Almost eight months after BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, causing one of the greatest environmental disasters in United States history, the Department of Justice today announced a civil suit “in an effort to recover billions of dollars” from the responsible parties. Brad Johnson has the story.
A team of 40 criminal prosecutors have been investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster for months. The lawsuit, filed in New Orleans court against BP, Transocean, and the rig’s minority owners, says the “defendants failed to keep the Macondo well under control” and “failed to maintain continuous surveillance and failed to maintain equipment and material that were available and necessary to ensure the safety and protection of personnel, equipment, natural resources and the environment.” The administration calls for all liability caps to be ignored:
The Obama administration’s lawsuit asks that the companies be held liable without limitation under the Oil Pollution Act for all removal costs and damages caused by the oil spill, including damages to natural resources. The lawsuit also seeks civil penalties under the Clean Water Act.
Earlier this month, President Obama reversed his decision to open new areas to offshore drilling, which had been announced just three weeks before the BP disaster.
– Brad Johnson, in a ThinkProgress cross-post.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
All the money in the world . . .
Meanwhile, “State” is planning to approve a giant tar-sands oil pipeline across the entire nation north to south as if exponential climate change were not a clear and present danger.
Can you say Transocean, TransCanada and transfixed on mining fossil materials?
WikiLeaks cables: BP suffered blowout on Azerbaijan gas platform
Embassy cables reveal energy firm ‘fortunate’ to have evacuated workers safely after blast similar to Deepwater Horizon disaster
Striking resemblances between BP’s Gulf of Mexico disaster and a little-reported giant gas leak in Azerbaijan experienced by the UK firm only 18 months before have emerged from leaked US embassy cables.
The cables reveal that some of BP’s partners in the gas field were upset that the company was so secretive about the incident that it even allegedly withheld information from them. They also say that BP was lucky that it was able to evacuate its 212 workers safely after the incident, which resulted in two fields being shut and output being cut by at least 500,000 barrels a day with production disrupted for months.
Other cables leaked tonight claim that the president of Azerbaijan accused BP of stealing $10bn of oil from his country and using “mild blackmail” to secure the rights to develop vast gas reserves in the Caspian Sea region.
• American energy firm Chevron was in discussions with Tehran about developing an Iraq-Iran cross-border oilfield, despite US sanctions against Iran.
On the Azerbaijan gas leak, acable reports for the first time that BP suffered a blowout in September 2008, as it did in the Gulf with devastating consequences in April, as well as the gas leak which the firm acknowledged at the time.
“Due to the blowout of a gas-injection well there was ‘a lot of mud’ on the platform, which BP would analyze to help find the cause of the blowout and gas leak,” the cable said.
Written a few weeks after the incident, the cable said Bill Schrader, BP’s then head of Azerbaijan, admitted it was possible the company “would never know” the cause although it “is continuing to methodically investigate possible theories”.
According to another cable, in January 2009 BP thought that a “bad cement job” was to blame for the gas leak in Azerbaijan. More recently BP’s former chief executive Tony Hayward also partly blamed a “bad cement job” by contractor Halliburton for the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The blowout in the Gulf led to the deaths of 11 workers and the biggest accidental offshore oil spill in history.
BP was also criticised for not initially sharing all its information with the US authorities about the scale of the Gulf spill. The gas field in the Caspian Sea was in production when the leak and blow out occured, unlike the well in the Gulf which was being drilled to explore for oil.
BP declined to answer questions put by the Guardian about the cause of the Azerbaijan gas leak and who carried out the cement job, pointing to a general statement it had made about the cables.
The cable reveals that the company had a narrow escape. “Given the explosive potential, BP was quite fortunate to have been able to evacuate everyone safely and to prevent any gas ignition. Schrader said although the story hadn’t caught the press’s attention, it had the full focus of the [government of Azerbaijan], which was losing ‘$40-50m each day’.”
