So BP gets to drill in the Gulf again. Yes, the energy industry (read: oil, coal, and natural gas) is booming. So much so that we lack the political will to stop the very drilling practices that led to the disastrous Deepwater Horizon incident. But hey, at least we can be inconvenient about it….
Reasons why my roommate is awesome.
Daryl Hannah arrested for protesting proposed Canadian oilsands pipeline
Actress Daryl Hannah, famous for her movie roles in Splash and Wall Street, was among dozens of anti-oilsands activists arrested Tuesday at the White House in ongoing “sit in” protests against TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
“Stop the Keystone pipeline,” Hannah shouted as she was being handcuffed by SWAT team officers. “No to the Keystone pipeline.” (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)Way to go, Elle Driver!
BTW, if you want to know more about this whole mess, from A to Z, check out Kate Sheppard’s explainer:
James Hansen, NASA scientist and perhaps the leading authority on climate change, was also arrested.
Transocean Execs Get Bonuses for ‘Best Year in Safety,’ Despite Gulf Disaster
Transocean Ltd., owner of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, awarded millions of dollars in bonuses to its executives after “the best year in safety performance in our company’s history,” according to an annual report and proxy statement released yesterday.
Eleven people were killed, including nine Transocean employees, in the April 20 explosion and collapse of the rig, which gushed crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 86 days.
“Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico, we achieved an exemplary statistical safety record as measured by our total recordable incident rate and total potential severity rate,” Transocean states in the filing. “As measured by these standards, we recorded the best year in safety performance in our Company’s history, which is a reflection on our commitment to achieving an incident free environment, all the time, everywhere.”
Transocean President and Chief Executive Officer Steven L. Newman received about $4.3 million in cash bonuses and stock and option awards. With other compensation—such as pension increases and cost of living, housing, and automobile allowances—Newman earned $6.6 million in 2010, almost $1 million more than in 2009.
His base salary, $900,000 in 2010, will increase 22 percent to $1.1 million in 2011.
Transocean built and staffed the Deepwater Horizon. It was leased by BP, which denied most executives bonuses in 2010. In justifying the bonuses, Transocean cites the increased burden on executives of responding to the spill:
Although in 2010 we made significant progress in achieving our strategic and operational objectives for the year, these developments were overshadowed by the April 20, 2010 fire and explosion onboard our semi-submersible drilling rig, the Deepwater Horizon, off the Louisiana coast that resulted in the deaths of 11 of our colleagues, including nine Transocean employees, and the uncontrolled flow of hydrocarbons from the well for an extended period (the ‘‘Macondo Incident’’). As a result, many of our senior executive officers… dedicated a significant portion of their time in 2010 following the Macondo Incident to responding to the needs of the victims’ families, coordinating the involvement of additional resources required to stem the flow of hydrocarbons, including drilling rigs and personnel to drill relief wells and other operations as requested by the Unified Area Command, cooperating with the numerous federal, state, and local reviews and investigations into the incident, overseeing our internal investigation of the incident, and managing other demands stemming from these activities, in addition to performing their normal responsibilities.
In the proxy, Transocean’s directors also ask shareholders to shelter “the Board of Directors and the executive management From liability for activities during fiscal year 2010.” The company is being sued by some shareholders for failing to monitor risk leading up to the spill.
Transocean contends it has no liability:
It remains our view that Transocean is contractually indemnified against all claims stemming from the environmental and economic impacts of the hydrocarbons spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from the Macondo well after the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon.”
At the other end of that contract, however, BP contends Transocean shares liability for the disaster.
The world’s largest builder and operator of oil rigs, Transocean was incorporated in the Cayman Islands but now keeps its executive offices in Vernier, Switzerland.
Transocean released its Annual Report and Proxy Statement midday Friday, and the bonuses were first reported by Sheila McNulty of The Financial Times (paywall).
There are no words for how outrageous this is. None.
[A picture of Africa being drilled of it’s oil. The text surrounding it says “Don’t worry, Africa … we’ll go away when we finish”.]
we’ll make sure you’re really fucked up before we leave, though.
One year after the BP oil spill, tarballs like these—about the size of a child’s head—are still washing up on Gulf Coast beaches. Which explains why BP is still doing everything it can to keep reporters away, Mac McClelland reports.
(Source: shortformblog)
There isn’t anything I can add to this. I just. If this doesn’t sicken or enrage you…
In its first sustainability report since last summer’s clusterfuck in the Gulf, BP actually has the balls to claim that it spilled less oil in 2010 than it did in 2006 and 2008. How? Why? Well, I explain, or at least try to, how and why here:
According to a message from the company in the report’s fine print, “no accurate determination” of the extent of the disaster has been made to date. The survey goes on to note that the company decided to omit that embarrassing incident in the Gulf “due to our reluctance to report data that has such a high degree of uncertainty.” So they merely chose not to factor in the biggest offshore oil spill in American history.
Yeah.
Multinational companies operating in Libya have had to deal with many obstacles, including a government rife with corruption that often asked for what amounted to bribes.
Sometimes those companies balked; sometimes they paid them, New York Times reported today.
The Times story doesn’t actually mention the word “bribes,” using instead the phrase “payoffs to keep doing business.” U.S. companies are barred from paying bribes to foreign officials by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
In 2009, Libya’s Qaddafi demanded that oil companies operating in Libya pay him to offset the cost of reparations to victims of Libyan terror attacks, according to the Times. (Several major oil companies had also previously lobbied against the law that ensured American victims would be compensated by Libya, arguing this could harm business ties between the two countries.)
The Times cited an example of two oil companies who made other payments to Libya:
In 2008, Occidental Petroleum, based in California, paid a $1 billion “signing bonus” to the Libyan government as part of 30-year agreement. A company spokesman said it was not uncommon for firms to pay large bonuses for long-term contracts.
The year before, Petro-Canada, a large Canadian oil company, made a similar $1 billion payment after Libyan officials granted it a 30-year oil exploration license, according to diplomatic cables and company officials.
The Dodd-Frank financial reform bill includes a disclosure rule that would require such payments to be disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Occidental Petroleum was one of several companies that lobbied against that rule. Oil companies have argued that the disclosure law will hurt their competitiveness ($) and perhaps violate laws in the countries they are dealing with.
Last fall, representatives from ExxonMobil, Anadarko Petroleum, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil, and Occidental—all members of the American Petroleum Institute, an oil and gas trade group—met with SEC officials to raise objections to the rule, the Wall Street Journal noted at the time.
According to a memo published by the SEC [PDF] after the meeting, the disclosure rules would apply to the seven oil companies operating in Libya that report to the commission. They are: Hess Corporation, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, Shell, Eni, Husky Oil, Petro-Canada, Repsol, StatoilHydro and Canadian Occidental.
![greenstate:
stfukyriarchy:
illillill:
Don’t worry, Africa
[A picture of Africa being drilled of it’s oil. The text surrounding it says “Don’t worry, Africa … we’ll go away when we finish”.]
we’ll make sure you’re really fucked up before we leave, though.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_liyp422Qmv1qziwcjo1_500.jpg)
