EU dropped climate policies after BP threat of oil industry 'exodus'

The EU abandoned or weakened key proposals for new environmental protections after receiving a letter from a top BP executive which warned of an exodus of the oil industry from Europe if the proposals went ahead.

In the 10-page letter, the company predicted in 2013 that a mass industry flight would result if laws to regulate tar sands, cut power plant pollution and accelerate the uptake of renewable energy were passed, because of the extra costs and red tape they allegedly entailed.

Shell, BP, Total Among Companies Calling For Carbon Pricing

STOCKHOLM - Six European oil and gas companies have called for a global price on carbon as a way to curb climate-warming emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

The chief executives of Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Eni, Total, Statoil and the BG Group made the appeal ahead of a new round of U.N. climate talks Monday in Bonn, Germany.

In a letter to U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius the companies said governments should introduce carbon pricing and eventually link up their carbon markets.

While that involves a cost for fossil-fuel companies, they said "carbon pricing policy frameworks" will help provide a roadmap for energy companies and investors.

Governments are expected to sign a global climate agreement in Paris in December.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.ca/
Author: CP

BP Tries To Pay Less For The Gulf Oil Spill, Again

BP is asking a federal judge to cap the amount of Gulf oil spill-related fines it must pay at $12 billion, which is almost a third less than the amount U.S. prosecutors are seeking from the company.

On Friday, BP argued in court papers that the Environmental Protection Agency and the Coast Guard didn’t have the authority to raise spill-related fines above the $3,000-per-barrel Clean Water Act cap for environmental liabilities. The Coast Guard has determined that BP could pay up to $4,000 per barrel for the spill, and the EPA has set the fines at up to $4,400 per barrel — an amount that, if the judge rules it’s appropriate, would trigger up to $18 billion in fines for BP. Though BP set aside $43 billion for overall oil spill costs, including cleanup and compensation, it set aside only $3.5 billion for Clean Water Act fines.

Scientists Discover Huge ‘Bathtub Ring’ Of Oil On Sea Floor From BP Spill

Scientists have discovered yet another unforeseen effect of BP’s historic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico: a 1,235-square-mile “bathub ring” of oil on the deep ocean’s floor.

Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science on Monday showed that approximately 10 million gallons of oil settled and coagulated on the floor of the Gulf near the Deepwater Horizon rig, which spilled a total of 172 million gallons of oil into the ocean in April 2010. That oil left a footprint on the ocean floor about two times the size of the city of Houston, Texas, and approximately the size of the state of Rhode Island, the study said.

The Invisible Oil in Louisiana’s Senate Race

Dean Blanchard says three prayers at night: “An Our Father, a Hail Mary… and I pray that the idiot in North Korea can figure out how to blow up Washington, DC, so we can start over.”

The Louisiana shrimp processor sat looking over the marina at Grand Isle, a ramshackle resort destination south of New Orleans on the Gulf of Mexico. Blanchard’s business was hit hard by the BP oil spill in 2010 and is still struggling. BP, he noted, is doing fine. Just two years after the spill, the company announced a record profit.

BP Caught Trying 'College' Tricks In Massive Oil Spill Court Case

BP has been told off by a US judge for trying to squeeze six extra pages into a court filing by changing the line spacings, in a move that was branded "not be appropriate for a college term paper".

The oil giant was rebuked in a case concerning the oil spill that happened in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, after its lawyers were invited to submit a response of up to 35 pages, with the lines double spaced.

BP and the Three Stooges Defense

Forget Stephen King. If you want scary, read U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier’s 150-page Findings of Fact released Thursday in the Deepwater Horizon case.

Although the judge found BP liable for “gross negligence,” some U.S. media failed to mention that Barbier let BP off the hook on punitive damages. And that stuns me, given that the record seems to identify enough smoking guns to roast a sizable pig.

