supply problem' because the oil well was never supplying any oil. The rig was destroyed before the well became operational.

Re:You know what I find hilarious?

[IndustrialComplex]

My point is that this is a measurable loss of oil, compared to "potential" loss. Why does "potential" loss impact things more than measurable loss?

Or is this one of those make-no-sense parts of economics I just don't get?

Potential conflict can spiral into large market fluctuations. While a not insignificant portion of it IS speculation, speculation can backfire. But the numbers we see here, while large don't even really get close to the numbers which can be influenced by regional conflict.

Think about it this way, this was one well out of how many along Louisiana's coast? Imagine there was some nut who decided to blow up a rig. Compare that to a conflict which could result in a blockade of the Mississippi river! Or a conflict in which a group seizes control of an area where a major pipeline runs.

While it may be a large amount of oil, in terms of potential for disruption, it's minor.

Re:You know what I find hilarious?

[Have Brain Will Rent]

And the price of oil seems to have very little to do with the price of gasoline anyhow (In Canada at least). I have oil investments and I see them go up and down and nothing much happens to the price of gas. I've watched the price of a barrel of oil drop almost 20% with *zero* change in the price of gas. Years ago it used to be that when the price of oil went up the price of gas went up pretty much in lockstep and *instantly*. Then when the price of oil dropped the price of gas stayed the same for weeks - the gas companies claimed that they still had to use up all the oil in storage that had been bought at the old price. Curiously that logic never held when the price of oil went up.

Re:You know what I find hilarious?

[thegarbz]

This is actually fuelled by panic trading and has nothing to do with the oil price. Oil isn't taken out of the ground and converted to product by the same company. Oil is taken out of the ground then traded on a public exchange. Companies buy this from the public exchange refine it and sell product back to the public exchange. Retailers then buy the product from the public exchange. The end result is that when you buy petrol at a BP service station you're not necessarily going to get BP petrol. Also because of all this trading the typical trading trends happen when something goes wrong.

Oil price goes up.
Traders panic and start hedging bets on the retail market.
The entire thing turns out to be a non-event and the price of oil starts to fall.
Traders sit on their retail product they now don't want to move at a loss.
Dropped oil price results in a drop in retail petrol some 6-10 weeks later (since this is your typical refining and transportation delay).
Traders either move product through fixed agreements, or realise they screwed up and recover costs elsewhere.

Your typical oil company is also just a pawn in the same process. If petrol can be bought cheaper from the market than from the local refinery (a not at all uncommon occurrence) then they don't buy from themselves. This is why exploration, refining, and retail sections of these companies are so incredibly segregated.

The last 25%

[BostonRob]

The last 25%, left out of the summary, is the most concerning. From the article: The final 25% of the oil — the equivalent of four Exxon Valdez spills —- is of greatest concern to scientists. It is drifting 3,000 to 4,300 feet below the gulf's surface, in vast clouds of atomized droplets that could alter links in the chain of life.

Re:The last 25%

[h4rr4r]

Is BP paying those fishermen for the next 40 years of lost work?

Is it paying the hotels for the next 20 years of lost business?

It sure seems like dumping a few gallons of oil can get you arrested, dumping millions though is ok so long as you pretend to do something about it.

Re:The last 25%

[caturday]

If my company has a tanker full of gas, and that tanker explodes outside your store due to my company's negligence, cratering the street and making your store unreachable for months. By your logic, my company shouldn't be liable for monetary damage to your store. How would you feel about this? You can say "adapt! change!" all you want, but the bottom line is, there should be no legal justification for this kind of negligence.

Re:The last 25%

[danbert8]

Is BP paying those fishermen for the next 40 years of lost work?

No, but BP is paying for those fisherman to go out and clean the oil. Also 40 years=number pulled out of your ass. The effects of the Ixtoc 1 oil spill were not that drastic and shrimp industries returned to normal in 2 years.

Is it paying the hotels for the next 20 years of lost business?

The hotels are already doing quite well this year as they are hosting all the contractors that have been brought into the region, as are all the restaurants and such with the per diem the contractors are getting paid. And again 20 years=number pulled out of your ass.

