Topics: BP to Look for Oil Outside Russia After Collapse of Rosneft Deal, BP in fight with Russian partners over bid to sell off TNK-BP stake, Senate panel opens door for BP rig workers' families to sue, BHP brings first GoM well online since moratorium, Shareholder class predicts BP will pay more than $40 billion for explosion, BP gives retirement lesson, BP Uses Social PR Long After Oil Spill, But to What Effect?, Luther Strange Deposes Former BP CEO in London
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BP and its Russian oil oligarch partners continue their feuding started by BP's attempts to cut a deal with Rosneft to drill in Russia's fragile Arctic environment. Sadly, the rush to exploit Russian Arctic oil will probably go into even higher gear now that Norway and Russia settled their four decade long Arctic border dispute yesterday. The melting polar ice cap is providing easier opportunity to gain access to the estimated 39 billion barrels of oil reserves the disputed contains.
Shell has also been in talks with Russia to try to cut a deal with Rosneft. There simply is not the technology nor the resources to deal with Arctic oil spills effectively so the most we can hope for is that that distrust among all the greedy players continues to hamper any effective deal-making.
BP in fight with Russian partners over bid to sell off TNK-BP stake
The development is a revival of fraught relations between BP and the billionaires over the venture that produces a third of BP's oil each day.
Earlier this year, the Russian partners, known as Alfa Access Renova (AAR) and who own 50pc of the joint venture, blocked BP from doing a £10bn Arctic exploration deal with Rosneft, the Kremlin-backed oil company.
They obtained a court order banning BP and Rosneft from exploring the Arctic together while BP is still bound by the shareholder agreement governing TNK-BP
The two sides agreed a peace deal last month, but negotiations over the future of TNK-BP have restarted. Sources close to TNK-BP claimed the British company verbally told the billionaires that it has been in discussions to sell a 25pc stake to Rosneft. The remaining 25pc owned by BP and the 25pc held by Rosneft would then be put into a special purpose vehicle. They said an original proposal was tabled in early May, and has since been revived.
"This transaction would be very disappointing, creating further instability and value erosion when shareholders had only recently agreed to jointly focus on the development of TNK-BP," said one source close to the Russians.
However, BP last night insisted it had not issued any notification that it did not have current plans sell down its TNK-BP stake.
Rosneft has been holding talks with BP's rival Royal Dutch Shell over potentially replacing it as a partner for exploring the Arctic.
However, it is understood that BP still holds out hope that it can reach some sort of agreement with Rosneft, having come close to buying out the billionaires from TNK-BP last month.
Rosneft, TNK-BP and AAR declined to comment.
The new discussions come as Russia finalised an agreement with Norway splitting up a long-disputed area in the Barents Sea after decades of negotiations.
The deal, ratified by the two countries' foreign ministers yesterday, means Russia will be able to proceed with exploration for oil in the Arctic region from July 7.
It equally divides into two blocks a 68,000-square mile area which has become more accessible as Arctic ice has melted.
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Doofus Dudley attempted to distract from his colossal failure in putting together the Russian Arctic deal by adding a note of hilarity. BP and their Russian oligarch partners have been feuding nonstop since the Arctic deal was announced. Greed will undoubtedly win out over the delicate Russian Arctic environment in the long run but at least, for the time being, BP's ignorant arrogance has spared the Arctic their gross incompetence.
BP to Look for Oil Outside Russia After Collapse of Rosneft Deal
BP said on Wednesday that it would focus on oil exploration outside Russia after a deal with Rosneft collapsed last month, but added that there were no plans to sell its stake in the Russian joint venture TNK-BP.
The BP chief executive Robert W. Dudley said “very quietly BP is getting on with its strategy of exploration” in Australia, Brazil, Azerbaijan and the United Kingdom.
“We’re moving on,” he said at a news conference to release the company’s annual review of energy markets.
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Mr. Dudley denied newspaper reports published on Tuesday that said BP was preparing to sell some of its stake in its lucrative TNK-BP joint venture to try and rescue its deal with Rosneft.
“BP is not planning to sell its shares in TNK-BP,” Mr. Dudley said. He also described BP’s relationship with Rosneft as “excellent,” despite the disappointment about the collapsed deal.
