BP shares soar as it stops oil gushing from Gulf leak

The last thing Obama wants is for BP to be successful.

GOOD NEWS AT LAST -I SEE OBAMA IS GETTING ON THE BAND WAGON AGAIN TAKING CREDIT FOR HIS INVOLVEMENT -WHAT A CREEP !!!! from a loyal BP pensioner of 24 years

It is unfortunate that the standard of safety regulation in the States was not higher - one can in part blame Bush for that. But what this does show is how very very strong BP is, one hopes that they pay more attention to the environment. That care is taken with all sea drilling either deep or shallow as in Nigeria. That the people living in the area are enriched. Not only the people in the States, but those in areas of Africa and Asia that do not have governments that look after them. These companies can afford it.

As investors we want oil companies to be welcome - and not banned.

Come on my cockers!

Obama has gone quiet, but his mobsters are at it big time!

Joke legislation by a joke government.

Don't be fooled they intend to engineer a situation where BP is taken over for a song by a US oil company.

Goldman Sachs whitewash is a disgrace, had it been a UK bank the US policy would have been very different - they would be demanding compensation from our government.

Time we ditched the US for good.

It is time our politicians here learnt how to deal with American assholes.

Er. ...over here we call them arse-holes!

Why are we tied to America's apron strings? Could it be that we are still repaying the Lease-Lend of the 2nd world war?

Once BP is banned from drilling for oil in this area the yanks will move in (having learnt from BP's mistakes) and drill for themselves.

The country has little regard for the world's environment when it comes to the gas-guzzling transport they have. But of course this is not an oil spill they can blame on UK foreigners!

At least the incident has given Obama something to get involved with. Up to now he has done little for his country, he must have thougtht the oil spill was 'manna from heaven'.

Please, let''s keep this debate dignified, or the Americans will think that we have stooped to their base levels.

why did nobody mention Haliburton, the company that originally sealed the well [against gas leakage] 26 hours before the explosion?

Oh yeah, American company.

This smells like the Toyota affair...

"Oh yeah, American company."

No ordinary American company either. One of the US government's chief enforcers in Iraq after the invasion, with ex-vice president Dick Cheney as Halliburton ceo.

One of the most risible delusions the USA peddles about itself is that it has a free market economy. In fact the military industrial complex rules, crony capitalism is the norm in Washington and furriners are frozen out of all sorts of activity (e.g. media ownership) while a large chunk of the land west of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers is government-owned. Whole states are largely dependent on Uncle Sam for their economies, via 'defense' spending or welfare, yet kid themselves that they are oases of buccaneering capitalism.

The USA is an absurdly over-armed, globetrotting bully with a gigantic welfare state to keep its ever-growing coloured minorities quiet, in hock to its chief competitor (China) and lashing out impotently at its friends.

Time we canned the 'special relationship' invented by the half-American Winston Churchill, shed our lingering imperialist dreams and accepted that our future is as a lean, keen, post-industrial dynamo like Switzerland or Sweden-- not a pathetic hanger-on of the Yanks or a remote region of the failed EU.

Time Great Britain goes it alone again.

Early days yet but more power to BP's elbow.

I think they've been soldiering on, doing a solid job whilst all they got from Obama & Co was aggravation and no constructive assistance.

I agree though, those bloody yanks are still gunning to takeover BP for a song.

This would be typical considering their track record:

Most likely had involvement in the destruction of our Bletchley Park computers post WW2.

'Stole' supersonic technology from Miles Aircraft to make their X1 work and reneged on the info exchange deal.

Helped to screw up our TSR2 and Concorde projects.

Their administration stinks and the world would be better off without them.

It is time that the British government stepped in and told Obama that enough is enough. Also government must take steps to ensure that no one can take over such a prized British company that contributes enormously to our pensions and investments.

But will our politicians do anything? most doubtful.

Anonymous4 is right. US now owns huge slice of Qinetiq with all the patents secrets etc. Was there not a programme on TV at the weekend showing "Talon" IED equipment (formerly known as Wheelbarrow) being made in the US. This was developed with the lives of EOD officers in N Ireland fighting bombers funded by Noraid (US).

US Reneges on Airbus tanker aircraft against the wish of its own military.

UK Pharma research bought out & shipped wholesale to USA.

Time to stop this nonsense of appeasing a bully.

I can't believe the anti America rant. I'm glad they don't have the nerve to give their name, but I would assume they are still in short pants. Yes, the American administration does leave a lot to be disired, but we, and the western world owe so much to the Americans since 1917 to this present day. Without them. we would without a doubt be speaking German or Russian, and Asia would be speaking Japanese.

We do need to start playing hardball, and stop letting them get away with so much, but to turn our backs on them, would be the most stupid thing we have ever done, and we have done some stupid things over the years.

I read some time ago that our education system stopped teaching history, I think the above comments bear out the results.

We Americans didn't blame the UK for the spill, just BP. We don't want BP to go under, we just want them to pay for the mess they made. There was originally no animosity towards Britain. Since the spill though, the UK has turned into a nation of big whiners. "The Americans are picking on us, wah, wah wah!" If that is how you feel, then to hell with you. Who needs a special relationship with an island of whiners!

Does Obama who originally sanctioned this development and the American people who consume so much of the planets resources per capita realise that to exploit Americas newest finds will involve deep-water drilling and this is technologically difficult and not without risk as it is at the limits of the technology. Who will they allow to exploit it on their behalf?

Perhaps accidental Occidental? I suspect Piper Alpha isn't really known about over there or simply forgotten about, since it is so long ago. Many lives were lost and other installations continued to fuel the fire by pumping hydrocarbons down the pipeline for fear of not meeting production targets. Lessons learned. The fact is that is a dangerous business, however it has a strong safety culture. Let's face it those working offshore have a vested interest in their safety, so it is taken extremely seriously and applied to onshore facilities also these days.

We don't want America to go under do we?

We just want them to compensate the rest of the world for the losses they created through toxic debt, which they sold clearly knowing that it would go bad.

Some of the xenophobic posts above are amazing. Even if US regulation might have been better, it is BP who screwed up.

Yes, I have lost a lot in my BP shareholdings, and no doubt the funding my pension will be adversely affected, but the people I blame for that are the BP executives who took unacceptable risks in the pursuit of profit.

If the usa administration had the guts to increase energy costs in line with other countries they would not need as much energy and it would reduce their deficit. That will not happen as it loses votes.

Arnold, I am pro-American, decidedly euro-sceptic & invested in a number of US stocks but I am also a realist. Pres Obama has had a lucky break enabling the magnifying glass to come off his domestic political situation.

We got 50 four-stack destroyers in 1940, we also had real help from Weinberger et al over the Falklands but we have also given a lot in return. I suggest it is xenophobic protectionist rhetoric from across thepond that is causing ill-feeling.

A lot of the examples given are facts. We are only able to correspond like this because of a Brit whose idea was commercialised by an American company using a machine invented by the PO research lab in Dollis Hill that has reduced the need for people to use Frank Whittle's equipment because it's faster than Concorde to link John Logie Baird's gear to it.

Over 50% of all realisable inventions and innovations come from the UK and by and large US companies take the ideas forward.

BP PLC has shareholders all over the world and more work for BP in the USA than in the rest put together.

Our "special relationship" is hugely important to UK, USA & the EU but the UK is not a doormat!

Arnold says that BP took unacceptable risks. Have the causes of this disaster been published then? If so, where can I find the report?

I agree with Frank C's comment - I'm inclined to think that Arnold is using the time honoured approach of "never letting the facts get in the way of your argument"