Here’s a standout example:

Every rig operator knows that, before a rig can unhook from a drill pipe, the operator has to run a “negative pressure test” to make sure the cement has properly sealed the drill pipe. If the pipe is safely plugged, the pressure gauge will read zero. The amount of pressure BP measured at 5 p.m. on April 20, 2010, the day of the explosion? 1400 psi (see the findings, pages 62-65).

1400 psi is not zero. Stick a balloon in your mouth with zero pressure and nothing happens except that you look silly. Replace the balloon with a hose delivering a 1400 psi blast and it’ll blow your skull apart.

BP Lashes Out at Journalists and "Opportunistic" Environmentalists

News of this morning's federal court decision against BP broke as I was aboard a 40-foot oyster boat in the Louisiana delta, just off the coast of Empire, a suburb of New Orleans.

The reaction: stunned silence. Then a bit of optimism.

"This is huge," said John Tesvich, chair of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force, his industry's main lobby group in the state. "They are going to have to pay a lot more." Standing on his boat, the "Croatian Pride," en route to survey oyster farms, he added: "We want to see justice. We hope that this money goes to helping cure some of the environmental issues in this state."

BP Well Sprays Crude Oil Mist Over 27 Acres Of Alaskan Tundra

A large pipe attached to a BP-owned well pad on Alaska’s North Slope has sprayed an oily mist of natural gas, crude oil, and water over an area of tundra larger than 20 football fields, state officials confirmed Wednesday.

The discovery at BP’s Prudhoe Bay oil field operation comes one week after federal scientists released a report warning that the United States is woefully unprepared to handle oil spills in the Arctic.

BP Refinery Leaks Oil Into Lake Michigan

A BP refinery in Whiting, Indiana leaked an unknown amount of oil into Lake Michigan Monday afternoon, an incident that occurred less than two weeks after the U.S. lifted BP’s ban on seeking new oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP says the spill, which has since been stopped and contained, was caused by a “disruption in the refining process” at its Whiting refinery in northwest Indiana. Dan Goldblatt, spokesman at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, told ThinkProgress that his office was notified at about 4:30 CDT Monday of an oil sheen, which EPA officials said on a press call Thursday totaled about 5,000 square yards, on Lake Michigan. Mike Beslow, On-Scene Coordinator for the EPA, said that when he visited the site around 9 p.m. Monday, the sheen was no longer visible. Neither Goldblatt nor EPA officials had information on how much oil had spilled, but CBS, citing unnamed sources, reports that between 10 and 12 barrels — around 500 gallons — spilled into the lake.

BP Pays $41.6 Million For New Gulf Of Mexico Drilling Leases, Including Tract Near Spill Site

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — High bids from Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas LLC made up more than one-third of the $850.8 million total at Wednesday's federal oil lease sale for the central Gulf of Mexico. It also was the first sale since the government said BP PLC can again secure federal contracts; the company made $41.6 million in high bids.

Freeport-McMoRan's 16 high bids totaled $321.4 million, including the day's biggest — $68.8 million — and six of the 10 highest, according to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

BP Oil Spill: Dolphins Plagued By Death, Disease Years After Rig Explosion

Missing teeth. Lung disease. Extreme hormone levels.

Four years after BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, gushing some 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the region is rife with death and disease, according to a major U.S. study.

The peer-reviewed study, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, is the first of its kind since the devastating spill.

Judge Deals A Blow To BP’s Efforts To Dodge Deepwater Horizon Payments

BP has sought to cut down on payments for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster by asking that local businesses prove the link between their economic losses and the oil spill. A federal judge halted BP’s effort to skip payments on Tuesday, ruling that BP cannot reverse its interpretation of the settlement simply because the cost is higher than what the oil giant once estimated.

