BP hit by fears of $20bn demand for Gulf clean-up

The American people and indeed the whole world are very grateful that Obama has nothing more pressing to do with his time other than micro-manage the oil spill operation. What a guy.

Perhaps Obama will also instruct the American companies e.g. Bophal to do the same. Double standards?

"The American people and indeed the whole world are very grateful that Obama has nothing more pressing to do with his time other than micro-manage the oil spill operation. What a guy."

And if he doesn't be seen to be that involved it will damage him more in the eyes of those same American People. Can't have it both ways

Rather than blaming Hayward for the disaster, which is ridiculous, shouldnt Obama be helping to sort the mess out, then start pointing the finger.

Did i hear it was an American-run subsidiary of BP?!

Yep Transoceanic is an American company that recently relocated to Switzerland. Sounds like just the sort of company that Obama should be criticising but as he is a very clever lawyer he naturally overlooks inconvenient facts.

For those interested in the potential whys & wherefores of the causes, there is an enlightening documentary on YouTube for those who haven't yet seen it. From the '60 minutes' program - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLJHTTOSkpg - it is shown in various parts but there is a link also to watch the program in its entirety, I believe. The interviewee is a survivor and he shares some thought-provoking recollections of various incidents leading up to the blowout.

There's also other videos with suggested remedies for the clean-up process which it would be interesting to know if the powers-that-be have even considered.

This ring-fencing appears to be a ploy to take any compensation out of BP's hands and allow "independent" parties to allocate the money irrespective of the legal position, probably "vetted" by a US lawyer.

No sane person would ever trust an American Lawyer, especially as so many of them have vested political interests.

I had thought that at last the US had a sane president, but the oil-spill has clearly indicated that Obama is outting himself first over and above any common sense

The sooner someone ring fences Obama the better. If he was ever thought of as a statesman his course, uncouth remarks must have put paid to that.

It is time David Cameron told Obama either do something positive or go away ( or something similar).

Regarding the treatment of Tony Hayward what makes Obama think he would ever have wanted to work for him in the first place.

This catastrophe has certainly focused my attention, as a result I have spent some time researching the subject on the internet. I started with wikipedia entries for oil well disasters and blow-out preventers and then went on to read articles compiled from information received by propublica from former oilfield workers. I have also been watching the TV series "Oil Sweat and Rigs" which is broadcast on Quest, freeview channel 38.

The conclusions I have reached so far indicate that sometimes maintenance and repairs are compromised by the pressure to meet production targets. I also get the impression that rig workers learn by experience. They are not actually taught in a classroom. The work they do is extremely heavy, dirty, and dangerous. They haven't got the time or the theoretical knowledge to be circumspect, or question their superiors. They just get on and do what the bosses tell them to do.

It would seem to me, (from what I've read) that the criticisms of BP management are probably justified.

Of course there are double standards with the US, there always have been, but UK politicians just blindly go on believing that we have to be American puppets. Then when something like this happens we get reminded that the yanks don't give a stuff about anything other than themselves.

That said this is a terrible environmental disaster and anyone who thought it was going to be cleared up for much under $20 billion was deluding themselves. What surprises me is that the two US senators have been comparatively reasonable in their escrow demands, I would have expected them to go for overkill rather than come up with a pretty realistic estimate of what the total cost to BP is likely to be.

Only an insane management would put money into the escrow account. At the moment they have some leverage to stop the US govt forcing them into bankrupcy - as soon as the money is handed over watch the lawyers circle forcing BP out of the US and leaving US companies to buy the parts at rock bottom prices. However, I doubt anyone in the UK will have the spine to stand up.

Why the rush to judgment (and equally impetuous rush to defend) Why not wait and hear the evidence as to why the fail safe devices failed? There is some anecdotal comment about the substitution of sea water for mud as a drill lubricant, that is, as yet untested. This needs to be considered carefully, along with all the other evidence. If BP management pushed the oil rig workers into practises they vehemently opposed, that is a real consideration.

