The British backlash over President Obama and the BP crisis

[dreamer20]

It seems the US Administration rebuffed a British offer, days after the accident, to airlift half our stockpile of badly-needed dispersants for use in the crisis. Apparently our paperwork wasn't up to scratch (denied by the UK gov), altho a similar offer was accepted from the Saudis. Hmmm.

US turned down Britain’s offer to help clean up BP oil rig spill - Times Online

"A few days after the BP-leased rig sank on April 22, the Cabinet Office made a direct offer to the US State Department to airlift half of Britain&#8217;s 1,200-tonne stockpile of chemical dispersants, <this offer was rebuffed> fuelling fresh fears of political tension between the two countries over the disaster.

At the time there was an urgent demand for fresh supplies. The offer to provide the chemicals, at the cost price of £3 million, was made through diplomatic channels and via the Civil Contingency Secretariat, the Government&#8217;s emergency planning unit. "


Contrary to what this article would have you believe, the U.S. has stockpiles of dispersant and dispersant is readily available from U.S. corporations. The British government erred as it should have made this offer to BP instead for consideration, as BP is responsible for oil clean up costs and has the right to decide from whom it would obtain oil dispersant - just as the U.S. federal government has that liberty.


All that being said, oil dispersant shouldn't be used in the world's oceans as it does more harm than good.

Toxic Oil Dispersant Used in Gulf Despite Better Alternative | Wired Science | Wired.com

 

[B_talltpaguy]

....or using lousy American contractors and obviously equally lousy American equipment DON'T FORGET!!

Contracted to do the job by whom? That's right, BP.

 

[B_talltpaguy]

So you are happy with a system where contractors are free to be as careless as they like and spill as much oil as they please, just so long as they get punished afterwards? Suely much better to have a system which tries to stop the spills before they happen.

No, those are your words, not mine.

I didn't bother with the rest of your post after this rubbish, because clearly, you're not interested in an honest discussion... If you want to engage in this sort of intellectual dishonesty, do it with someone else.

 

[B_talltpaguy]

This story appears well sourced and in a nutshell true.

Well, except that it isn't...

For example... the "prominent US blogger" they cite is no such thing... Not even remotely close. He's a hard right conservative (known as a teabagger here) who writes a lot of blog entries, that collectively get as many responses from himself as they do from other people. His typical blog entry gets perhaps 100 pageviews (in total, ever), and who knows how many of those hits are by him.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of bloggers in the US who are actually prominent, and get millions of pageviews per month. But the Times didn't cite any of them, because none of them spewed an extreme concept that would be catchy for their article seeking to paint the US in as bad a light as they possibly can.


Like I told my British friends a few days ago...

You folks should be pissed that your nation's media executives think so lowly of their fellow countrymen, that they believe they can profit from you by lying to you.

 

[HazelGod]

The British government erred as it should have made this offer to BP instead for consideration, as BP is responsible for oil clean up costs and has the right to decide from whom it would obtain oil dispersant - just as the U.S. federal government has that liberty.

Sad that someone had to point out what should have been readily obvious to anyone capable of independent thought.

All that being said, oil dispersant shouldn't be used in the world's oceans as it does more harm than good.

This one's not so obvious...thank you for pointing it out.

 

[sbat]

p.s. If you ever expect me to respond to you again, which is highly unlikely, you will not put your responses in the body of a quote as you have repeatedly been doing, and as I have done here to demonstrate. It makes it exceedingly difficult to respond without deconstructing the entire text and reassembling it, as you will see if you try to respond to the points above. But perhaps that is your intention. It wouldn't surprise me.

Yes master. You win. :biggrin1:

 

[superbot]

Contracted to do the job by whom? That's right, BP.

Yeah and when you employ someone to repair your car you don't expect them to drive it over cliff and say "sorry not my fault!!"

 

[B_talltpaguy]

Yeah and when you employ someone to repair your car you don't expect them to drive it over cliff and say "sorry not my fault!!"

That is not even remotely analogous to what occurred. Not in the slightest sense.

Companies like BP have the choice to do the work themselves, or hire someone else to do it in their name. But either way, the owner of the lease (BP) is the one responsible for what occurs when utilizing that lease. Furthermore, as has already been exemplified previously in this thread, the contractors BP hired were doing the job according to best practices, and BP is the one who contravened and ordered them to take the short cuts that directly led to this disaster. There is no doubt about this, and even BP has readily admitted so.

 

[freyasworld]

Links for this?



In 2008 there were 141 deepwater rigs operating off the Louisiana coastline. There is only one that is spewing oil in to the Gulf of Mexico. Therefore someone must be doing something right.

over 200 oil spills were reported to the Gov't last year in the Gulf....in addition a rig sank in 2004 guess what it's still leaking oil and nothing has been done to cap it....that's ok though it was a US company.

 

[superbot]

That is not even remotely analogous to what occurred. Not in the slightest sense.

Companies like BP have the choice to do the work themselves, or hire someone else to do it in their name. But either way, the owner of the lease (BP) is the one responsible for what occurs when utilizing that lease. Furthermore, as has already been exemplified previously in this thread, the contractors BP hired were doing the job according to best practices, and BP is the one who contravened and ordered them to take the short cuts that directly led to this disaster. There is no doubt about this, and even BP has readily admitted so.

Utter crap! Just accept it!!

 

[B_talltpaguy]

That is not even remotely analogous to what occurred. Not in the slightest sense.