The leak happened at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshi (ACG) field, Azerbaijan’s largest producing oil field in the Caspian where vast undeveloped gas reserves also lie. BP is the operator and largest shareholder in the consortium, which includes US companies Chevron, ExxonMobil and Hess (formerly Amerada Hess), as well as Norwegian firm Statoil and Azerbaijan’s state owned oil company Socar.
BP comes in for criticism for allegedly limiting the information it made available about the incident. Another cable records shortly after the incident: “ACG operator BP has been exceptionally circumspect in disseminating information about the ACG gas leak, both to the public and to its ACG partners. However, after talking with BP and other sources, the embassy has pieced together the following picture”. It goes on to say the incident took place when bubbles appeared in the waters around the Central Azeri platform, signalling a nearby gas leak. “Shortly thereafter, a related gas-reinjection well for Central Azeri had a blowout, expelling water, mud and gas.” BP’s annual report last year referred to a “comprehensive review of the subsurface gas release” having taken place and remedial work being carried out.
The cable continues: “At least some of BP’s ACG partners are similarly upset with BP’s performance in this episode, as they claim BP has sought to limit information flow about this event even to its ACG partners. Although it is too early to ascertain the cause, if in fact this production shutdown was due to BP technical error, and if it continues for months (as seems possible), BP’s reputation in Azerbaijan will take a serious hit.”
BP is in charge of Azerbaijan’s key energy projects, and has a significant influence across the region. In late 2006 discussions were taking place about when Turkey would be able to link up its own network to a new pipeline operated by BP transporting gas across the Caucasus from BP’s giant new Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan. The new pipeline was seen as crucial as reducing the region’s dependence on unreliable gas supplies from Russia, particularly amidst rising gas prices.
According to one cable, BP’s outgoing Azerbaijan president, David Woodward, said in November 2006 that BP thought it unlikely that Turkey would be able to complete its work before spring 2007. “However, he added that ‘it was not inconceivable’ that Botas [Turkey's state pipeline company] could ‘rush finish’ the job so that it would be ready to receive gas shortly, although the pipeline would not meet international standards,” the cable said. In the end, BP said Turkey began receiving gas from Shah Deniz in July 2007.
The cables also reveal BP concerns on the lack of security at the time around its oil and gas installations, particularly in the Caspian Sea, which it believed made them vulnerable to terrorist attack. One cable from July 2007 records: “BP Azerbaijan president Bill Schrader has told US officials in private conversations, ‘all it would take is one guy with a mortar or six guys in a boat’ to wreak havoc in Azerbaijan’s critical energy infrastructure.”
BP officials also complained about a shortage of Navy and Coast Guard boats – mostly Soviet era and built in the 1960s and 1970s – to patrol the waters around the platforms. It was also not clear which government agency or branch of the military was in charge, meaning a “response to a crisis offshore could be problematic” , one cable in August 2008 recorded.
The oil firm said BP “enjoys the continued support and goodwill of the government and the people of Azerbaijan”.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/15/wikileaks-bp-azerbaijan-gulf-spill
How long till the oil firm chiefs put on trial for crimes against humanity???
Hi, Joe and CP-
Love your blogging, but could I make a technical request? Many CP posts come up several times on my Atom RSS feed. The same post, appears, reappears, then reappears again. This is with the Safari browser’s RSS alerting feature. I would guess this happens when something about the post is altered after being posted- changed title, changed text.. I don’t know. But it is hugely annoying and distracting. And with the breathtaking rate of CP posting anyhow, it becomes off-putting.
So thanks for all your work, and I hope there is some way to make the RSS posts come up once only.
A gas blowout IS the worst thing which could possibly happen in terms of FUELING CLIMATE CHANGE!!!!!!!!
Someone PLEASE STOP THIS RECKLESS MADNESS!!!!!!