I'm with Villa442. The average cost of rescuing a seal after the Exxon Valdez disaster was $80,000. Reputedly American Sea Otters harmed in the disaster had fresh Lobster flown in at a cost of $500 a day.

In Bhopal there were 3,787 directly related deaths and over half a million were exposed to the toxic gas. (Incidentally the death toll after Sept 11th was 2,995) The maximum payout made to any of the hundreds of human victims of the Union Carbide accident in Bhopal was $500.

Greenpeace asserts that the Union Carbide CEO, Warren Anderson knew about a 1982 safety audit of the Bhopal plant, which identified 30 major hazards and that they were not fixed in Bhopal but were fixed at the company's identical plant in the US. In June 2010, seven ex-employees, including the former chairman of UCIL, were convicted in Bhopal of causing death by negligence and sentenced to two years imprisonment and a fine of about $2,000 each, the maximum punishment allowed by law.

Dow Chemicals' PR woman Cathy Hunt said that $500 was 'plenty good for an Indian'.

Well seems there is another agenda over there, BP has made management mistakes..... T. Hayward said that 7 systems fail one way or another when he was on Andrew Marr . It does seem that BP is being elbowed out of the GOM

and by the time the blame game has finnished, and the US bits of BP get some blame, it will be to late. Double Standards, why we keep thinking we are anything more than muppets in the relationship is now a mystery, Bhopal and Piper Alpha etc. a dirty business in more ways than one.

As the result of this incident I have, like Hotrod above spent some time gathering information about oil spills. BP may not be unique but it is in a very select group of multinational companies that have stood up, admitted responsibility and said they will pay compensation and the cost of the remediation of an accident.

During my research I wandered onto a website run by a serving officer in the US military where they compared the compensation given to the family of a soldier who died and the victims of 9/11. The comparison was awful and I imagine given all the shouting, it will be even worse when the payouts are compared with the those from this incident. All these deaths are tragic but measured against what the US government is prepared to pay for the tragedy of the death of one of its soldiers, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that the compensation is being driven by opportunism rather than need. It is then ironic that having seen the opportunity they are being careless enough to kill the goose before it has laid its golden egg.

BP should resist all attempts by the USA to bully them. They should continue to seek a solution to the leak and pay for the cost of clean-up. If things get bad they should walk away and put all the blame on the USA/Swiss drilling company.

I find BP management rather supine

I have always defended America but after the way they are treating BP and we are suppossed to be their greatest friend I am digusted with them particularly Obama doing anything to look good to the electorate let's hope our polititions remember this when they want our backing in the future

However much fault may or may not lie with BP, a major responsibility also lies with the US Government and people, who by their profligate over use of oil at prices lower than any other major nation have put pressure on the oil industry to search at ever greater depths, at which depths they clearly barely have the ability to deal with every problem. Has the US Government no adequate regulation, or did they just hope for the best? In the absence of any other evidence, I would put the blame say 50/50 between BP and the US, and thy should share the clean up costs in that proportion. Obama should be complimenting Hayward on his courage in standing up to take the flak, instead of leaving his US executives to bear the brunt! Obama is doing major damage to both US interests and worldtrade.

As some have already said TranOcean who ran the oil rig and had most of their staff on it and Haliburton who are both American companies though TransOcean is registered in Switzerland seem to have miraculously escaped any penalties at all. I wonder why.

While Mr Obama has his moral hat on perhaps he can now compensate all those around the world who were mis-sold all their "securitised debt" or "toxic debt" the vast majority of which came from the US and many people also lost their jobs and homes etc. American companies have absolutely nothing to shout about when disasters happen most of which were due to poor safety issues such as Bhopal where hundreds of thousands of people suffered and thousands died but the Amercan Co only paid out what is was insured for after 15 years of legal wrangling and I gather America helped to extract their Indian CEO so he did not get put in jail.

Seems when American companies cause a disaster then they will do the least they can, but when a British company has an accident (which was not even it's own fault it is expected to pay through the nose and has done the right thing but America has nothing to be proud of especially Mr Obama who is clearly not a decent and fair man.

Still as Amerca has an insatiable desire for petrol and seems to care little about others I am sure it will pay for it in the end.