Mr. Dudley’s comments indicated that the only way to revive the deal with Rosneft, which also included a share swap component, was for its TNK-BP partners and Rosneft to come to an agreement. BP’s partners in the TNK-BP joint venture, a group of Russia billionaires, claimed the deal violated their shareholder agreement. TNK-BP is Russia’s third-largest oil producer and accounts for about a quarter of BP’s output.
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The Senate should hang their heads in collective shame that they didn't get this legislation passed last year. Leaving the victims and families without legal recourse for fair compensation is just downright cruel and mean-spirited.
Senate panel opens door for BP rig workers' families to sue
The Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved a bill to help the families of the 11 victims of last year's Deepwater Horizon blowout by changing outdated federal maritime laws, one going back to the 1850s, to make it possible to recover damages from BP, rig operator Transocean and rig subcontractors.
The Deepwater Horizon Survivors' Fairness Act would amend the Jones Act and the Death on the High Seas Act to allow the victims' families to claim non-compensatory damages, such as pain and suffering and loss of companionship. Both laws prohibit such claims. The bill also would change the Shipowners' Liability Act of 1851, which limits a vessel owner's liability to the value of the vessel and its freight.
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The bill only affects the specific victims of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.
Similar legislation passed the House last year but didn't move through the Senate.
Posted on Wed, Jun. 08, 2011 02:53 PM
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Sad news that a new deepwater well has been brought online with no significant added protections for the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon blowout.
BHP brings first GoM well online since moratorium
LONDON, June 7 (Reuters) - Top global miner BHP Billiton (BHP.AX: Quote) (BLT.L: Quote) said it has become the first operator to bring a new deepwater production well online in the Gulf of Mexico since last May's moratorium following BP's (BP.L: Quote)(BP.N: Quote) oil spill.
BHP Billiton Petroleum said the well, which was brought into production on May 30, is currently producing about 17,000 barrels of oil per day. It is the eleventh producing well within the Shenzi field, off the Louisiana coastline.
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Shareholders filing suit against BP claim that the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe will end up costing BP a paltry $40 billion. It's regrettable that no one has done an estimate for the damage that BP actually caused in light of the fact that it appears BP will likely be successful in getting off the legal hook for much of the harm they caused.
The Gulf Coast Claims Facility has consistently been arbitrary and capricious in their paperwork requirements for claims as well as the amounts paid which has denied victims fair compensation. The government was outrageously negligent in seeing that the baseline science required to directly link damage to the environment and human health was done. Also, the government was either too dumb or not motivated to ensure that the amount of oil spilled was accurately measured giving BP great legal grounds to fight billions of dollars of fines.
Shareholder class predicts BP will pay more than $40 billion for explosion
HOUSTON - BP will pay more than $40 billion for the Deepwater Horizon explosion, public pension funds of New York and Ohio predicted on June 6.
The funds, seeking to recover losses on shares of BP, told U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison that BP's overall market capitalization declined by over $91 billion.
BP suspended dividends for three quarters, Paul Yetter of Houston wrote.
He opposed motions to dismiss class actions that New York and Ohio lead on behalf of ordinary shareholders and holders of BP's American depository shares.
For the second group, he wrote that BP misled investors and concealed information about risks.
He wrote that BP's representations with regard to safety were false or misleading.
He wrote that the class period started Jan. 16, 2007, when BP released a safety report.
"Plaintiffs do not merely allege that BP's safety oversight system was inadequate and its management, therefore, negligent," Yetter wrote.
"Rather, plaintiffs challenge BP's numerous and deceptive public representations made to investors in SEC filings, in conference calls with analysts, and elsewhere about their commitment to improving process safety.
"The complaint alleges that defendants falsely led investors to believe that BP designed industry leading infrastructure for process safety when in fact, BP did not."
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Also on June 6, a splinter group alleging securities fraud for a shorter period opposed BP's motion to dismiss its complaint.
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Ellison, who presides over shareholder suits by appointment of the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multi District Litigation, set a hearing Friday, June 17.
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Loren Steffy, the Houston Chronicle's business columnist warns employees who work for sleazy companies like BP to watch their retirement investment backs.
BP gives retirement lesson
BP has spent much of the past year talking about "lessons learned" from its disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, but it may also be offering a painful lesson to its employees about planning for their retirement.
