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BP America Inc.


Self Description

November 2005: "Following a series of mergers and acquisitions with Amoco, ARCO, Burmah Castrol and Vastar, by 2001 BP had become the largest oil and gas producer and one of the largest gasoline retailers in the United States At the end of 2001, we had nearly $40 billion of fixed assets in the U.S., with operations in almost every state and 42,000 U.S.-based employees.

In May 2002 BP was, overall, the sixth largest company by market capitalization on the New York Stock Exchange. U.S. investors own some 35 percent of the company's shares.

BP's major operations consist of oil and gas exploration and production, oil refining and products marketing, petrochemicals, natural gas trading and solar energy. As America's largest producer of oil and natural gas, BP is working to meet the country's growing energy needs with major exploration and production operations in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. During 2001,BP produced from its U.S. operations some 750,000 barrels a day of oil and more than 3.5 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas, and we marketed eight billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to third parties in North America."

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=488&contentId=2000734

Third-Party Descriptions

September 2011: "The fines for that period, about $14 million, ranged from $1,000 for an inspection violation to a high of $2.4 million for the oil fire and Enbridge Energy pipeline spill in November 2007 that killed two people near Clearbrook, Minn. In May, BP was fined $25 million after two spills of more than 213,000 gallons of crude in Alaska in 2006 — in a case handled by the Justice Department. Federal regulators found that in the aftermath of the spills, the company failed to make prescribed corrections to the pipelines in question. But most of the pipeline agency’s fines do not exceed $25,000, records show."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/10/business/energy-environment/agency-struggles-to-safeguard-pipeline-system.html

July 2011: "BP has long taken issue with the formula created by Kenneth R. Feinberg, who oversees the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which is dispensing BP’s $20 billion compensation fund. Under the formula, settlements would generally be double the demonstrable losses from 2010, with money previously paid by the fund subtracted."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/16/us/16gulf.html

April 2011: "BP isn't making us whole: It's pressing business owners to the ropes in the hope that we'll become desperate enough to accept the company's "quick claim" $25,000 settlement offer. The quick claim gives individuals $5,000 and business owners $25,000 if they sign away their rights to ever sue for more."

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/19/lambert.bp.oil.spill.compensation/index.html

June 2010: 'To Mr. Obama, this is all about rebalancing the books after two decades in which multinationals sometimes acted like mini-states beyond government reach, abetted by a faith in markets that, as Mr. Obama put it at Carnegie Mellon University a few weeks ago, “gutted regulations and put industry insiders in charge of industry oversight.” When Representative Joe L. Barton, the Texas Republican, opened hearings Thursday about the gulf oil gusher by accusing Mr. Obama of an unconstitutional “shakedown” of BP to create a “slush fund,” he was giving voice to an alternative narrative, a bubbling certainty in corporate suites that Mr. Obama, whenever faced with crisis that involves private-sector players, reveals himself to be viscerally antibusiness.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/us/18assess.html

June 2010: "The Justice Department’s case against BP will be strengthened by the company’s history of criminal violations, which offer evidence of a culture that puts profits before the environment and worker safety. After a 2005 explosion at its Texas City refinery, which killed 15 workers, BP pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act by failing to maintain a safe facility. It also pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act by having corroded pipelines that caused oil spills in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay in 2006."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/opinion/04uhlmann.html

May 2010: "In a tense standoff, BP continued to spray a product called Corexit in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday to break up a vast oil spill despite a demand by federal regulators that it switch to something less toxic."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/earth/25disperse.html

May 2010: "At his daily briefing on Friday, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, explained repeatedly that current law makes the company responsible for the recovery and cleanup, not taxpayers. He noted that BP has the specialized equipment and technical expertise to try to shut off a leak 5,000 feet below the surface, not the federal government."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/us/23address.html

May 2010: "A Under a 1990 federal law, the primary leaseholder of the well, BP, is responsible for picking up the lion’s share of the cleanup costs. Anadarko Petroleum and Matsui Oil Exploration together own 35 percent of the lease, and they would pay that share of expenses."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/us/13q-n-a.html

May 2010: "Despite those repeated promises to reform, BP continues to lag other oil companies when it comes to safety, according to federal officials and industry analysts. Many problems still afflict its operations in Texas and Alaska, they say. Regulators are investigating a whistle-blower’s allegations of safety violations at the Atlantis, one of BP’s newest offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/business/09bp.html

April 2010: "NEW ORLEANS — Officials in the Obama administration began for the first time Friday to publicly chastise BP America for its handling of the spreading oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, calling the oil company’s current resources inadequate to stop what is unfolding into an environmental catastrophe."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/us/01gulf.html

