Dear BP
I hate environmentalists, but they can be funny as hell sometimes. Check the Twitter of @BPGLobalPR
via The Wall Street Journal:
BP Plc (BP) said Wednesday that it began an attempt to plug a massive oil leak on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico using heavy drilling fluids, an experimental measure closely watched by federal authorities and the entire oil industry.
The so-called "top kill" procedure aims to kill a mile-deep well that has been gushing oil since the explosion and sinking of the Transocean Ltd. (RIG) Deepwater Horizon drilling rig more than a month ago. The deepwater well, known as Macondo, is estimated to be leaking at a rate of at least 5,000 barrels of oil a day, resulting in one of the worst oil spills the U.S. has ever seen. BP said that it began injecting so-called drilling mud into the well through a valve called a blow-out preventer at about 1 p.m. CDT. The company previously ran a battery of tests to gauge whether the procedure, which has never been tried at these depths, could work. The company had earlier received authorization to proceed from U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry.
BP said that the top-kill procedure could take up to two days to implement, and it's unclear how long it will take for BP to find out the results, the company said. The latest effort by the U.K.-based oil giant is being closely watched by federal authorities and by the entire oil industry, which faces an onslaught of regulation in the wake of the spill. At a shareholders' meeting in Dallas on Wednesday, Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM)'s Chief Executive Rex Tillerson said that Exxon, the world's largest publicly-traded oil company, continues to provide assistance to BP in dealing with the disaster. "We are eager to support efforts to determine how such an incident can be prevented in the future," he said.
You know your company image is tarnished when a fake Twitter for your company has more followers than the real one. BP, you really, really, really just screwed up in a major way. I was going to write something kind of dry and witty, but I just got word that your spill has surpassed the Exxon-Valdez spill in overall volume of oil and debris. By that virtue, this letter has to be a bit more serious. Even so, your whole stance is funny. There were reports that your employees knew there was something seriously wrong the day of the explosion, but their concerns fell on deaf ears. BP, it seems like you guys put safety and procedural concerns behind your profit margins, and it finally came back to bite you in the ass. The oil spill happened well over a month ago and you guys are just now finding a way to clean it up. What were you all doing for the 25 days that you weren't coming up with a solution? My guess is most of your executives thought the spill wasn't even that serious. In fact, I'd go so far as to say most of your executives haven't stepped foot on an oil rig in their lives, much less knew how oil got from the earth to their luxury sports sedans.
They can see the oil spill from SPACE!!! I give it t-minus 5 years before the fish we eat grow legs and start walking...
BP, the thing is, you should've seen this coming. George Bush Jr. (not to blame everything on him, but the man really fudged this country up) installed lax regulatory laws and tax shelters for oil companies when he really should have been putting the clamp down on them. You guys knew (or should have known) the risks of cutting back on your security and operational procedures, more so than anyone else. That's why I get pissed seeing people proclaim the spill as 'Obama's mistake'. Really, BP? You guys are going to let the President, who isn't linked at all to BP take a fall for you guys when you haven't even begun to clean your own mess up? C'mon son. It's bad enough the price of oil is going to get higher than a crackhead who wins the lottery. It's even worse that the oil spill is expanding exponentially. Hell, even worse than that is the fact that our fishing industry down there is probably dead in the water (really morbid pun there). No matter how you look at it, BP, you guys royally f*cked up. All jokes and Twitter pages aside, this is the worst environmental disaster. EVER. There are millions of gallons of oil spewing into our ocean, and you guys are probably still thinking more about your profit margin than the huge ramifications of this disaster. Guess that works when you're already rich...