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Posts Tagged ‘the Gulf’

BP in Russia: Dancing with bears

February 3rd, 2011 | No Comments

BP’s Russian venture is already proving trickier than expected

TONY HAYWARD, BP’s ex-boss, once moaned that he wanted his life back. That was after an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year, which the British oil giant expects will end up costing it more than $40 billion. BP, too, is struggling to get its old life back, even after apologising, helping with the clean-up, dumping Mr Hayward and taking a huge write-off.

On February 1st it announced its final, awful, results for 2010: a loss of $4.9 billion. That was BP’s first loss since 1992, but the company fondly hopes that it will now have an opportunity to move on. It would like to direct the world’s attention to its efforts to improve safety, its plan to start paying dividends once again this year and its ideas for the future. …

America’s Middle Eastern Puppet Regimes Are Falling Like Dominoes

January 25th, 2011 | No Comments

The images from the protests in Cairo, Egypt today are stunning. See this, this and this.President Mubarak’s family has already fled the country.As Raw Story notes:Demonstrators calling for economic and political reforms broke through police barriers…

BP in Russia: Dancing with Mr Putin

January 20th, 2011 | No Comments

BP’s Russian venture offers big rewards and big risks

EARLIER this month Bob Dudley was ferried along the ten-lane avenue that links Vladimir Putin’s home to the Kremlin. The Russian prime minister shook hands with the boss of BP, sealing a $16 billion deal. The British oil firm will gain access to Russia’s vast and deeply frozen Arctic oilfields. It will also get a 9.5% stake in Rosneft, Russia’s state-controlled oil giant, to add to the 1.3% it already owns. In return Rosneft will get 5% of BP. The deal was announced to the world on January 14th.

It is the first share swap between a national oil company and a private oil major. It is also the first joint venture to explore in an area that could hold as much oil and gas as the North Sea. Far from keeping a low profile after its disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year, BP seems eager to prove that it is as bold as ever. …

Even Small Amounts of Oil and Dispersant Are Toxic to Phytoplankton … the Basis of the Entire Gulf Food Chain

January 19th, 2011 | No Comments

Naomi Klein said at her December 8th TED talk:What [scientists] found is that water with even trace amounts of oil and dispersants can be highly toxic to phytoplanktonâ€”which is a serious problem because so much life depends on it. So contrary to th…

Fiddling (With Its P.R. Campaign) While Rome Burns

January 16th, 2011 | No Comments

Instead of putting out the fire, or even changing things so that they are less likely to catch fire in the future, the Obama administration (like the Bush administration before it) is just fiddling with it’s P.R. campaign.With everything from the finan…

Clinton in Gulf for talks on Iran, Iraq

January 10th, 2011 | No Comments

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has begun a five-day visit to the Gulf region aimed at persuading Arab allies to tighten nuclear sanctions on Iran. She will also seek to enhance their ties with Iraqâ€™s newly formed government VOA reports.

Keppel AmFELS delivers third Rowan rig ahead of schedule

December 23rd, 2010 | No Comments

Keppel AmFELS Inc., the wholly-owned US subsidiary of Keppel Offshore & Marine (Keppel O&M), says it has delivered the third of four EXL jackup rigs to a subsidiary of Rowan Companies, Inc. (Rowan) ahead of schedule and within budget.

Christened Rowan EXL-III, the rig is scheduled to depart Keppel AmFELS’ yard in Brownsville, Texas in January 2011 to commence operations on an ultra deep gas well for McMoRan Exploration Company in the Gulf of Mexico.

Miley Cyrus Yahoo! Most-Searched Person Of 2010

December 22nd, 2010 | No Comments

A nude photo scare, the finale of Hannah Montana, and the bong hit heard round the web helped make teen sensation Miley Cyrus the year’s Most-Searched Person on Yahoo! Yahoo! has tallied up their Top 10 Search Terms of 2010 and the controversial Disney starlet was among six celebrities who made the cut among web [...]

