BP (British Petroleum) is way more horrible an oil corporation than I’d ever thought. Before Deepwater Horizon BP had the image as being “beyond petroleum” but they are just as wed to fossil fuels as the other big oil leviathans. So tied to oil and the revenues that come from it that they will obfuscate and hide the truth.

Take this example -

If only BP had told us (Congress, safety inspectors, stockholders, the press, or anybody at all) that there had been a violent blow-out at their offshore rig in the Caspian Sea, then the eleven men on the Gulf of Mexico rig would be alive today. If only BP had confessed to the failure of its cheap-o cementing methods, ditto: These men would be alive. If only.

BP is responsible for the death of those eleven people on the Deepwater Horizon rig. But this sort of profit before life is ingrained in the oil industry. If it costs billions of dollars to fix a pipeline but only millions in fines after someone is killed then an oil company will do the latter.

Some people blew apart instantly, some burnt slowly. I know: I’ve been there, years back, when I was an investigator. I discovered that the giant energy corporation called Peoples Gas that moved natural gas from the Gulf of Mexico into Chicago had been warned by engineers to fix a dangerous pipeline design. The company decided it was cheaper to wait and pay for the coffins. After eighteen people burnt up, they apologized. They paid out a few bucks, including my fee.

That’s what your industry is like people. Forget all the PR spin and propaganda you see on TV about Chevron’s human energy. That’s all a lie.

About a month after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, Hayward left the region to attend a posh yachting event in Britain, and uttered the crippling comment just prior to the festivities. “I have to confess, at the time I was pretty angry actually,” Hayward told the BBC of the incident. “I hadn’t seen my son for three months. I was on the boat for six hours … I’m not certain I’d do anything different,” he added, the NY Daily News reports.

via Bulldog Reporter – Daily Dog | Previous Stories – Daily Dog | He Just Won’t Stop Talking: Tony Hayward Cranks Up BP’s Image Challenge By Slamming Media and Defending His Inane Behavior.

Ok. Mr. Hayward clearly you don’t understand public relations at all. Did anyone ever speak to you about crisis management? Did you ever see that photo of Bush overlooking the devastation of Hurricane Katrina from an airplane? Yep, you sort of did the same thing back in April. This was probably the worst ecological disaster to hit the gulf region. You had eleven people who lost their lives on that oil rig. These families are devastated and will never be the same again no matter the amount of financial compensation they may receive.  Yet Hayward thinks the media went after him unfairly? He feels they smelled blood? Would Lee Raymond or Rex Tilerson of ExxonMobil–as much as I dislike Big Oil –have reacted the same way?

In a clear snub to the President, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson claimed this morning that BP was a victim of “anti-British rhetoric,” which he described as “permeating from America.” Mayor Johnson told the BBC’s flagship Today programme, “When you consider the huge exposure of British pension funds to BP it starts to become a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the airwaves.” The Mayoral view was echoed by former Conservative Party trade minister Lord Tebbit, who uses an interview in this morning’s influential Daily Mail newspaper to accuse Obama of “despicable” anti-British language. Tebbit accused President Obama on his blog of, “a crude, bigoted, xenophobic display of partisan political Presidential petulance.”

via BP And The Brits – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.

You cannot seriously defend BP! I would not defend ExxonMobil or Blackwater/Xe ever! I realize BP is doing damage control and trying to reassure its investors but the truth is they’ve done something historically and horribly wrong. The Mayor of London is also treading too far in inciting nationalistic rhetoric.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced today the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has levied the largest fine in its history—$87.4 million—against BP for failing to correct safety problems identified after a 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers at its Texas City, Texas, refinery.

via AFL-CIO NOW BLOG | BP Hit with Largest-Ever OSHA Fine of $87 Million.

For all the evil you do to workers, to people and to the environment there will be a reckoning. We will come and take your power from you sooner or later. Now that BP was swatted like a fly on a wall (for once), Chevron must also answer for its reign of terror.

I’m happy to see the Weekly Toll keeping this issue in the spotlight. BP keeps asking for more time even though these accidents happened five years ago.

Think about how the families of Raymundo C. Gonzalez, Jr. and Leonard Maurice Moore, Jr., who were killed back in 2004, must feel about BP asking for more time. And how about the families of the other 15 BP employees killed in an explosion just 6 months later in 2005. What about them? Doesn’t the media believe the family members might have something to say about BP’s request for more time – aside from the five years they have already had to correct the issues that cost 17 people their lives? Can this really be a case of the media not giving a shit about doing the job they are meant to do…. at least in such a manner that the public has a shot at understanding the problem for what it is and not what BP wants them to see.