Special report: How BP's oil spill costs could double

BP has been totally pro-active in cleaning up this spill due to an accident which has not been proven was the result of negligence or anything else. U.S. officials and the media offered no help or sympathy, only demonized the company and the situation. If a family member had such a problem, the least one would do is say, “What can I do to help?” Instead, the media whips up world opinion against this company.
I hope our next leadership is far more human and compassionate. And I cannot believe no one has defended them. BP has paid and paid and it is time for leaders to offer help and stop the blame.

Just another journalistic hack job. Adds nothing to what is already known. Just a lot of speculation and backward looking extrapolation. Like the projections that the oil would surround Florida and despoil the east coast. If “gross negligence” is the verdict, it would be purely political, anti “big oil”, and chauvinistic. The article barely mentions the shared responsibility of Anadarko and Mitsui. It does not mention the shared responsibility of Halliburton, Transocean, and Cameron.

Freeandlovinit,
I’m not sure where you live or what you do for a living, but the sheer level of your ignorance is staggering beyond comprehension. I live on the Gulf Coast and have experienced first-hand the impact of the leak/spill ‘on the ground’ from ‘day one’.

How the hell is doing nothing but finger pointing for over a week, repeatedly underestimating the volume of oil, failing to cooperate with authorities at every turn, saying you’ll do everything you can to keep the oil from reaching shore and then ‘taking responsibility’ for cleaning it up after abysmally failing to do so in ANY way being proactive?

As for humane and compassionate… I cannot believe your failing to even mention the 11 human beings who DIED in the sinking inferno of the Deepwater Horizon. BP will be lucky if they still exist after the families of the forgotten dead are finished suing them back to the Stone Age.

What a stupid move — When you’re a mega company with deep pockets and still have potential lawsuits in the US, the last thing you want to do is to announce that you think the worst of the legal action is over and watch your share price rise. Bob Dudley ought to take a lesson from the PR debacle of Tony Hayward attending a yacht race during the botched well capping attempts. The whole spill scenario is half criminally stupid decisions and half public relations.

Of course the stupid decisions have to be financially covered, but here unless a company is bankrupt, the amount of money to be gained by government or legal action is “infinite”. All you have to do is listen to Ken Fineberg’s tales of vacationers wanting emotional distress money because they couldn’t go to their favorite Gulf motel or a restaurant owner from a Northern state wanting compensation because less people ordered shrimp from his menu. If these folks can’t get it from Mr. Fineberg, they will go directly to the well — of money that is.

“The spill — and President Barack Obama’s inability to halt it”

Wait, what? How was the president suppose to stop the oil spill? I was on BP’s back telling them to get it done. It’s not like he could have done it faster. I don’t know of anything, or heard of anything, to suggest otherwise. As en engineer, I can tell you the only thing to help in an emergency to to tell the engineers, the one who actually know what they’re doing, to get it done no matter the cost, and they did that. BP’s eningeers were there, knew they systems and had the info.
But people will be ignorant, it’s what they do. What I don’t understand is how the author thinks it was his “inability to halt it” as opposed to people scape-goating.

Thank you Murzak. I rest my case.

I would say this is another comment only about money. Easy to talk about money. Now, what is being done to insure that the other wells in the area are safe. I think we have this thing that equates to being fined for speeding if you drive over 150 MPH. If it is only money, then we have failed. We don’t need to stop drilling, but we need to assure the safety. Money only will not get it.

i agree with murzak. the deaths are constantly overlooked when people speak of BP

Well, what we suspected would happen under the obama admin rule, has happened. Obama never intended to allow this crisis to go without full exploitation of it. His intent on shutting off the energy supplies found within our country has never been so evident as this decision. No one can get a drilling permit; coal minning permit and with Salizar, the gas supply will be cut off. Never in the history of America has a hostle president as this ever been elected and supported such radical environmental policy. There is no technology that will allow sustainability with the new sources of energy being pushed down our throats. We have 2 Trillion barrels of oil in the rocky’s and montana and it is being held hostage by the environmental agenda supported by Obama. Jobs are being lost due to Obama’s Gulf of Mexico policy and he has never offered alternative job creation except that of pandering to unions and offering them government “shovel” ready jobs which do not exist. Obama has committed high crimes and must be brought to justice by the America people. That adjudication began in November but must be finished in 2012 with the rest of the corruption flushed out of congress and getting this tar ball out of the WH amd back on his medicine.

Freeandlovinit,

You’re welcome. What a stunning counter argument. I stand in awe of your acumen. At least you’ve partially answered one of my questions. You are obviously NOT a trial attorney. I reiterate, “…the forgotten dead.” Good day sir or ma’am.

Eilan_Phang,
The deaths are not constantly overlooked when people speak of BP.
But Union Carbide is constantly overlooked when Rednecks want more money out of BP to save their economic greed and fuel their excessive lives. Do you want to compare statistics? Or will you subscribe to Stalinism – 1 death is a tragedy. A million is a statistic.

minuteman: You are so stupid it hurts. You are so short sighted I’m amazed you can see all the way to your computer screen.
Why haven’t we gone after this oil? Because the president wants to hurt us? Do you really, honestly believe that? Because wow.
Or could it be there are other reasons? Like that it would take all the water the Colorado river brings to California away to produce it? I’m sure there are a few million people in cali who would like to have that water. Or how about because of the environmental impacts? None of which matters in the long run because IT WILL ALL RUN OUT. Sooner or later, we will run out. A magical, infinite source of oil will not appear, and we will not suddenly develop a technology to give us all the energy we need. We have to develop it. In order to encourage development, we need to need it. We are note starved of oil. Look at oil and gas prices in Europe.
Please, do the world a favor minuteman, and gain some perspective. Also, less Fox “New” would probably do you a LOT of good.

Freeandlovit/Charliezap – My advice sell your BP stock now before they’re not only found guilty of Gross Negligence, but the rig manager is found guilty of Criminal Negligence. Also Charlie the contractors repeatedly warned BP of problems w/ their designs but were always overruled, at one point Transocean had the balls to order a stop work until BP agreed to another well test.

Casey – I agree BP knew the systems better than the government that’s obvious, but even they made mistakes like early on they tried to close the BOP and it didn’t operate correctly because it had been reconfigured by Transocean for quicker and easier testing. When BP asked Transocean why the produced records that it had been done per BP’s direction years earlier.

Murzak – Great post, but enough with the 11 deaths, more people die in 2 hours on American highways. Just remember the dead were also accomplices to the event, it doesn’t take special training to understand when you have pressure loss you don’t pump out the heavy mud – Duh

Tom Mariner – You nailed it “The whole spill scenario is half criminally stupid decisions and half public relations.” I’ve been saying this since May.

MinuteMan – Great passion though misdirected, Obama is an idiot and a wuss, he bends in the political wind like a reed or a willow. Prior to the BP spill he had announced opening up the Eastern GOM and parts of the East & Pacific Coasts to offshore drilling – All of these areas have since been closed again (Remember back then the “Drill Baby Drill” slogan was popular). So agenda not, more driven by media and polls.