Companies like BP have the choice to do the work themselves, or hire someone else to do it in their name. But either way, the owner of the lease (BP) is the one responsible for what occurs when utilizing that lease. Furthermore, as has already been exemplified previously in this thread, the contractors BP hired were doing the job according to best practices, and BP is the one who contravened and ordered them to take the short cuts that directly led to this disaster. There is no doubt about this, and even BP has readily admitted so.

Utter crap! Just accept it!!

lol Accept what? That you don't know what you're talking about?

If you think you can prove otherwise, then I wish you the best of luck and await your response.

 

[D_Andreas Sukov]

If i get nationalistic over anything, it wouldnt be a trans-national company.

 

[vince]

over 200 oil spills were reported to the Gov't last year in the Gulf....in addition a rig sank in 2004 guess what it's still leaking oil and nothing has been done to cap it....that's ok though it was a US company.

Links?

I googled for a rig that sank in the Gulf in 2004 and could not find anything. Can we have a link?

Who said anything about it being ok for US companies to spill oil? When you Brits go nationalistic, there really is no reasoning with you is there? It's a bit embarrassing.

 

[dreamer20]

In 2008 there were 141 deepwater rigs operating off the Louisiana coastline. There is only one that is spewing oil in to the Gulf of Mexico. Therefore someone must be doing something right.

over 200 oil spills were reported to the Gov't last year in the Gulf....in addition a rig sank in 2004 guess what it's still leaking oil and nothing has been done to cap it....that's ok though it was a US company.

freyasworld could you please provide links showing the U.S. government statistics revealing there were over 200 oil spills associated with offshore drilling in the Gulf in 2009 and details regarding the 2004 oil rig which sank and is continuing to leak oil. The former figures and an ongoing leak from 2004 sound very spurious to me.

Thanks.

 

[superbot]

Links?

I googled for a rig that sank in the Gulf in 2004 and could not find anything. Can we have a link?

Who said anything about it being ok for US companies to spill oil? When you Brits go nationalistic, there really is no reasoning with you is there? It's a bit embarrassing.

Patronizing GIT!!

 

[TomCat84]

Folks, the only people bringing up anti British are the British themselves. Seems a tad insecure to me.

 

[TomCat84]

I'm sorry that you Brits have invested so much in BP, but that's really not our fault.

 

[sbat]

Watching the Sky News report on the Oil Spill situation. They interviewed several American BP protesters in Florida, who all stressed that this is nothing against the UK and that "England is our greatest ally."

Not sure how monolithic this 'British backlash' is. But Sky at least is making an effort to paint a picture where American outrage is directed at the company and not the nation whose name it used to bear.

 

[B_talltpaguy]

and details regarding the 2004 oil rig which sank and is continuing to leak oil. The former figures and an ongoing leak from 2004 sound very spurious to me.

He's leaving out key information, to try and characterize this tiny old spill brought about by severe weather, as being somehow comparable to BP's epic and reckless disaster today, and thus characterize the US regulators as being negligent for 'tolerating' this old spill, when they aren't. In fact, roughly $500 million dollars has been spent plugging all of the affected wells, even though they were leaking a miniscule amount of oil.

He's referring to a rig accident by a company called Taylor Energy in 2004 during Hurricane Ivan. The rig was hit by an underwater mud slide during the peak of the storm and irreparably damaged. All 26 wells the rig serviced were affected, but since nearly all of them required pumping to draw oil, the leaking that occurred was through bent shut-off valves and such.


From an article I found describing what happened...

The 26 wells are controlled by New Orleans-based Taylor Energy, which has been working to plug and abandon them since an undersea mudslide spawned by Ivan toppled the oil platform nearly six years ago.

Taylor released a statement Tuesday saying the oil platform was toppled by a subsurface mudslide triggered by storm surges with 100-foot waves for 16-to-18-second periods.

Because the wells were covered by more than 100 feet of mud and sediment and only four wells were capable of production without pressure assistance, the associated surface sheen was minimal and never made landfall, Taylor's statement said. Three subsurface containment domes and six well interventions substantially reduced the 9-gallon-per-day spill, the company said.

And why has it taken so long to stop a 9 gallon a day oil spill?

Minerals Management Service officials have called Taylor's well-abandonment job the most challenging ever attempted in the Gulf because the mudslide buried the platform beneath the ocean floor. Experts have said the costs could easily exceed $500 million.

Read full article here


Sorry, but a 9-14 gallon per day 'spill' created by one of the worst hurricanes to ever hit the US doesn't even remotely compare to the 1-2MILLION GALLONS PER DAY epic disaster that BP's recklessness has created.




Anyone else have some intellectual dishonesty they would like to spew to pathetically try and contort this into being a UK vs US thing?

Like I've already said before...

You folks should be pissed that your nation's media executives think so lowly of their fellow countrymen, that they believe they can profit from you by lying to you.

 

[798686]

Watching the Sky News report on the Oil Spill situation. They interviewed several American BP protesters in Florida, who all stressed that this is nothing against the UK and that "England is our greatest ally."

Well, that's helpful. It's also encouraging that several posters on here have mentioned it's not coming across as anti-British, rather anti-BP, over there.

Some of Obama's comments were unhelpful last week, altho more effort seems to be being made now. The talking down of BP was alarming and counter-productive - but maybe he's realised that now?

Both nations are interested in a successful clean-up, and in retaining close relations with each other - so maybe it's time to knock any agitation on the head?