This Week in the Gulf

December 10th, 2010 | No Comments

Here are this week’s updates on the Gulf:â€œWe keep seeing this foam coming in just about everydayâ€ â€” â€œThey keep sprayingâ€ dispersant says Emergency Operations Center workerFeds now ignoring workers who report being sprayed by Corexit (VIDE…

Scientists Confirm that Dispersants Are Increasing Contamination in the Gulf

November 30th, 2010 | No Comments

I have repeatedly documented the detrimental impacts of dispersants on humans, wildlife and seafood safety. See this, this, this, this, this, this and this.As I noted in September, scientists from Oregon State University found elevated levels of poly…

BP Controlling University Research, and Professor Who Downplayed Oil Spill Called a “Shill” By Fellow Professor

November 19th, 2010 | No Comments

LSU professor and oil spill expert Ed Overton has been all over the news saying that fears of the BP oil spill were overblown.But as Raw Story reports, Overton has been a lead NOAA consultant for decades, and a fellow LSU professor calls him a “shill”…

Ezra buys crane fabrication facility in Houston

November 16th, 2010 | No Comments

Ezra Holdings, the integrated support and marine services provider in the offshore oil & gas (O&G) sector, says it has acquired a 650,000 square feet fabrication facility in Houston, Texas at “distressed prices”.

Ezra says the facility will allow Ezra to fabricate customised cranes for modern offshore O&G vessels and complements its recent US$250 million ($325 million) acquisition of Aker Marine Contractors for which has a strong presence in the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, Latin America and Africa.

The acquisition is made through Ezra’s newly-formed subsidiaries Ezram Properties LLC and Ezram Enterprise LLC.

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BP Oil Slams Florida

November 11th, 2010 | No Comments

Florida has been hit with huge amounts of oil from the BP oil spill:Tears after heartbreaking discovery near FL border: â€œMassive amounts of submerged and sub-surface oilâ€ pushed on to beaches â€” â€œNeverendingâ€ (VIDEO)*CONFIRMED* Chemist:…

BP Successfully Disposed of the Oil … In the Gulf Food Chain

November 8th, 2010 | No Comments

There’s a great corporate tradition of “disposing” toxic waste by putting it into things we eat.For example, some folks have found a great way of disposing of toxic sludge: they helpfully relabel it as “organic compost” and then give it to people to gr…

Oil and Dispersants are Changing the Gulf Ecosystem

November 5th, 2010 | No Comments

Oil and dispersants are changing the Gulf ecosystem, as shown by the following recent stories:Deep sea isopod bathynomus are replacing red crabs:Expert on â€˜flesh-eatingâ€™ bacteria says he’s found at least six different types of vibrios at Deepwater…

Senior EPA Analyst: Government “Doing a Cover Up” Regarding Dispersants, Trying to Reassure the Public Instead of Doing Honest Scientific Testing

November 4th, 2010 | No Comments

The senior policy analyst at the EPAâ€™s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, and former the EPA ombudsman’s chief investigator Hugh Kaufman told award-winning American journalist Dahr Jamail (writing for Al-Jazeera) that :On October 29 the…

War Is Sold Just Like Soda or Toothpaste

November 3rd, 2010 | No Comments

Painting by Anthony Freda: www.AnthonyFreda.com.White House chief of Staff Andrew Card famously said – in explaining why the Bush administration delayed until September 2002 to make its case for war in Iraq:From a marketing point of view, you don’t int…

Tests Now Being Conducted for Corexit and Oil … Results Not Very Reassuring

November 2nd, 2010 | No Comments

Real testing is starting to be conducted on dispersant and oil in the Gulf, the results are not looking so good:U.S. Government press release says NOAA, FDA now testing for dispersant: Corexit ingredient DOSS found in 13 samples â€” Up to 500 ppm all…

Reappearance of Huge Plumes of Oil is Making It Hard to Pretend that the Problem Has Disappeared

October 28th, 2010 | No Comments

There is a flood of information coming out on the Gulf oil spill.Why?The reappearance of huge plumes of oil is making it hard to pretend that it has all gone away.Here’s a roundup of some of the Gulf oil headlines from just the last 4 days:More Indep…

Gulf Oil Spill: Mission Accomplished or Ongoing Crisis?

October 24th, 2010 | No Comments

The corporate media has almost entirely stopped covering the Gulf oil spill.Many have tried to say that the effects of the spill are not nearly as bad as feared, and that everything is pretty much cleaned up and back to normal.But today, it is widely b…