U.S. Government in Collusion with BP to Cover Up Oil Leak
BP Asks to be Fined for Each Day of Spill, Not for How Much Oil It Leaked
April 6, 2011The Lookout - In a court filing last night, attorneys for BP argued that the company should be fined for each day its busted well expelled oil into the Gulf last summer, rather than for each barrel it leaked.
As it stands, BP faces civil penalties of between $1,000 and $4,300 per barrel of oil leaked, based on the amount of willful negligence by its employees as determined by federal investigators. With the official government tally of oil leaked in the spill totaling 4.1 million barrels, BP stands to be fined somewhere between $4.1 to $17.6 billion dollars.
But BP wants the feds to use a different method for assessing fines under the Clean Water Act--one in which polluters are fined $32,500 per day for the duration of the spill. This scale would potentially save the oil giant billions. Based on a daily calculation, BP stands to be fined only $2.8 to $4.9 million, depending on whether the government uses the day the well was capped or the day it was permanently sealed as the end date.
In arguing to have its fined accessed in this manner, BP claims that it was not willfully negligent in any way and that current estimates on the amount of oil that leaked are not accurate, a defense it parroted last week in its first sustainability report since the spill.
BP Emails Show Strain Before Spill
Internal BP emails show that there was lots of the behind-the-scenes bickering over well operations prior to the Deepwater Horizon explosion.April 4, 2011
Houston Chronicle - BP supervisors in Houston exchanged sometimes contentious emails about operations on the company's Macondo well in the month prior to the deadly April 2010 blowout and oil spill.
The emails, which were given to the Houston Chronicle, appear to show strain among managers overseeing the drilling operation, as well as the stress on workers trying to complete the over-budget well and shut it in for production later.
The documents are expected to be evidence this week at hearings in a continuing Coast Guard-Interior Department investigation of the blowout that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, killed 11 workers and triggered the spill.
The hearings resumed in a New Orleans suburb on Monday.
In a March 14, 2010, email, David Sims, a BP engineering team leader working on the Macondo project from BP offices in West Houson, responded to an accusation by well team leader John Guide that Sims wasn't listening during a conference call.
Sims, who had been Guide's peer in the organization before a recent promotion, outlined the reasons for one of his decisions, then berated Guide for his management style.
"You seem to love being the victim. Everything is someone else's fault," Sims wrote. "You criticize nearly everything we do on the rig but don't seem to realize that you are responsible for every(thing) we do on the rig."
Guide appeared to have taken the criticism to heart in a later email, responding that he would "consult the team and make well-thought-out decisions."
A lawyer for Guide declined comment on the e-mails. Sims' attorney did not return a call Monday.
Deposition ahead
Sims is scheduled to give a deposition in New Orleans this week in the massive collection of Macondo-related civil lawsuits that have been consolidated there.
In a statement Monday night, BP said the emails provide no new information about the disaster. They "reflect conversations among persons working on the project and have been addressed in a number of investigations already," the company said.
On April 17, just three days before the blast, Guide wrote to Sims about the stress the operations team Guide managed was feeling over actions by the engineering team that planned the work carried out on the rig.
"David, over the past four days there has been so many last minute changes to the operation that the WSL (Well Site Leaders) have finally come to their wits' end," Guide wrote. "The quote is 'flying by the seat of our pants.' "
Millions over budget
The well was originally budgeted at $96 million, but by the time of the blowout BP had spent close to $142 million and was at least 38 days behind schedule. Engineers charged with planning later steps in the drilling and completion of the well were changing them regularly as new issues came up, according to the emails. Guide wrote that work on the well was requiring daily visits from shore-based personnel.
"We have made a special boat or helicopter run everyday," Guide continued. "Everybody wants to do the right thing, but, this huge level of paranoia from engineering leadership is driving chaos... The operation is not going to succeed if we continue in this manner."
Management issues?
A report issued earlier this year by Fred Bartlit, chief counsel for the presidential spill commission, pointed to some email communications surrounding the well as indicative of BP management shortcomings.
Bartlit pointed out that the conflicts stemmed, at least in part, from a reorganization of BP's exploration business that had just taken effect last April. Before the reorganization, all of the engineers and operations personnel for a project reported to the same manager.
But the new structure established separate managers for engineering — the task of designing and planning the rig's work flow, and operations - supervising and communicating with workers carrying out those plans on the rig.
"It is clear that the way BP handled authority and accountability created confusion during the Macondo project," Bartlit wrote.
Not alone in feelings
Others on BP's onshore team shared the dissatisfaction with the reorganization.
John Sprague, a drilling engineer manager who oversaw all of BP's Gulf of Mexico operations, was critical of the restructuring in an April 8 email to a group of BP engineers.
But Sprague conceded one of the likely reasons behind it.
"Granted our Engineering teams are inexperienced," he wrote.
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