I find it incredulous that BP is not imparting some part of the blame on Halliburton and Transocean. Halliburton must be worth Billions right since they were one of the few, if not the only company allowed to rebuild Iraq after the illegal 'war', so why isn't BP demanding support from these companies? It doesn't make sense for BP to shoulder all of the blame? Will Halliburton come forwards and accept their responsibilities?

Not even a mention of the spill on Halliburton's site and that includes a keyword search? How can they pretend to be so squeeky clean, just what is going on here?

Last year, Halliburton was also implicated for its cementing work prior to a massive blowout off the coast of Australia, where a rig caught on fire and spewed hundreds of thousands of gallons into the sea for ten weeks.

Halliburton performed a variety of services on the rig, including cementing, and had four employees stationed on the rig at the time of the accident. Halliburton's employees returned to shore safely, due, in part, to the brave rescue efforts by the U.S. Coast Guard and other organizations.

11 men died but the 4 Halliburton employees just happened to get out safely, this is starting to sound more like a conspiracy?

Criticsms, finger pointing, threats on cuts in dividend, demands for compensation, fear of loss of pension funds, acusations of Brit bashing, criticisms of Obama etc. etc. etc. How's that going to clean up the mess? How much would it cost to temporarily stick a huge industrial chimney stack over the leak to hold it so it can be pumped, and a fleet of fishing boats with weighted fishnets loaded with rags and cloth strung from floats to contain it on the perimeter ... that would cost just a millium or so dollars. But in the meantime everybody seems to be just talking blaming BP, conspiracy theories, worried about the share price. This all seems irrelevent in view of the urgency of getting the oil out of the sea with everybody's co-operation.

Finally the theory as posted by someone on YouTube:

"Haliburton did it on purpose in order to taint the Obama admin., and to keep BP from getting access to an enormous reserve of oil. Cheney really doesnt mind destroying the gulf to make sure Obama gets voted out. "

Does Obama then have plans to scale back Defence? Remember what happened to JFK.

You are right though Elizabeth, the prioity is stopping the leak. I find it unbelievable that they cannot stop the leak properly and have no way to achieve this quickly and succesfully. The real crime is to the eco-system, this cannot be compensated in any way. There is little talk of the scale of death to marine life and also the wild life on shore.

If we must take resources from such inaccessible places, then the procedures and safeguards must be as near 100% as possible. I've said it before, any leaks like this must be contained within 24 hours, there can be no exception to this. Do we wish to destroy our own food chain?

The uncertainty is what threatens to kill BP. What needs to be done is for a deal to be struck that say $20bn is put into a fund and that absolves BP of all further costs and legal exposure. If this were to happen BP's share price would recover to 400p plus and it could get on with trying to fix the leak and being an oil company. My guesstimate would be that the legitimate costs of cleaning the spill and compensating those really impacted would be say $10bn, but we all know what happens in the US, Guys in Florida will come up with a business plan that they said they "would have launched" and was projected to earn $5m in the first year so can good old BP hand over the cash please. unemployed waiters will complain that they need 5 years or wages because of the spill - people are still eating , still going on holiday, other parts of the US are benefiting if people are switching from one part of the country to another.

In theory there was a $75m limit on pollution costs, the idea behind putting that limit in place was presumably that if there was no limit to company's liability, noone would risk putting in the massive investment to drill on the edge of current technical capabilities. If the US does decide to destroy BP, no responsible major oil company could risk drilling in deepwater around the US again. If the downside is $100bn if there is a major spill and the chances of a spill are say 5% per annum its just too risky. That would mean that the US would either have to forget about deepwater offshore drilling and put itself at the mercy of developments in Iran, Iraq and Venezuela, massively increase the duties on gasoline or spend trillions of dollars on currently very expensive renewables. There are no painless options.