October 2007: The British energy company BP, tarnished by a string of costly legal problems, is preparing to settle accusations that it was criminally indifferent to worker safety and that it manipulated energy prices, government officials and lawyers involved in the separate cases said on Tuesday. The officials said that the Justice Department would announce as early as this week that BP had agreed to a settlement to end criminal investigations stemming from an explosion at a giant BP oil refinery in Texas City, Tex., two years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/business/24oil.html

August 2007: WHITING, Ind. -- A proposal to allow BP to greatly increase the amount of pollutants it discharges into Lake Michigan from its refinery here has prompted a bitter war of words between officials in Illinois and Indiana.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/22/AR2007082202556.html

March 2007: “The Texas City disaster was caused by organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation,” the report stated. “Warning signs of a possible disaster were present for several years, but company officials did not intervene effectively to prevent it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/us/20cnd-explode.html

November 2005: "...officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501842.html

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Owned by (partial or full, past or present) BP p.l.c (British Petroleum) Organization Nov 16, 2005
Cooperation (past or present) Cameron International Organization May 13, 2010
Financial Supporter of (past or present) TDI-Brooks International Organization May 21, 2010
Cooperation (past or present) Transocean Organization May 13, 2010
Advised by (past or present) David M. Abshire Ph.D. Person Jul 15, 2011
Possible/Unclear Dr. Steven Chu Ph.D. Person May 26, 2010
Cooperation (past or present) Kenneth R. Feinberg Esq. Person Apr 27, 2011
Organization Executive (past or present) Dr. Steven E. Koonin Ph.D. Person May 26, 2010
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Robert A. Malone Person May 9, 2010

Articles and Resources

25 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 5]

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Sep 09, 2011 Pipeline Spills Put Safeguards Under Scrutiny

QUOTE: The little-known federal agency charged with monitoring the system and enforcing safety measures — the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration — is chronically short of inspectors and lacks the resources needed to hire more, leaving too much of the regulatory control in the hands of pipeline operators themselves...

 New York Times
Jul 15, 2011 No Vacancies, but Some Reservations

QUOTE: BP argued that “there is no basis to assume that claimants, with very limited exceptions, will incur a future loss related to the spill.”...Under the formula, settlements would generally be double the demonstrable losses from 2010, with money previously paid by the fund subtracted.

 New York Times
Apr 19, 2011 BP defaulting on debt to people of the Gulf

QUOTE: BP isn't making us whole: It's pressing business owners to the ropes in the hope that we'll become desperate enough to accept the company's "quick claim" $25,000 settlement offer.

 CNN (Cable News Network)
Jun 30, 2010 The Good Driller Award

QUOTE: as long as we continue to drill for oil and mine for coal, we must do everything we can to make those industries safer. That includes not just tough, well-enforced regulations, economic liabilities and criminal penalties for companies that prove too dangerous, but also positive incentives and public rewards for those that put safety first.

 New York Times
Jun 17, 2010 Interior inspector general expected to fault oil spill probe

QUOTE: Elected officials should consider imposing ethics rules on oil and gas companies that do business with the federal government, the Interior Department's acting inspector general plans to tell the House Natural Resources Committee...

 Washington Post
Jun 17, 2010 Obama’s Twist of BP’s Arm Stirs Debate on Frequent Tactic

QUOTE: President Obama’s successful move to force BP to establish a $20 billion compensation fund that the company will have no voice in allocating — just a down payment, the president insisted — may have been the most vivid example of what he recently called his determination to step in and do “what individuals couldn’t do and corporations wouldn’t do.” With that display of raw arm-twisting, Mr. Obama reinvigorated a debate about the renewed reach of government power, or, alternatively, the power of government overreach.

 New York Times
Jun 03, 2010 Prosecuting Crimes Against the Earth

QUOTE: Criminal prosecution cannot restore the gulf or end the suffering of the people who live along its shores. But it could ensure just punishment. And it would make it more likely that the companies involved would pay all claims for damage to the gulf coast, because the $75 million cap on liability, set by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, does not apply in criminal cases.

 New York Times
May 24, 2010 In Standoff With Environmental Officials, BP Stays With an Oil Spill Dispersant

QUOTE: While the Corexit products, made by the Nalco company of Naperville, Ill., are the time-tested old faithfuls of oil spill treatment, they were developed in the 1980s and ’90s, and critics say that less toxic and more effective products are now available....Complicating the standoff between the company and regulators, there are many methods for estimating the toxicity of chemical oil dispersants and no single standard prevails.

 New York Times
May 22, 2010 Obama Gives a Bipartisan Commission Six Months to Revise Drilling Rules

QUOTE: Mr. Obama tapped two prominent former officials to lead the commission — Bob Graham, the former senator from Florida, and William K. Reilly, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency — and gave them six months to come up with a plan to revamp federal regulation of offshore oil drilling.