It sure seems like dumping a few gallons of oil can get you arrested, dumping millions though is ok so long as you pretend to do something about it.

Yes, dumping millions of gallons of oil is ok (if you consider 20 billion dollars to not be a penalty). That works out to about $95 a gallon, not to mention the additional $1.87/gallon in lost oil revenue.

Re:The last 25%

[IndustrialComplex]

If my company has a tanker full of gas, and that tanker explodes outside your store due to my company's negligence, cratering the street and making your store unreachable for months. By your logic, my company shouldn't be liable for monetary damage to your store. How would you feel about this? You can say "adapt! change!" all you want, but the bottom line is, there should be no legal justification for this kind of negligence.

They can reimburse you for your losses, but people shouldn't be on the hook for hypothetical future losses 40 years into the future unless actual deaths were involved (You can estimate earnings, and nothing can reverse death, so the losses are tangible)

For example, let's say a massive Cat 4 hurricane came in 2 weeks later and literally washed your store away. Would the company that cratered the street and made your store unreachable be liable for your now non-existant store? Is that hypothetical? It sure is, but so are your 'lost' future profits. There was no guarantee of them.

Remimburse the damage, pay compensation for the inconvenience to establish a new store, and then any associated fines for failing to follow regulations.

Re:The last 25%

[ducomputergeek]

It's the old if you owe the bank $10,000, it's your problem. If you owe the bank $10,000,000, it's their problem.

Re:The last 25%

[catmistake]

Is BP paying those fishermen for the next 40 years of lost work?

Not speaking for BP, but for myself... and not speaking to family owned and operated fishing enterprises, but to the commercial fisheries: FUCK THEM. Their greed pretty much destroyed the Gulf and the Atlantic stocks of the best fish. Man, I am really going to miss tuna. FUCK THEM TWICE, damn greedy savages.

Is it paying the hotels for the next 20 years of lost business?

Not speaking for BP, but for myself... and not speaking to family owned and operated hotels, but the large commercial developers and big corporate resorts: FUCK THEM. They somehow skirted federal wetland laws (DO NOT TOUCH) to destroy miles of coastline so rednecks could have a vacation spot closer to home, instead of traveling to already established resort islands along the coast NC, SC, GA, and FL, like civilized people do. FUCK THEM TWICE, greedy fucking savages.

It sure seems like dumping a few gallons of oil can get you arrested, dumping millions though is ok so long as you pretend to do something about it.

Agreed. Trouble is, everyone only cares about their bank accounts, at the expense of the things we need to live, like a habitable environment.

Re:The last 25%

[Antisyzygy]

By your logic, I should be allowed to start a "waste disposal service". What I will do is locate myself in your neighborhood and burn tires, paint thinner, waste paint, and miscellaneous plastics in large heaping piles. You should just have to adapt to it and deserve no compensation down the road when you get cancer or poisoned by the toxic fumes in the air. Its not my fault you live there and use the neighborhood for your own personal enjoyment and living space. After all, this society is capitalist so I should be able to start a business like this cut out my niche in the market.

Re:The last 25%

[h4rr4r]

So how much do you think creating a new fishing ground is going to cost? That would be like building a new store.

Re:The last 25%

[Shakrai]

Prove that criminal laws were broken beyond a reasonable doubt and people will go to jail. Otherwise it's just political posturing.

Re:The last 25%

[david_thornley]

There's fundamentally two ways to make a business responsible for its unsafe actions.

One is to impose government regulations. These are generally flawed, often tuned to avoid expense to the corporation, often require unnecessary things at extra expense, may not be enforced, and are typically something of a pain.

The other is to make corporations civilly liable for what they do. This has its own set of problems, including shell corporations that loot and discard operating corporations, and the ability of large enterprises to wage delaying actions through the legal system.

The worst of both worlds is when bad government regs are used to shield a corporation from well-deserved liability.

Re:The last 25%

[caturday]

...pay compensation for the inconvenience to establish a new store...

I agree with the assertion that you should never whine about "leaving where you've been all your life" because it's rooted in an unreasonable aversion to change. Yes, there's a lot involved, but it's not something that's never been done before.