Cameron has done a lamentable job at supporting BP and the EU seems to not have lifted a finger, despite BP being one of the EU's most important companies. In part the UK media and public are to blame. Cameron is a PR guy and only worries about things when it's in the media. For two crucial weeks the UK public/press was distracted by a pathetic "scandal" over whether Laws was living with his "friend" or "partner" and the build up to England's so predictably damp squid World Cup challenge. Meanwhile the American politicians and lawyers were manoeuvring themselves as how most effectively to take an amount that could eventually amount to around £1000 for every man woman and child in the UK out of the UK economy.

It's chickens comin home to roost!

Americans should grin & bear it, it's the poor critters I have concerns for - they will be dying in their millions, just to prove how fantastic man & technology are!!!

America was responsible for some of the most inhumane & lasting consequences when they decided they were going to treat the Japanese to something they would never forget!

Those still dying as a result of the Bhopal disaster were not only inadequately compensated, they had to wait over 15 yrs for this.

In a world where cyclical events are the norm, I would urge the nation of the chief gas guzzlers to get on with it - who said life was fair, or that their lifestyles & jobs were guaranteed?

Large parts of the African continent are still losing their revenue to the likes of BP & other multinational companies.

We are being taken for mugs as we are expected to take even more of the brunt of the banking crisis - some banks everywhere will be making huge sums of money by the current crisis - just as there are not only losers, there are not only winners - but no one seems to understand this in the business world - where is plan B when plan A comes unstuck?

Is it an impossibly dumb thing to ask - how can we use techology we do not fully understand, in an area which we do not fully understand, & still expect to get away with our ignorant behaviour. Surely, at a very high level (at least if we judge by the salaries/bonues they earn) discussions must have been made about what to do when things go wrong? Or is that something so simple & basic, it appears that those higher up in the decision making process have a missing link when it comes to basic common sense?

USA Double standards. Bhopal 20,000 dead, USA Company Union Carbide (Now Dow Chemical) derisory 500$ a head compensation still not given and Chairman still not extradited to India by USA.

Exon oil spill in Niger delta, No USA Clean up or compensation for environmental damage.

Two of the countries that support IRA terrorism in UK namely USA and Lybia only Lybia has paid 2Billion US$ compensation. When is USA going to pay up?

USA Double standards. Bhopal 20,000 dead, USA Company Union Carbide (Now Dow Chemical) derisory 500$ a head compensation still not given and Chairman still not extradited to India by USA.

Exon oil spill in Niger delta, No USA Clean up or compensation for environmental damage.

Two of the countries that support IRA terrorism in UK namely USA and Lybia only Lybia has paid 2Billion US$ compensation. When is USA going to pay up?

Two things worth remembering surely, first is that there are mid-term elections due soon and whilst I can not imagine any politician would use events like this to make capital, it might just be possible!!!

Secondly was it not an American company that was actually managing this rig etc?

Perhaps Hotrod would like to give British Airways a few tips after watching 'Airline' ? Get real, Oil, Sweat & Rigs is US TV rubbish & half those guys would never be allowed near a BP rig floor !

Transocean may claim Swiss status but its American through & through.

Why doesn't Cameron tell Obama to stop his pathetic rhetoric - he was supposed to be a statesman when he was elected & now he's behaving like a spoilt brat. Is it only the French who ever stand up to the US bully ?

People tend to focus on Bhopal and Piper Alpha in the "double standards" assessment. One also needs to consider CFCs and TFL (lead in gasoline.) oil spills make huge headlines as TV cameras can go and take pics of gummed up Pelicans and oily beaches. But the environment has proved time and time again that oil spills are something that nature can deal with - the oil will in a matter of up to a few years be cleared by bacterial action. CFCs and TFL are invisible and make terrible TV,their impact is slow and not so easy to assess. Their potential impact is however potentially truly catastrophic in the literal rather than hyperbolic sense. The US companies who played the pivotal role in the introduction and promotion of these substances, DuPont, GM, Exxon really did cover up the problems for years with purely profit motives at heart. BP may have been sloppy not monitoring its US subcontractors and suppliers as well as it might have but the reaction and efforts that it has made to try and rectify the problem as soon as it happened have been startling different from the tactic of shuffling off guilty subsidiaries etc employed by the above mentioned US trio.