Tag: Oil Companies

Deja Vu–All Over Again

From the VOMITORIUM

It is a cool morning on the Gulf of Mexico….it is 3 June 1979….but all the serenity is about to blow up in everyone’s face…..a well is being drilled in 160 feet of water…….BAM! …….the well suffered a blowout and is recognized as the second largest oil spill in history and the largest accidental spill in history.    There problem was….and here is where the Deja part comes in…..when things got tight the Blow Out Preventer did not work and the result was a huge damaging oil spill.  Wait for it!  There is more deja moments!  One techniques that was tried was to lower a cone shape structure over the busted pipe called a “sombero”  maybe they should have called it a “top hat”…….that did not work!  They used chemical dispersant, booms and suction to try and control the oil in the water…Deja vu…..

The spill was finally controlled….and how was that, Professor?  They drilled a relief well…and it took 10 months to stop the leak.

Now does any of that sound at all familiar?  Uh Huh…………we can count the nose hairs on a terrorist in Bumfukenstan from space but we have NOT made any progress in controlling oil leaks or techniques for fighting them in over 30 years……..I am so proud!  (In case you missed it…that is SARCASM!)  This is the best we can do?  If so, then someone needs to shut the “F’ up about how far we have come in the use of technology!

The whole free market argument is one of the causes of this disaster…..I say fine…let them rape us, but if they are allowed then there should be criminal charges for any leaks from now on….I am not talking about penalties that does little than whack on the pee-pee…I am talking about fine and JAIL TIME…..

This Needs Explaining

From the VOMITORIUM

The oil is gushing a mile down and everyone is running around blaming everyone else….no it is BP’s fault, no….Halliburton, no….Transocean, no….Obama’s….no, there is blame flying around like free weed at a Dead concert.  And of course, the GOP wants an explanation of why the Prez is NOT doing more……they screamed when the Dems did this to Bush and now they, the GOP, wants the US to step in and take control….the same people that screamed about this and that it stank of socialism…this all too typical of the morons in this country.

But the explaining that I am talking about is that of BP…..when the spill happened their stock slid, as it should and it kept falling each time they announced a technique to stop the flow…..with the top hat procedure to the junk shot proposal to the siphoning hose…each time their stock fell even more…….and then along came the drilling mud and concrete proposal, which they are trying as we speak…..but the day before the procedure was tried the BP….. stock went up….you heard me went up!

If this shows that confidence is high for this to work, why was it not tried 33 days earlier?  Why were all the ones that NO one had confidence tried first?  Was this a way to manipulate the stock price?  Is there more to this than just a coincidence?  We need some serious questions asked of the participants in the drama……..the sniff test tells me this is a crap!

2010 Anal-Ocity #21

Usually it is a politician that makes the anal statements and is caught with their participles dangling……and they give people like me ammo to keep going on our quest for the truth and the end of the political BS.

But this time we have a CEO making an anal statement, actually it is more like an outright LIE, and in doing so gets labeled…….THe CEO of BP wants to be up front with the American people…..

From the Times on-line:

“We are committed to providing the American people with the information they need to understand the environmental impact from the spill and the response steps that have been taken,” said Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive.

Great!  He has NOT done anything close to that in over a month and now we Will get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?  When Pigs Fly!  They lied about safety….they lied about the flow of the spill and they lied about just everything concerned for the spill….even have gone so far as to say the the spill will not be that bad when all is said and done.

And I thought this was going to be a slow year for anal stuff…..Damn!  I love my job!

The Ballet Of An Oil Spill

I would suspect that just about everyone in the US has heard about the massive oil spill threatening the Gulf Coast…..the people are angry and are demanding restitution, they are demanding that the company makes everything whole again….but is that a realistic hope?  And so the Ballet begins!

There have been some that suggest that the Obama Admin may have been at fault for the disaster, not as deeply involved as BP, but still should share some of the blame as an accomplice…..

A May 11, 2009 legal brief written on behalf of Obama’s secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar, requested that the Washington, DC federal court of appeals overturn or amend an earlier decision blocking new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico’s outer continental shelf. The petition referred specifically in several instances to site “206”—the same area where the Deepwater Horizon would explode in a blowout less than one year later.

“Salazar approved BP’s exploration plan without any environmental analysis on April 6, 2009, knowing that the lease could get struck down by an active lawsuit,” said Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity. “When it was struck down 11 days later, he went back to court to get the BP exploration drilling (and other areas) removed from the vacature. His success in this legal maneuver allowed BP’s exploration drilling to take place, resulting in the April 20, 2010 catastrophic disaster.”

Even since the explosion on the rig, the Obama administration has continued to grant “categorical exemptions” for deep sea oil drilling—27 in all, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.

If this research done by Tom Eley of wsws.org is true then Obama and the boyz are and should be blamed for this disaster, or at least held accountable…the way they keep saying that BP will be held accountable.

Now the CEOs of BP, Halliburton and Transocean are on the Hill testifying at what happened and what is to be done.  But the game got to the inevitable point of blame.