However, going back to the oil problem, in some cases there is no fitting compensation other than uprooting your fishing business and moving to somewhere completely different - on an ocean instead of the gulf. Is BP going to pay for that expense? Or will they get out of it on the grounds that asking them to move you and your family and your entire business to a different, possibly more expensive area is "unreasonable"?

And how do we properly account for what might amount to irreparable damage to that particular source of food in the near- to mid-future?

Re:The last 25%

[h4rr4r]

Is dumping not illegal in Florida or at the Federal level?

Where I live it sure is. The cops don't ask why you did it.

Re:The last 25%

[operagost]

What's the penalty? Fine, right? Justice served.

Re:The last 25%

[Shakrai]

Deliberately dumping used motor oil is a crime. Having it spill out of your car onto the pavement because a gasket fails is not a crime, though you may still be required to pay clean-up costs.

Re:The last 25%

[SatanicPuppy]

Well, since they'd about fished out the old one...

Honestly, I can't stand fishermen who talk about fishing grounds and fish populations as if they were their property.

I can pretty much guarantee that if they banned gulf fishing for a year, and studied the subsequent catches, they'd find that 5 million barrels of oil is less of a problem for the fish populations than all the commercial fishing.

Re:The last 25%

[AaronLS]

Indeed that 25% was what I was wondering about. The long term effects of this on our health and the health of the gulf ecosystem will probably never fully be understood, but will likely be felt in many different ways. Unofrtunately, it will be one of those things that is explained away by skeptics because it is something where it is very difficult to measure and prove the impact.

While I don't want to downplay the misfortune of those who depend on the fishing and tourist industry, I think those losses would pale in comparison to the losses that will be experienced in our health and natural habitats. Consider if you were to try and measure these things in terms of the dollar value that it would take to restore and maintain them in a condition comparable to which they would have been in had there been no spill. Restoring a habitat to a pre-populated condition is sometimes very difficult, costly, or near impossible. If the damage is minor, a healthy ecosystem will heal itself, but if it is major then habitats will be destroyed beyond repair or may be in a vulnerable state, such that it may be destroyed by a natural disaster, which a healthy habitat would have normally recovered from.

Usually when you are talking about assigning a dollar value to measure suffering, death, and/or increased health care costs resulting from something like this, then you are talking big numbers. A human life statistically is often represented as a few million dollars. It's hard to say what the effects would be, but I wonder about how many carcinogens have been left behind in the gulf and might make their way through the food chain or get to us through other pathways:

http://www.sciencesuperschool.com/crude-oil-spills-mdash-biological-medical-chemical-dangers.html

Re:The last 25%

[danbert8]

The damage they've done will affect generations beyond this one

Citation needed? Think back a few generations from yourself. Heck think back 50 years before the EPA came into existence. Does that horrible lack of concern for the environment affect your daily life today? Do you even know what they dumped back then? Heck 4 generations ago, we didn't even chlorinate water.

I think future generations will benefit from increased life expectancy and greater quality of life regardless of this oil disaster. Yes the people should be punished, but as previous posters have pointed out, it isn't criminal without intent. This was an accident and thus they should be civilly liable.

Re:The last 25%

[IndustrialComplex]

Lets say you own a farm, and I accidentally burn your farm down killing all your crops and livestock. Should you not be paid for the lost money you could have made from the grain and livestock? I mean, who knows how much the crops would have actually made you since there is no accurate way to determine the total yield since the weather affects it as does market fluctiations. Furthermore, your livestock could have gotten sick and died or could maybe not have grown very big. I understand its a bit different with fish since its a "caught" item from a "shared" resource but its not too far of a stretch.

Let's see: 400 head of cattle, and 1000 acres of arable planted land. Quantifiable, measurable quantities. You can put together a fairly reliable estimate based on commodity futures and you don't harvest grain 10 years from now. Actually, it is fairly easy to estimate considering I did the exact same thing when an energy company screwed up a well on land I own.

