Maybe that is true, maybe not. We will know soon enough.
It seems to me that certain folks associated with certain political ideologies are all too keen on killing a big Oil company. With BP so weakened, this looks like their moment. They may yet succeed with the help of the Tort Bar. But then I repeat myself.
Be very, very, very careful what you ask for. B.P.'s demise would, in my view, be the straw that wipes out the U.S. economy. Forget "energy security"; think economic security in the extreme. B.P.'s death, the death of the largest producer of Oil and Nat Gas in the U.S., at a time of declining imports means shortages, gas lines, steep market declines, worse unemployment... you get the idea.
The Obama administration will absolutely, positively not survive the death of B.P., and any moment now their political operatives are going to come around to that unpleasant truth.
The U.S. was saved by the bell in the form of 1 million bpd of ethanol that came out of nowhere like a White Knight and Nat Gas from the Shale formations, but those were "One Off's". Obama and his political team are keenly aware of Jimmy Carter's experience, but once a bullet leaves a gun it has no friends. Obama has already fired that bullet. It will be interesting to see just who that bullet hits.
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Even if "BP the corporation" does not survive, the assets will be sold off. You can't make plastics nor diesel nor jet fuel out of ethanol (E85/ethanol can power cars and vans pretty well, however). We will be addicted to oil for some time to come, and BP has all the drilling equipment (and up until recently, all the expertise :)).
On a related note, people are suggesting boycotts of BP stations. Does everyone know how few gasoline stations are actually owned by their brand? BP, Shell and one other oil company actually own only 1-10% of their stations. Most are independently owned, and those stations buy gasoline to sell from whoever has the best price at the time.
Most gasoline dealers have the oil companies as landlords, at least around here.
It is true that very few gas stations sell their own brand of gas. Taking the Boston area as an example, most gasoline is barged into the city of Chelsea, a really nasty, small, industrial city next to the airport, using a terminal on an arm of inner Boston Harbor called Chelsea Creek.
All the tanker trucks supplying the area gas stations load up at a tank farm area owned by a few petroleum dealers. I've heard that in some cases, individual additive packages are added to tank trucks as the gas goes out, but most of it is basically the same gasoline, supplied by whatever and whomever's barge/tanker unloaded at Chelsea in the past few days.
As for Carter's mistake, I don't think any politician could ever be so dumb as to get on TV with a sweater and tell us we have to make do with less ever again, at least until it is completely and painfully obvious to EVERYBODY that it is already the case.
Like dealing with any flesh eating zombie, BP can have a stake driven through its heart, be chopped up and reassembled into a friendlier zombie with all the nasty bits left behind to be burned:-))
Nobody wants BP to collapse particularly not the Obama administration. Where would they get the $20 billion ?
BP made a stupid mistake, and is paying for it. They drilled way off the continental shelf, way deeper than they had before and did not prepare for the worst case scenario. Anytime you do something highly risky and experimental you should go in on a smaller basis. it shows bad judgement and lack of common sense.
What it shows is that it is really a sociopathic mistake.
Would crashing the economy now be worse than crashing it in a few years? Would either lead to 100% mortality of the population? Which would be worse?
Anon at 405PM said: "Nobody wants BP to collapse particularly not the Obama administration. Where would they get the $20 billion ?"
Ummmmm....... they'd print it (electronically or not) out of thin air the same place they've gotten all the other money, stimulus and not, over the past 2 years?
The worst case scenario would be for the methane release to trigger a clathrate gun and no one survives. Basically the methane clathrate deposits being released from the seafloor set up a positive feedback loop that is “as irreversible, once started, as the firing of a gun.” While it has an extremely low probability it is thought to be the mechanism of at least two major mass extinctions in the past.
We have a pipeline in the metro and two refineries nearby. No matter what brand is on the pump all the fuel comes from one of those three sources. However, the branded fuels do have different additives in them. The delivery driver gets pours the additives into the underground tanks from a five gallon jug then dumps the fuel on top of it to mix it up, or at least that is the way it worked roughly 15 years ago.
That bullet may well hit the US in the foot. As BP sells its assets, who's going to buy them? The Chinese are the ones who have all the money. BP isn't American so the deal couldn't be blocked.
How would you feel about a Chinese-owned BP drilling in the Gulf? Or sucking up much of the oil in the Middle East (including Iraq)?
There's a certain irony; the US sends all its money to China for consumer junk so China can buy one of the biggest oil producers working in the US! Sweet!
As you say Greg; be careful what you wish for!
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