BP says U.S. lawsuit just allegations so far
BP Plc (BP.L)(BP.N) said the U.S. Justice Department’s oil spill lawsuit filed on Wednesday is “solely a statement of the government’s allegations and does not in any manner constitute any finding of liability or any judicial finding that the allegations have merit.” http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSWEN453920101215
Hey Prokaryotes,
Thanks for all of the interesting comments you provide. Your comments and many others’ (combined with what Joe does, of course) make CP great!Please continue to do what you do, when you can, until the end time…
Warm regards,
Roger
BP Falls Most in Four Months After U.S. Files Oil Spill Lawsuit
BP Plc fell the most in almost four months in London trading after the Obama administration filed a suit saying the company and four others violated environmental laws in the largest U.S. oil spill. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-16/bp-falls-most-in-four-months-after-u-s-files-lawsuit-over-gulf-oil-spill.html
Roger, thanks for the motivation, sometimes i wonder if it makes any sense looking at the lack of progress,
Maybe this suit will finally bring some justices and a message that the time of reckless behavior is over for oil executives and their companies.
Meanwhile, Jack Gerard, head of the American Petroleum Institute, is having hissy fits, going around accusing the Obama administration of killing jobs.
WASHINGTON, December 1, 2010 — American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard warned that the administration’s decision today could result in the loss of tens of thousands of American jobs, billions less in government revenues and an increasing dependence on foreign energy sources:
~~~
http://www.api.org/Newsroom/offshore-ban-jobs.cfm
Extension of offshore ban to halt job creation, economic growth: API
“As our country looks for ways out of the hole of lackluster economic growth and job creation, today’s decision shows that this administration would rather keep digging than take the ladder to increased economic prosperity offered by developing our nation’s domestic energy resources.
“The oil and natural gas industry is a reliable vehicle for growing the economy and creating good-paying jobs. This decision shuts the door on new development off our nation’s coasts and effectively ensures that new American jobs will not be realized. It will stifle investment, deny billions in revenue for critical government services and increase our dependence on foreign energy sources.
“The oil and natural gas industry is committed to safe and environmentally responsible operations, and both the industry and regulators have added new safeguards to ensure such operations.This reversal on new lease sales off America’s coasts comes on top of a de facto moratorium, which has all but stopped new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.”
API represents more than 400 oil and natural gas companies, leaders of a technology-driven industry that supplies most of America’s energy, supports more than 9.2 million U.S. jobs and 7.5 percent of the U.S. economy, and, since 2000, has invested nearly $2 trillion in U.S. capital projects to advance all forms of energy, including alternatives.
~~~~
The API and its member companies are HUGE campaign contributors to politicians and are likely fighting hard behind the scenes to make sure Barack Obama is a one-term president.
Good for DOJ for pursuing these lawsuits. But I am skeptical that they will go anywhere. We’ll see.
A lot of people fall for the BS Gerard doles out: he’s out for one thing, and one thing only, keeping his member companies in the black, and his own job intact.
I know the man personally. We ran into one another at a personal function shortly after the big Gulf blowout. He said he had one regret: that he hadn’t negotiated a larger contract with API, in light of all the “difficulties” he was experiencing as a result of the BP disaster. He should have held out for a higher salary, he said to me, with a straight face, then turned and walked off. His salary as API chief is already around $7 million, give or take. In my view, API and Jack Gerard should be named as defendants in these lawsuits, and their egregious behavior brought to light and brought to justice. I’m not holding my breath, however.
“Roger, thanks for the motivation, ”
I appreciate your efforts, very much.
Here’s something, written by Loren Eisley from his essay “man the firemaker”.
“Man is also Homo duplex, as they knew in the darker ages. He partakes of evil and of good, of god and of man. Both struggle in him perpetually.
And he is himself a flame, a great, roaring, wasteful furnace, devouring irreplaceable substances of the earth. Before this century is out, either Homo duplex must learn that knowledge without greatness of spirit is not enough for man or,
there will remain only his calcined cities, and the little charcoal of his bones”