Now, we did argue about the value within several percentage points, but I could easily backup my estimates based on current prices, past prices, and a bodycount. (Though in my case, the bodycount was a log count for trees that they knocked down without permission)

Re:The last 25%

[Red Flayer]

Think back a few generations from yourself. Heck think back 50 years before the EPA came into existence. Does that horrible lack of concern for the environment affect your daily life today? Do you even know what they dumped back then?

Yes, and yes.

It's more complicated than that, though. Most people are probably not affected at all. But some people are affected in tragic ways. And even though I haven't gotten sick from being exposed to toxins, I AM paying for Superfund site amelioration. Does that affect my daily life? To some extent. Here's a fun map to check out superfund sites.

Yes the people should be punished, but as previous posters have pointed out, it isn't criminal without intent.

Well, others may have pointed it out, but it's still incorrect. There does not need to be willful harm for criminal negligence to occur. Disregarding safety can be a criminal act, even if any harm that occurs is unintentional.

Re:The last 25%

[catmistake]

That's not why. They created the demand. You'd be sicked to learn how much swordfish never gets sold and just rots and must be discarded. And... you can farm tuna??

Re:The last 25%

[SleazyRidr]

Ah vigilantism. Is there any problem it can't solve?

Re:The last 25%

[Antisyzygy]

Point taken about the tuna farming. Still, the whole problem is that there are too many humans, and too many of them like to eat fish. We won't stop overfishing the seas until there is some international agreement to do so or we kill a bunch of us off. The only real solution of getting fish sustainably would be to farm them, and you would have to farm the fish that are suited to it.

Re:The last 25%

[Shakrai]

Cite the relevant criminal statute and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. We don't throw people into prison in this country if you can't do that.

Re:The last 25%

[tehcyder]

Is dumping not illegal in Florida or at the Federal level?

Where I live it sure is. The cops don't ask why you did it.

You make it sound like BP dumped the oil deliberately in some sort of gargantuan version of replacing your engine oil and chucking the old stuff at the side of the road.

I've not (yet) even seen any mad conspiracy theory that thinks BP did this on purpose.

Re:The last 25%

[MarcQuadra]

I was thinking about this yesterday.

So far, there's no evidence that fisheries have actually been harmed in any substantial way by the spill.

Why not wait and see how next year's catch is, and if it's bad, force BP to pay the unemployed fishermen for another lost season? My guess is that a whole unfettered season of no fishing would do the fisheries as much good as the spill did in damage.

Also, if there's a year for tons of shrimp and plankton to thrive, a whole bunch of them are going to die naturally, sequestering any free oil in inert sediments at the ocean floor, right?

Obviously made up / Wild A*sed Guess

[Anonymous Coward]

That each of these four options accounts for exactly one quarter of the oil is obviously made up or at best a Wild A*sed Guess. They lied from day one about the amount of oil released, and we're supposed to believe this?

That's only 75 percent

[H_Fisher]

And the remaining 25% ...

... doesn't matter?

... wasn't accounted for?

... is about to wash up on our shores next week?

Re:That's only 75 percent

[Anonymous Coward]

The final 25% of the oil — the equivalent of four Exxon Valdez spills —- is of greatest concern to scientists. It is drifting 3,000 to 4,300 feet below the gulf's surface, in vast clouds of atomized droplets that could alter links in the chain of life.

This "dispersed" oil was broken into droplets, about the width of a hair, either when it shot at high speeds from the well's broken pipe or when it came into contact with the 1.8 million gallons of the controversial chemical dispersant Corexit.

Nice and sugar coated

[LBt1st]

I love how they make it sound like the oil just went away.
Hundreds of workers worked 10+ hour shifts every day on the shores cleaning up oil and dead animals for the past months. I'm not sure if that continues even now but the spill is certainly going to have lasting affects on the sea floor and gulf waters.

But the lawsuits have on ly begun

[elrous0]

Every fisherman in the Gulf is going to be claiming that BP killed their record season, every cannery is going to complain that the oil spill took a crazy amount of money out of their pockets. etc. I've already heard some fishermen being interviewed saying that BP owed them several YEARS worth of fishing profits (since they were presumptively assuming that they wouldn't be able to fish for years). I'm generally not very sympathetic to big oil companies, but those poor bastards are going to be swamped with lawsuits for the next decade. But, on the upside, I bet they'll damn sure be properly maintaining those blowout preventers from now on.

