BP boss quits...

[max_tranmere]

No doubt he will get a ?2m pay-off, huge pension, and walk straight into another highly paid position starting next week. This always happens with these sorts of people. Remember the head of Railtrack? Resigning because the job had become 'too high profile' as he put it (in other words he kept being criticised following numerous deaths as a result of rail crashes and he didn't like the criticism). He got a fortune to leave and then became the chairman of a well known high street chain straight after. That high street chain quite quickly went bust.

[David Johnson]

I guess it is a sop to the Americans who have given him grief for months.
All the crap coming BP's way is totally justified, irrespective of the fact that they had subcontracted some of the work on the well.

However what really sticks in the gullet is the hypocrisy of the American government. 15,000 people died in Bhopal, India as a result of toxic gas leaks from a chemical plant owned by an American company, Union Carbide.

Seven Indian managers at the plant were sentenced to two years in prison and immediately bailed by a court in India. Warren Anderson, the then chief executive of Union Carbide, the American firm which owned the plant through an Indian subsidiary, has never faced trial and attempts by Indian governments to extradite him from the US have failed.

The compensation paid by Union Carbide has been described as totally inadequate. As one Indian commentator wrote "It looks like Indian children's lives are cheaper than [those of] fish."

Cheers
D

[RoddersUK]

So what exactly is the CE of BP guilty of other than being the CE of BP?
The work that degenerated into a disaster was subcontracted to a bunch of fucking Yanks and the equipment failure was a pile of Yank shyte.
SO, who should be crucified?
I'll tell you who, all the fuckers who caused the trouble including the vociferous arseholes who the Yanks call Senators.

[David Johnson]

"So what exactly is the CE of BP guilty of other than being the CE of BP?
The work that degenerated into a disaster was subcontracted to a bunch of fucking Yanks and the equipment failure was a pile of Yank shyte."

You appear to be struggling with the concept of subcontracting. BP are the operator and principal developer of that particular area. They got the license to operate in this area from the USA. BP decided to bring in other companies such as Transocean and Halliburton to provide equipment and services.

So other companies may need to take some of the blame, but the key point that you don't get is that BP are the responsible party. As operator, the company cannot think "Ah well lets subcontract this to companies, push them hard to cut corners and then if it goes pear-shaped, it aint our fault, it is all theirs". BP cannot avoid responsibility.

An employee on the rig, Tyrone Benton told the BBC on 21 June that a leak was spotted on a crucial piece of equipment in the oil rig's blowout preventer weeks before the accident, and that Transocean and BP were emailed about it.

According to the testimony of Doug Brown, the chief mechanic on the Deepwater Horizon, on 26 May at the joint U.S. Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service hearing, a BP representative overruled Transocean employees and insisted on displacing protective drilling mud with seawater just hours before the explosion.

One of the BP representatives on the board responsible for making the final decision, Robert Kaluza, refused to testify on the Fifth Amendment grounds that he might incriminate himself; Donald Vidrine, another BP representative, cited medical reasons for his inability to testify.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is investigating the incident. In a statement made in June they noted that in a number of cases leading up to the explosion, BP appears to have chosen riskier procedures to save time or money, sometimes against the advice of its staff or contractors.

In short, it is right that BP have accepted overall responsibility for the cleanup costs. That isn't to say that there hasn't been negligence by other companies, but BP have to take overall responsibility.

Cheers
D

[Flat_Eric]

I have to concur with Mr. Johnson in this case.

- Eric

[Flat_Eric]

max_tranmere wrote:

>>


I saw on the news last night that Tony Hayward was (quote) "currently negotiating the terms of his departure from BP".

The figure being bandied around was 450k per annum.

The Devil usually looks after his own.

- Eric