BP America President Lamar McKay stressed the failure of the blowout preventer owned by rig operator Transocean. “The systems are intended to fail-close and be fail-safe,” McKay said. “Sadly and for reasons we do not yet understand, in this case, they were not.”

But Transocean chief executive Steven Newman said the blowout preventers “were clearly not the root cause of the explosion.” He said they might have been damaged by debris made of cement and steel casing material blown upward because of other failures.

Halliburton’s Tim Probert also tried to deflect blame, saying, “We understand that the drilling contractor . . . proceeded to displace the riser with seawater prior to the planned placement of the final cement plug.” That plug was designed to keep the oil and gas in the well, a final step before pulling the drilling rig away from the well. Probert said that the final cement plug was never set.   (Thanx to WaPo for the excerpts)

This was a predictable thing….NO one is to blame, especially those with an interest on the rig.  The media will run amok with the hearing transcripts; they will show the CEOs in the most unflattering light, but I would bet my last dollar that the report from the Center of Biological Diversity will get little to no play in the media……..any bets?

BP IS too blame….Transocean IS to blame…..Halliburton IS to blame…..and yes politicians are too blame, especially the Obama Admin……I am sure there will be a plausible explanation to why the Admin pushed deep sea drilling without the proper documentation…….but I want them all to take RESPONSIBILITY for the disaster that they alone have created.

Drill Baby, Drill

Does not take long for the vultures to swoop in, huh?

The U.S. Interior Department, acting in President Bush’s final days in office, proposed on Friday opening up 130 million acres off of California’s coast to drilling for oil and natural gas, including areas off Humboldt and Mendocino counties and from San Luis Obispo south to San Diego.

After a hands-off policy for a quarter-century, the administration submitted plans to sell oil and gas leases for most of the U.S. coast, from the Gulf of Maine to Chesapeake Bay and the Outer Banks of North Carolina to the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Coast.

New drilling also was proposed in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, one of the nation’s most plentiful sources of fish, and the Arctic Ocean.

Washington, Oregon and protected parts of Florida were excluded along with waters off San Francisco Bay that lie within national marine sanctuaries.

On Friday, the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups greeted the news with praise, saying it is time for domestic energy supplies to be released from the moratorium.

Let the people see how many jobs were created by this…..Let the people see how long it takes to get this stuff to market.  Let the people see how much this will cost them in tax breaks.  Do not cook the numbers, just give the facts without the bullshit spin, ok?

Will The Addict Return?

If you can remember back to the 70’s when there was an energy addiction that made for an energy crisis.  We all started to think of ways to kick our oil habit like alt energy, wind, solar and other energy saving measures and for awhile we were moving in the right direction and were kicking the monkey on our backs.  But unfortunately we fell off our wagon.  The pushers, the oil companies, in the 80’s made the price of gas and oil cheaper and we stated thinking that we were not all that bad for the addiction.  It was something that we could live with.  We wanted our 4 gallon to the mile Hummers.  We began feeding our need heavier than before.

Then one day we awoke from of addict induced haze toi find that our drug of choice was now $4+ a gallon.  Once again, we realized that we were sick and needed to find a way to eliminate the joneses.  We were once again JUNKIES.  We sat down and decided we were gonna do something about our addiction this time, that we would break our dependence on the drug.  Everyone one started thinking sbout alt energy, solar, wind, and energy saving measures.  Smaller cars, better gas mileage, even nukes.  we even got the two major parties thinking along those lines and were gonna be there to help us break our addiction.  Once again we were feeling good about our choice to end our addiction.

One morning the pushers awoke to find that they would be in deep financial trouble if they lost their Johns.  Their user base was shrinking, ever so slowly, but shrinking nonetheless.  The market manipulation started again, drop the price to ridiculous low price and the junkies would not be able to resist.  Slowly the price started down not to appear too eager, but enough for the addicts to get a whiff of the “good stuff”.

Looks like the addiction will build again.  The worsening economy will slow the roll of the addicts.  No money–No drug.  There is a bright spot for the pushers–the credit markets, but first they have to have help to ge tthem to loosen up so that the junkies can get the drug more readily.

The addict is returning.  How long will this drug induced haze last this time?  The saga goes full circle, never a lesson learned from the last bout of addiction.  An addict will always remain an addict.

Drilling Ban Will Expire

The Dems in Congress have fallen to the weight of public opinion.

The offshore drilling ban that became a flash point in the U.S. presidential election looks set to expire next week after Democrats decided to drop the prohibition from a temporary spending bill that would keep the government running.

The end of the ban will not lead to a rush of new drilling any time soon, but it would be a big win for Republican Presidential nominee John McCain who has made opening most U.S. offshore areas to drilling a key part of his campaign. His Democratic rival, Barack Obama, supports limited offshore drilling as part of a bigger overhaul of U.S. energy policy.

This is a politically advantageous move…has nothing to do with whether it is the right thing to do.

Invest Or Not: Shell Under Attack

Royal Dutch Shell PLC warned Friday that oil-facility attacks in Nigeria this past week have substantially reduced its oil and natural-gas production in the West African country and will hurt earnings.