BP wanted the rules of a class action settlement to be rewritten to require “proof of causation” or to throw out the entire multi-billion dollar agreement. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier disagreed, writing that BP’s argument is “not only clearly inconsistent with its previous position, it directly contradicts what it has told this court.” In an earlier decision, Barbier also blasted the company for “attempting to rewrite or disregard the unambiguous terms of the settlement agreement.” BP had once called the class action settlement “more than fair.” BP plans to appeal

Former BP geologist: peak oil is here and it will 'break economies'

A former British Petroleum (BP) geologist has warned that the age of cheap oil is long gone, bringing with it the danger of "continuous recession" and increased risk of conflict and hunger.

At a lecture on 'Geohazards' earlier this month as part of the postgraduate Natural Hazards for Insurers course at University College London (UCL), Dr. Richard G. Miller, who worked for BP from 1985 before retiring in 2008, said that official data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), US Energy Information Administration (EIA), International Monetary Fund (IMF), among other sources, showed that conventional oil had most likely peaked around 2008.

BP, Chevron Accused Of Illegally Dumping Toxic Radioactive Drilling Waste Into Louisiana Water

The Louisiana parish of Plaquemines is taking on a group of oil and gas giants including BP and Chevron for allegedly dumping toxic waste — some of it radioactive — from their drilling operations into its coastal waters, according to a lawsuit removed to federal court on Thursday.

Plaquemines Parish is claiming the companies violated the Louisiana State and Local Coastal Resources Management Act of 1978 by discharging oil field waste directly into the water “without limitation.” Worse, the companies allegedly failed to clear, revegetate, detoxify or restore any of the areas they polluted, as required by state law. The oil and gas companies’ pollution, along with their alleged failure to adequately maintain their oilfields, has caused significant coastal erosion and contaminated groundwater, the lawsuit said.

Former BP Engineer Kurt Mix Convicted On Obstruction Charge For Destroying Gulf Spill Evidence

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A former BP drilling engineer was convicted Wednesday of deleting text messages from his cellphone to obstruct a federal investigation of the company's massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

He was found guilty on one charge and acquitted of a second charge.

A federal jury deliberated for more than nine hours over three days before reaching the verdict on Kurt Mix's case. The count of obstruction of justice carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Liz Sidoti, Associated Press Political Editor, Joins BP

Associated Press national political editor Liz Sidoti is leaving the news organization to become US head of communications for BP, according to a memo obtained by The Huffington Post.

Given that the AP covers BP, Sidoti will no longer be involved in an reporting, editing or news management, the memo stated.

"I am grateful for all of the opportunities the AP has generously given me over nearly 15 years," Sidoti said in a statement to HuffPost. "The AP has not just been my employer, but it's also been a home. And my colleagues, a family. I will always look back fondly -- and with pride -- at my time with the AP, and will always be thankful for having been able to be a part of this extraordinary, necessary institution filled with the industry's most dedicated journalists."

BP Sues U.S. Government For New Contracts After Gulf Oil Spill

HOUSTON -- BP on Monday sued the U.S. government over a decision to bar the oil giant from getting new federal contracts to supply fuel and other services after the company pleaded guilty to manslaughter and other criminal charges related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

BP is seeking an injunction that would lift an order by the Environmental Protection Agency that suspends the company from such contracts.

League Of Conservation Voters Chairman Scott Nathan Invests Heavily In BP Through Hedge Fund

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the board of a leading environmental advocacy group is also a hedge fund manager, and his firm is heavily invested in the oil giant BP, according to financial documents.

League of Conservation Voters Chairman Scott Nathan is chief risk officer at The Baupost Group, a major hedge fund, and a member of the firm's management committee, which oversees investments.

BP, Shell and Statoil investigated over suspected oil price manipulation

The EC said it had “concerns” that several companies may have manipulated the oil price benchmark in violation of EU antitrust rules, potentially having a “huge impact” on oil and petrol prices.

Shares in the oil giants fell in early trading on Wednesday after European regulators began an investigation into whether the companies may have manipulated the price of oil for more than a decade. Shell was down 1.7pc, while BP fell 0.2pc.