WELL WELL BP global CEO Tony Hayward has agreed to President Obama's demand for a compensation fund. This year's $5bn payment will still leave the UK-based oil giant with change of $600 million from its 2010 first quarter profits.
Members of the US Congress tore into the big energy corporations on 15 June for filing almost identical Gulf of Mexico oil spill response plans – which included contact details for a deceased scientist and steps to protect marine mammals not found in the region’s waters.
Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell all have identical response plans to BP, said House energy and commerce committee chair Henry Waxman. The verbal assault by committee members undermined attempts by the oil giants to suggest that their working practices differ from those of BP; and that the catastrophe, which killed 11 workers, would not have happened if the well had been theirs.
Leading the committee’s questioning of energy executives, Democrat Ed Markey focused on their spill response plans. “They cite identical response capabilities and tout identical ineffective equipment. In some cases, they use the exact same words,” he said. He added: “Like BP, three other companies include references to protecting walruses, which have not called the Gulf of Mexico home for three million years.”
Under pressure from US president Barack Obama and ahead of a congressional grilling for BP’s London-based chief executive Tony Hayward this week, BP agreed to the president’s demand for the creation of a $20bn (£13.5bn) compensation fund for victims of the Gulf oil spill. The company also told the president it would not pay shareholders a dividend this year – the first time this has happened since World War II. BP’s shares rose sharply on news of the deal.
The agreement requires BP to pay $5bn into the fund this year, significantly less than its first quarter profits. A week after the rig exploded on 20 April, BP announced profits from January to March 2010 of $5.6 billion (£3.6bn).
The US president has expressed renewed interest in a clean energy plan in the wake of the Gulf disaster.
3 Comments
Brilliant and politically astute bloggings as usual. Cutting through the crap. It’s not just about BP, it’s all of the oil companies, and other employers too eg Union Carbide/Dow over Bhopal killings.. It’s about the lack of corporate responsibility and US government’s – and all government’s – corrupt acquiensence, weakening both regulation and enforcement in the face of corporate cash for yeras and years. And in the UK we need to keep this in government’s face as Lord Young/Prime minister talk nonsense about too much health and safety and getting rid of it.
Hazards Campaign
Families Against Corporate Killers
Exactly the opposite of what is needed is being proposed, this was our greatest fear in the Offshore Oil & Gas sector.
But a word of Caution WE DO NOT NEED MORE REGULATION ,just enforce that one’s that exist already in UK, unlike US the regulatory system here is less biased towards self regulation.
We do not need anymore proof that Self regulation DOES not work.
Hows talking about the lost lives Now?
Less we forget 11 of our workmates , friend, Dads, Brothers And Sons are lost forever
Is this a price worth paying?
It’s not just oil companies who put profits BEFORE people, it’s a business stratergy ,sell of utilitly companies for profit , then sub contract the work to maintain for profit, again the regulators and governments just sit back and watch ,only taking actions AFTER someone is Killed or Maimed.
Thom’s blog
The United States of CEOs
Last week, in a San Bruno, California, neighborhood, a natural gas pipeline exploded in a thunderous sound heard for miles destroying homes and killed at least four people. Now, a consumer advocacy group has found that the company that operated the faulty pipeline, Pacific Gas & Energy (PG&E), had classified the pipe as a high risk and yet did not use the funds it had collected from a rate hike to repair it. Meanwhile, all over the nation states and cities are increasingly outsourcing facilities and infrastructure to private, for-profit companies like PG&E, taking in short term cash to help them through this tough economic time, but turning our infrastructure over to institutions that are set up only to make a profit and not to further the public good. From privatized parking meters to water supplies to toll roads to gas lines, America is increasingly becoming the United States of CEOs, with less and less control, oversight, and influence from We The People.