Shell said militants this past week had killed a second person, an employee of the Shell-operated consortium in Nigeria. The company said earlier in the week that a guard had been killed and reiterated Friday that it was evacuating some staff from production facilities.

The Anglo-Dutch oil company said it was concerned about the damage to the facilities but didn’t provide an estimate on the total amount of oil and natural-gas output shut down as a result, or how long the production closures might last. Nigerian oil officials put Shell’s production losses this past week at about 100,000 barrels a day.

The company said the damage will hurt earnings. “This will ultimately add up to increased equipment downtime, repair and remediation costs and deferred earnings for Nigeria and the joint-venture partners,” Shell said.

Clashes between Nigeria’s main militant group — the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta — and the military helped precipitate the latest attacks on oil infrastructure, coming less than a month after Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua shuffled his military leaders.

Some political analysts say Mr. Yar’Adua may be taking a more forceful approach to MEND, which comprises various factions, and other criminal groups that have had a free hand the past few years, bombing pipelines and crude-gathering stations and kidnapping foreign oil workers for ransom.

A tougher line could worsen tensions and problems for the government, foreign energy companies and the region’s people.

So Nigeria is Shell’s only source of oil?  NOT!  Stop!  They are lying so they can either keep their profits or to make stock more appealing when it comes in over expectation.

What Did Palin Do To The Alaskan Oil Industry?

These are exerpts from a piece in the WSJ.

Oil companies in Alaska are paying more money in taxes than ever before. The state’s oil and gas tax revenues for its just-ended fiscal 2007 topped $10 billion. That’s twice as much as fiscal 2006 and four times more than 2004.

Some supporters of Barack Obama see that money coming in and say that John McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, must have done what Sen. Obama wants to do — sock those companies with a big fat windfall profit tax. This is a deeply misleading reading of her 2007 tax reform.

A few years ago, Alaska had a big problem. Despite high oil prices, the state’s fiscal future was in peril because the state relies on only three aging oilfields for 80% of its oil and gas tax revenue.

As a new governor in 2007, Mrs. Palin stepped in to address the fiscal crisis and restore accountability. Working with Democrats and Republicans alike, she chose a 25% profits tax. But in lean years the state reverts to a 10% gross revenue tax on legacy fields that do not require massive continuing inputs of new capital.

Relative to the old system, Mrs. Palin’s plan — called “Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share” (ACES) — improves incentives for developing new resources. It ensures the state does well in boom times — as it is doing now — when oil prices are high. But it also hedges against low prices in the future by ensuring that oil companies exposed to commodity price swings don’t face a crushing tax burden when commodity prices fall.

Her plan includes an escalator clause that gives the state a larger share of revenues when oil prices rise. This is common to production-sharing agreements all over the world.

Mr. Obama proposes to give each American a $1,000 check funded by windfall profit taxes to ease the pain of high energy prices. Some say Mrs. Palin’s ACES is like that, because this year every Alaskan will receive a $1,200 check as a share of the oil bonanza. (The check comes in addition to the approximately $2,000 every Alaskan will receive this year as a dividend from the Permanent Fund, which was established by state constitutional amendment in 1976 as a way of sharing the state’s mineral wealth with the people.)

The real comparison is not between Mr. Obama’s windfall profit tax and Mrs. Palin’s risk-and-profit-sharing plan. It is between Alaska’s constitutional rule — that the people must share directly in the state’s mineral wealth — and Mr. McCain’s proposal that coastal states should share in federal offshore oil revenue. His plan is for the funds to be used for public purposes like roads, schools and conservation. A share of royalties dramatically improves the coastal states’ incentive to support drilling. But if Mr. McCain offered every individual American a royalty check too, he might find it easier to sell his program.

China Wins Iraqi Oil Race

China crossed the line first in the race for big oil contracts in post-Saddam Iraq and has gained a head start over Western oil majors in the competition for future energy deals.

China’s biggest oil company, state-run CNPC, agreed a $3 billion service contract with Iraq on Wednesday.
The deal could set a precedent for terms that fall far short of the lucrative contracts the oil majors had hoped for as they jostled for access to the world’s third largest oil reserves.
Starved of investment since the Gulf War of 1990-1991 and the subsquent U.S.-led invasion of 2003 that removed former President Saddam Hussein, Iraq holds some of the world’s last large, cheap, untapped oil reservoirs.
Now CNPC and China’s other state-supported oil firms are likely to face off with Western oil companies in a bid round for other long-term contracts to enhance giant fields already in production. Iraq aims to sign those deals in mid-2009.
Baghdad needs billions of dollars of investment to overhaul and expand its energy sector after years of sanctions and war.
Energy-hungry China has already provided tough competition for Western oil majors in Africa. Chinese state oil companies can take on more risk than big oil firms as securing future energy supplies is a matter of strategy rather than profit.
CNPC faced no competition for Adhab, a renegotiated contract first signed under Saddam in 1997. Full details have yet to emerge, but it is know that the new service contract is for a set fee, a change from the initial production sharing agreement (PSA).
Production sharing contracts were common in the 1980s and 1990s in the days before oil prices shot up, when the oil majors held the whip hand over producer countries who competed with each other for investor capital by offering generous terms.