Hmm, That only from the surface. What about what's going on under the surface surface? Result of shoddy drilling regulations. They did not have back up plan(like pre-drilling relief well for stand-by.
Exactly. I don't see how drilling a relief well is any less risky than drilling any other well. Plus, many companies have been drilling at sea for decades, thousands of wells, and none of them has ever drilled any such relief well first either.
Which is not to say that we aren't going to find out that there were serious errors made or shortcuts taken on this well. But I don't think not drilling a relief well first will be on the list.
Anyone taking bets on how long it will be before BP files bankruptcy? I'd say there is a high probability of them doing so within months. If you add up all the liabilities to claims from govts, businesses and citizens, it's more than any company could pay. There was one deck hand on the news last night. She hasn't been working and would have made $7K during the period. BP has so far paid her $2500. And how long do they have to pay her and others? 6 months? a year? They will likely have to buy all the fishing industry in the area too. And on it goes....
I'd say not any time real soon...you looked at their financials???
All amounts in millions except per share amounts. 12/2009 12/2008 12/2007 12/2006 Operating Revenue 239,272 361,143 284,365 265,906 Total Revenue 246,138 365,700 288,951 270,602 ... Gross Operating Profit 47,430 57,570 52,915 50,764 ... Operating Profit before Depreciation (EBITDA) 33,392 42,158 37,544 36,317 ... Operating Income After Depreciation 21,286 31,173 26,965 27,189 Other Income, Net 7,281 906 -7 1,136 ... Income Before Tax (EBT) 25,124 34,283 31,611 35,142 Income Taxes 8,365 12,617 10,442 12,516 ... Net Income from Continuing Operations 16,578 21,157 20,845 22,340
That's _averaging_ right at $20B net _AFTER_ taxes the last four years; all expenses incurred will be fully deductible. I don't seem them running out of money as being a problem. Not as profitable for a while; sure, bankrupt? I don't think so...
All predrilling a relief well would accomplish is having twice the risk of a leak.
The problem was the shutoff grommit was damaged by drilling too fast and ignored when bits and pieces of it were discovered in the drilling fluid, the backup shutoff failure was ignored, and the drilling fluid was extracted before the final safety plugs were in place when withdrawing the drill.
BP made some very bad decisions trying to get the well online a few weeks early. Since then they've wasted too much time trying to save the well.
I don't know about how probable, but far more likely than bankruptcy, yes. I've not looked at market valuation recently to see just how badly they've been hurt. I'd think it's not too far off a "buy" opportunity, though if one were thinking of a play...
The other thing is that no one actually on the platform appeared to be able to institute some of the emergency measures. While it is probably impossible to tell how much additional this caused, you would think when time is critical, the policies would just say do it.
The current worry about BP "on the street" seems to be that they may have to stop the dividend. I still see a modest possibility of a bankruptcy for protective reasons. Think asbestosis.
Yep. The Obama administration is moving, via injunction, to prohibit BP from paying out its quarterly dividend until its liability in the Gulf is sorted out.
Again, the administration is trying to do what feels good without concern for the consequences. In the case of the BP dividend, California Public Employees Retirement System, New Jersey Division of Investment and the Texas Teachers Retirement System own a lot of shares. The New Jersey bunch owns 51 million shares of BP and was expecting a quarterly divident of $400 million.
There are natural seeps, especially from quakes, but microorganisms digest them before they do damage. (Heck, wher edo you think Noah found the stuff he caulked the Ark with? After all, he was in the Middle East.) The problem here is the system is being surprised and overwhelmed. What I wonder is why don't they go to all the known natural seeps and collect some of the microorganisms that digest them and put them near this spill. Very oftne what controls the growth of such microorganism colonies is the availability of food (or they drown in their own waste products, the way yeast kill themselves during fermentation).
Yeah, good point. I had not looked at the actual numbers. And EBITDA is close to twice that. So, even if the spill costs $100bil, it's still on the order of a few years profit, which would be survivable. On the other hand, at this point, it's clear no one knows how much all the claims against them will total.
A couple weeks ago, 60 minutes had a guy on who survived the blowout; jumped into the sea (and burning oil) from the platform deck, some 90 feet or so if I remember correctly.
He said that what destroyed the seal way down there at the BOP was that they had clamped that big old O-ring, I think as part of a pressure test, and then someone had mistakenly withdrawn the drill rod or casing while it was clamped. It was after that that they discovered chunks of the broken seal coming up the drill pipe. He said he had some of the chunks in his hand, and when he showed them to his foreman, he was told not to worry about it.
Even though they (60 Minutes) had illustrations showing the BOP and that seal, they were a bit hazy on the exact details. I'd be curious to see a better explanation of what happened.
I don't get it. WHen I was growing up my uncle was the chief service engineer for a firm whose product was designed in ENgland, saw I grew up in awe of Brit engineering.
What is wrong with BP? Texas City explosion. TNK-BP in Russia. Many other issues. I heard they do everything by committee. Also their "beyond petroleum" strategy made them take their best people and efforts out of the oil biz. Dunno. I guess they deserve to be merged. Shell i smentioned as the likeliest buyer.
Texas City is supposedly the largest refinery in the USA.
Meanwhile, the minute Obama supports deep drilling, they make him look bad. And we're in trouble if this does to oil what TMI did to nukes.
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