 New York Times
May 12, 2010 The Price and Who Pays: Updates From the Gulf

QUOTE: attempts to shut off the flow of oil streaming into the Gulf of Mexico have been unsuccessful and the search continues for a cause and for ways to prevent such blowouts in the future. Questions persist about who will be liable for damage from the spill and the risks to local wildlife.

 New York Times
May 08, 2010 For BP, a History of Spills and Safety Lapses

QUOTE: After BP’s Texas City, Tex., refinery blew up in 2005...The next year, when a badly maintained oil pipeline ruptured and spilled 200,000 gallons of crude oil over Alaska’s North Slope...Despite those repeated promises to reform, BP continues to lag other oil companies when it comes to safety...

 New York Times
Apr 30, 2010 BP Is Criticized Over Oil Spill, but U.S. Missed Chances to Act

QUOTE: BP officials said they did everything possible, and a review of the response suggests it may be too simplistic to place all the blame on the oil company. The federal government also had opportunities to move more quickly, but did not do so while it waited for a resolution to the spreading spill from BP...

 New York Times
Aug 16, 2009 Oil Group's 'Citizen' Rally Memo Stirs Debate: Firms Asked to Recruit Employees, Retirees (Green)

QUOTE: A petroleum industry trade group is asking oil companies to recruit employees and retirees to attend rallies attacking climate-change legislation, an approach to grass-roots politics that resembles strategies used recently by some opponents of health-care reform.

 Washington Post
May 22, 2008 Senators Sharply Question Oil Officials

QUOTE: But while momentum is building for several measures, including a bill that would allow the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to be sued in American courts under antitrust laws, there is little sign that any of the proposals would do much, if anything, to lower prices quickly.

 New York Times
Dec 12, 2007 Tales of oil industry's influence in Alaska: As federal investigation continues, and political figures are charged, a new oil-tax bill seeks to undo the industry's influence.

QUOTE: The investigation covers vast political territory, including federal fisheries policies, budget earmarks, federal grants, and even ambitions for private prisons in Alaska – but most of what has been revealed so far involves the staggering amount of leverage the oil industry exerts over fundamental oil policy, including last year's oil tax.

 Christian Science Monitor
Oct 24, 2007 BP Settlements Seen on Safety and Price Cases

QUOTE: The expected settlement in the refinery case signals the government’s willingness to take a hard line in forcing companies to redress environmental and worker safety problems. Officials said that the Texas City case would not resolve accusations against BP executives who may have failed to take steps to make the refinery safer and that those investigations would continue.

 New York Times
Aug 23, 2007 Pollution Fight Pits Illinois vs. BP, Indiana: Upgrade of Oil Refinery Would Discharge More Pollutants Into Lake Michigan

QUOTE: Illinois officials have accused their neighbors to the east of fouling the lake, which has grown steadily cleaner in recent years. Indiana officials say the planned discharge is within the federal limits and accuse their Illinois brethren of grandstanding.

 Washington Post
Jun 04, 2007 Years later, Valdez's stain remains: ExxonMobil's legal battle rages 18 years after the oil spill, as the case is likely headed to the Supreme Court.

QUOTE: The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a $2.5 billion punitive damages judgment against ExxonMobil, which means the US Supreme Court is likely to settle the case. Meanwhile, not all animal species have fully recovered from what was the largest oil spill in US history, and more than 30,000 people affected by the spill are still waiting for what they call adequate compensation.

 Christian Science Monitor
Apr 06, 2007 Keep the Glass Ceiling Transparent: Why Catalyst should go back to naming companies without women at the top

QUOTE: If dozens of companies have done so much, though, why do so few have women at the top? It's not like women haven't been flooding into law schools and MBA programs for decades. And Catalyst has been drawing record crowds at its events. But it's hard for a company to look cutting-edge with a corporate lineup that evokes the 1950s...As for the tougher job of advancing women into the top ranks, she says, "there's a lot of power in looking at the overall numbers." Sure. But former Catalyst President Sheila Wellington points out that when it comes to looking for top women at each company, "there's a lot of power in the word none.'"

 BusinessWeek
Mar 20, 2007 Lax Oversight Cited in Texas Refinery Blast

QUOTE: Concluding its investigation of the disaster, which sent 43,000 people fleeing to indoor shelters and caused more than $1.5 billion in financial losses, the United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board found that safety measures at the plant repeatedly fell victim to cost-cutting — even after 23 accidental deaths at the plant in 30 years of other accidents preceding the explosion on March 23, 2005.

 New York Times

25 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 5]