Re:But the lawsuits have on ly begun

[NevarMore]

I'm not saying that the specifics of this case are right, but thats what you have to do if you sue for damages with long term repercussions.

Lets say I run into you with my car and break your hand. You would need to sue me to recover the following costs:
  - Immediate medical care (ER, ambulance)
  - Surgery to correct your hand
  - Lost wages from the immediate time away from work
  - Cost of physical therapy
(heres the important part)
  - Cost of long term followup visits
  - Cost of pain meds (even say, Advil) because of long term discomfornt
  - Lost wages from not being able to use your hand 100% ever again
  - Cost of followup visits if your hand flares up again
  - Cost of treating the arthritis that is now likely to develop

You can only sue me once. You may not come back and sue me again in 15 years when it acts up after feeling fine for a decade.

Similar thing is going on here. The fishermen just plain don't know whats going to happen in the long term. The legal term is "make me whole". BP did something to harm them and the fisherman isn't made whole again unless all of his costs , short and long term, are recovered. The fisherman doesn't get to go back in 5 years and sue BP again after he finds out his fishing area is a wasteland because the fish are gone.

Re:But the lawsuits have on ly begun

[h4rr4r]

Bullshit. They are going to weasel out of this like all big companies do when something like this occurs. Google "bhopal union carbide", for a great example.

In a just world they will have to pay every inflation adjusted dime since the fishing industry was damaged to when it fully recovers. In our world they won't.

Re:But the lawsuits have on ly begun

[Abstrackt]

The problem is that a) No one can see into the future to see what those ACTUAL damages will be, and b) Many of the people suing will be greatly exaggerating their damages, if not committing outright fraud. Again, I don't envy BP the mess they will be dealing with on this--especially since every ambulance-chasing trial lawyer and his brother are going to be pouncing on this, and I doubt that judges are going to be very sympathetic to the evil oil company.

Regarding A: NevarMore made the same point, that you can't know what the actual damages will be.
Regarding B: I'm pretty sure you still have to prove your claim is reasonable.

Whether the oil company is evil is irrelevant, the judge's lack of sympathy will probably come from the fact that the company is responsible for an environmental disaster.

Re:But the lawsuits have on ly begun

[mr_mischief]

That's why the court system is an adversarial one. The defendant and the plaintiff both get to make a case, and the judge or jury doesn't have to award the full amount being claimed if they don't think it's a fair amount.

Re:But the lawsuits have on ly begun

[Vitriol Angst]

Just ask the natives who were harmed by the Exxon Valdez -- most of them have died without receiving what the COURT DEMANDED -- and even after Exxon got new politicians to put a cap on penalties.

The TRUTH of the Exxon Valdez disaster was that Exxon only got rights to be in pristine waters and the only harbor they could use for hundreds of miles for a song because they promised the Indians who owned those lands that they would get the most advanced radar and avoid hitting ground.

Well, they didn't put in all the radars and they left them turned off. The Oil spill had nothing to do with one drunk captain -- it had to do with cutting corners and saving money on an AGREED ON safety measure.

There is a lot of pining about "lawsuits hurting business" but it's the ONLY way to right wrongs. If it didn't cost companies to screw up -- they would cut more corners. How afraid of lawsuits are companies like BP when they have a few thousand security notices on substandard or missing equipment? The battery was dead in the sensors on the Deep Water Horizon and they didn't have a $250,000 blow-out preventer -- THIS, after drilling to the extent of human ingenuity, and having invested very little in clean-up procedures -- they used the SAME TECHNIQUES that were tried and barely worked 25 years ago. In fact, all 4 major oil companies drilling in the Gulf submitted almost exactly the same "contingency plan" that was likely xeroxed from the same ones for the North Atlantic because it spoke of "Fur Seals" and the like.

