Britain worried that BP oil spill may hit ties with US
By IANSMonday, June 7, 2010
LONDON - The British government is concerned that criticism towards energy company BP for its failure to curb the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico may hamper the country’s relationship with the US.
The scale and ferocity of the US attacks are said to have disturbed David Cameron, The Telegraph reported quoting government sources.
With American midterm elections only five months away, Whitehall officials are understood to be concerned that the issue is becoming a political football in the US.
Some American politicians have suggested that BP should be barred from future government contracts. The move would be likely to benefit US rivals such as ExxonMobil and Chevron.
The disaster has come up in discussions between William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, and his US counterpart, Hillary Clinton, the daily said.
However, Downing Street has declined to comment on whether the issue has been raised between Cameron and US President Barack Obama.
Business Secretary Vince Cable warned that the crisis was having “major indirect effects” on the British economy.
BP is the biggest supplier of oil and gas to the US military with contracts worth $2 billion (1.4 billion pounds) a year.
The company is loosing its support from other oil firms as the industry faces the prospect of a halt to the expansion of offshore drilling. Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, was called “the most hated and clueless man in America” by the New York Daily News.
Referring to the attacks against him, Hayward said: “I think it is understandable when something of this scale occurs… that people are frustrated and emotional”.
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June 7, 2010: 4:56 am
Actually, the relationship between Britain and America is in serious danger of meltdown. Many British people, like me are annoyed at the incessant abuse being hurled at BP, it execs and staff members who are doing their damnest to stop this horrific ecological disaster that nobody wanted. We all abhor what’s happened, but this is the time for cool heads, not burning the Union Jack. There are several things then to note which are being missed: 1. The anti-BP rhetoric is being exploited by an indecisive, inept and increasingly unpopular President. His move to refer to the company as British Petroleum (when it’s been BP for decades) was an attack on Britain. He compounded this by references to’foreign owned’ oil companies. BP is as much American owned as it is British - 39% to 40% respectively. Any talk therefore of a boycott or curbing its activities would be a nonsense because of the economic damage such a move would have. The US investors are mutual funds, pensions and the like. Just think on if BP were to collapse. 2. BP operated within, what seems to most, a very fragmented and laissez fair regulatory system. This is not BP’s fault it’s the US government who needs to take responsibility here. 3. The oil pollution that has occurred may have been more preventable if local states had taken better precautionary measures to protect their coastlines. They didn’t, and their response looks both amateur, tardy and if it weren’t for BP, non-existent. It’s hard to believe that knowing drilling and exploration was taking place in these waters that more measures and reserve preparations were not created in advance for just this kind of scenario. 4. What truly sickens the world is the seemingly pious hypocrisy of the US to this disaster, where BP is the foreign patsy. Previous industrial disasters, Bhopal, Exxon Valdez, Niger Delta and Ecuador have seen US companies effectively vanishing when the proverbial hit the fan. In Bhopal’s case, 15,000 Indians were killed, 500,000 harmed at they had to pursued legally for compensation. In the end they settled out of court for $475m - a pittance. To this day, they have not paid any further compensation or helped to clear the area or pay for medical treatment. In all of the other examples, there’s no hue and cry from the US, the US public is unmoved and disinterested, it just has its thirst for oil to satisfy at any cost, but obviously not one on their own doorstep. 5. The consumption of oil by the US was about 21 billion barrels per day in 2007. This was as much as the combined consumption of oil per day of China, Japan, Russia, India and Germany. If the US’s appetite for oil was reduced, there wouldn’t be the need to move fast and supply asap to the US market as oil companies feel that they have to. It is this ’speed’ in both exploration and drilling which led to complications with the present leak. It would be safe to say therefore, that without that demand, another decision re GOM exploration might have been made. |
David Page