The ACTUAL damage to OTHER BUSINESSES in the Gulf Coast is predicted to be around $1.4 Trillion. BP won't be paying that because it's a LOT cheaper to spend a few million on TV commercials so the news doesn't cover the truth, and a couple million on judges and campaigns. The investment in our government returns about a 1000 to 1 in benefits.

why not untar the gulf...

[pulse2600]

tar -xvf gulf.tar

Re:why not untar the gulf...

[Petaris]

That extracts the tar, we want to bottle it up.

tar -cvf gulf.tar gulf coastline ;)

Re:The well is empty.

[arielCo]

The prospect may have held 50 million barrels (7.9×10^6 m3) producible reserves of oil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macondo_well#Location

Re:Did they actually SEAL it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe when they say they "sealed" it they mean that they threw a seal at it. Also, maybe it was a baby seal. And maybe it had fur. Those evil bastards...

Re:Lies, dam lies, and statistics.

[mr_mischief]

It's not the margin of error. It's the 25% that's still in the deeper water. That's why they mentioned three ways the oil came out of the mass of the water and it didn't add up to 100%.

That other 25% is getting into the plankton, fish, shrimp, and marine mammals. Part of it's undoubtedly in the gulf stream on its way to the coast of the UK and Ireland. Part of it will remain in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and the western Atlantic. This last 25% will take years or decades more to break down after the press grows tired of covering it.

The reason the numbers sound so fake is that they are approximate best guesses. Nobody has actually been able to reliably measure exactly what the flow was, how much is in tar balls, and the like. The initial flow is an estimate. The tar balls are an estimate. The sheen on top of the water is an estimate. What's left in the water is an estimate. The only thing they could really measure with any precision is what they scooped up or burned off.

Re:I make a point not to buy from BP anymore

[east coast]

Cutting oil consumption is the solution. By boycotting BP you only hurt the local station owner who has no fault in this. BP will always have a market for what they're pulling from the ground.

Re:Besides a Bad PR Strategy...

[vlm]

is there any GOOD reason why they simply didn't repair the blowout preventer, hook up a new dipstick, set up a new rig, and keep on a-pumpin'?

There's two answers:

1) The legal one is once a well goes out of control, it gets the death penalty. Sounds on the surface as stupid as punishing a gun instead of a shooter... however this "gun" cost BP within an order of magnitude of $100M to drill. Wells are really quite expensive to drill. This lowers the wealth of the world as a whole by $100M but more specifically it lowers the wealth of BP by $100M, thus being very motivating for funding groups like BP to hire drillers (TO) whom don't screw up.

2) The semi-technical answer is rapid, uncontrolled sand flow pretty much destroys the pipes and other down hole stuff. It would be way faster and cheaper to drill a new well than to repair this one. Its sort of the difference between duct taping something together in a movie plot therefore its possible vs actual business operation. What I'm getting at is testing and certifying casings and hangers and parts is really cheap when its on the surface, and really expensive when its buried in the earth.

And 25% just put itself back in the oil field?

[nedlohs]

Or is in huge underwater clouds of atomized droplets and hence out of sight and mind.

Re:I make a point not to buy from BP anymore

[vlm]

You should too.

A feel good idea. With no, to negative, results.

1) They're going to change their name in a couple months / years. Guaranteed. Bet you won't notice.

2) Carried out to the logical conclusion, if everyone shunned BP, our own govt (aka all of us) will have to pay the full costs of cleanup. I'd much rather voluntarily pay my tiny fraction of the costs and in return get a tank of gas in my car, than have the govt forcibly take everyone's money to pay for the full cost of cleanup and we get nothing but a larger national debt...

3) Gas stations are mostly franchises. So, the only people you're punishing are your local gas station owners whom randomly selected the wrong marketing firm. The guy down the street whom contracts to Exxon for his marketing, will simply buy the excess gas from BP and you'll never be the wiser. Punishing the local station owner is the same bullying mentality as screaming at a supermarket cashier or other McJob personnel, as if they have anything to do with it or as if your actions will have any effect.

Just like in Iraq, the US simply declares victory

[Eternal Vigilance]

The BP+US statements about this debacle have from the very beginning been utterly fanciful and misleading. Why should anyone suddenly believe this one?

BP+US has treated the entire disaster as simply a public relations problem. Control the media message, attack and suppress any contrary evidence, and thus define reality. At least until the guilty have escaped any consequences and the gullible are left to pay the real costs.

And my observation here is to note the similarity to U.S. petro-military operations in Iraq (and the rest of the Middle East). Both were caused by hubris and greed, and the official "solution" to what is clearly a complete and total clusterfuck is just PR "rebranding" - to simply leave and declare victory.

Without independent observation and analysis, in either the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Mexico, who has any idea of what's really happening?

But from the similarities I'll bet this disaster will continue exactly like Iraqistan: lots of smiling photo ops of the CEO's of state, the occasional human interest story about the hardships suffered by the little people (carefully avoiding any link to those responsible), and the suffering and environmental devastation and the death will keep going on and on.

Gulf of Mexico, Persian Gulf.

Same hydrocarbons, different day.


"My fellow Americans, major combat operations in the Gulf have ended. In the battle of Macondo, the United States and our oillies have prevailed."

"Emission Accomplished"

Re:I make a point not to buy from BP anymore

[Rhacman]

By that logic, if you disagree with Walmart business practices you should still keep shopping there so that it wouldn't unfairly impact the sales clerk. The only meaningful vote you have in the market is where you spend your dollars. It sucks that the friendly guy at the local BP station is going to lose business but it's the only meaninful voice the consumer has. Maybe you'll ultimately still be buying BP oil since you have no control over that, but if the BP stations start closing it has an impact on the image of BP. I'm not even saying that people should boycott BP stations, personally i'm waiting to see if they stay true to their responsibility for the cleanup as well as fixing their own safety issues. For those who remain unsatisfied, a dollar unspent on anything with the BP logo on it is a vote worth a thousand irrate e-mails.

Plug the leak

[countertrolling]

Look who gets the job.. For sure they didn't charge a dime...

Re:I make a point not to buy from BP anymore

[VanessaE]

Hey, here's an idea for the poor, unfortunate station owners and their employees who are so downtrodden by the rightful boycotting of BP-supplied stations: go work for or get your fuel supply from SOMEONE ELSE besides BP. I've seen more stations switch brands over the years than I can count, some without changes in management or even significant changes in employees.

BP is not the only oil company in existence, nor are the various stations they supply the only ones out there which need able-bodied employees. Add to that the fact that there appear to be plenty of jobs to be had elsewhere, despite the slump in the economy.

To put it bluntly, BP made so many poor decisions that it's as though they set this up to fail. This is the kind of fuckup that bring forth a punishment as damaging to BP as the spill itself is to the environment.

Re:Just like in Iraq, the US simply declares victo

[DerekLyons]

Without independent observation and analysis, in either the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Mexico, who has any idea of what's really happening?

Not that you care what's really happening - as your reply makes it clear your mind is already made up. Unless the 'independent' analysis agrees with your existing bias, you'll just claim it to be a product of the "petro-military complex".

Re:I make a point not to buy from BP anymore

[mjwx]

Sigh, why do people not get it. The oil from BP rigs is not sold exclusively to BP refineries and so forth. The oil is traded on a public exchange, this is then purchased by refineries which sell the refined product on another public exchange which is then purchased by a retailer. So if you go to Esso or Mobil you're still buying BP oil. If you go to BP petrol stations you're buy Chevron oil.

Its done this way because the production of oil wells do not equal the consumption of the same companies oil refineries.

If you really want to help, stop using so much oil and invest in alternate energy. Boycotts against BP are useless as you'll only hurt the unrelated retail arm whilst the drilling and exploration arm goes on with business as usual.

Humans?

[lemmis_86]

Nor harmful to humans? What a bout the environment we depend on? Talk about misleading the public.

Comparing with other big oil spills

[justthinkit]

This is less than was spilled in the Gulf War spill, about two and a half times more than the Amoco Cadiz and 250 times less than was burned by Saddam. Here are the Top 19 according to Wikipedia.