A group of lawsuits filed on behalf of BP employees who had money in a number of the company's 401(k) retirement plans claims that BP, as administrator of the plans, continued to invest heavily in the company's American depositary receipts even though company executives knew — or should have known - that the stock was overvalued.
Before last year's disaster, the stock didn't reflect BP's poor operating history and its lack of regard for safety after earlier disasters, which made the Deepwater Horizon disaster inevitable, the lawsuit claims. BP's shares plunged after the offshore explosion, which killed 11 men. The stock has yet to recover, trading about 25 percent below the highs of April 2010.
As of January 2007, BP shares accounted for about $3 billion of the $9.5 billion worth of combined investments held by the retirement plans. By late June of last year, that value had dropped to about $1.3 billion, according to the lawsuits, which were combined into a single case late last month.
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BP hasn't responded to the claims, but in court filings it questioned whether the employees can bring the lawsuits because they didn't get permission from the English High Court to sue BP, which is a British company.
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Setting aside BP's long history of operating and maintenance failures in its North American division, most companies moved away from filling their employee retirement plans with disproportionate amounts of their own stock after the collapse of Enron.
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And there's another reason: loyalty. Employees ought to want to own their own company's stock, after all. It gives them a chance to participate in the company's success, and if they believe in their employer, why wouldn't they be willing to invest part of their retirement in its future?
Before the Gulf disaster, BP's allocation - about one-third of the total portfolio - may have seemed reasonable. But the stock's performance during the past year is a stark reminder to employees of how quickly something as intangible as corporate culture can affect their retirement planning.
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The silliness continues. A San Antonio business blog makes a good suggestion.
Now what we really need is someone to option this and make it into a comedy staring the two.
Kevin Costner Must Face Lawsuit Over Oil-Spill Cleanup Machine, Judge Says
Actor Kevin Costner must face a lawsuit in which he’s accused of cheating partners, including actor Stephen Baldwin, of their share of profits on floating oil-water separators sold to BP Plc (BP/) to help clean up last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans today rejected Costner’s request to be dismissed from the case, which is set for a non-jury trial in May.
Costner’s former partners claim he tricked them into selling their shares in Ocean Therapy Solutions LLC for $1.9 million days before BP paid an $18 million deposit for the floating centrifuges. The machines ultimately played a small role in cleaning up the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history....
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BP has issued a flood of 90 press releases on Facebook and Twitter in its latest PR blitz. It appears the strategy this time is to associate the BP name with small business. The Fish House in northwestern Florida has that dubious honor because they were stupid enough to fall for BP's PR hacks who told them their business would not be associated with the disreputable BP brand.
BP Uses Social PR Long After Oil Spill, But to What Effect?
BP America's Facebook and Twitter accounts have become goodwill promotional centers for the Gulf Coast tourism and seafood businesses. But whether those industries appreciate the effort is another matter. The brand - beleaguered by the 2010 oil spill in that region - has posted more than 90 Facebook and Twitter messages in the past week.
BP's social media efforts have sparked frustration in some corners. Shelley Yates is a marketing rep for The Fish House, a Pensacola Bay seafood restaurant located in northwestern Florida. The Fish House was featured in a video created by Ogilvy PR, handling BP's social media for the oil spill, that was posted to the petroleum brand's Facebook and YouTube pages.
"When they [shot] it, they said it wouldn't have anything to do with BP," Yates said. "But then it was put up on BP's Facebook Page and YouTube channel. And I don't think it was received well to be honest. I just think it looks too… The whole thing seems pretty contrived."
Beneath the 1-minute, 20-second video featuring her boss, Collier Merrill, on YouTube, Yate's point becomes illustrated by the following user comment: "What a bunch of lies. Wonder how much he got paid for doing this ad."
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Not much in the story other than Alabama AG deposed Tony Hayward in London. For the sake of BP victims and the environment let's all hope that Hayward doesn't break his habit of only opening his mouth to insert his foot.
Luther Strange Deposes Former BP CEO in London
Earlier today, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange questioned former BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward in London regarding the 2010 Gulf Coast oil spill. Attorney General Strange deposed Hayward in his role as the Coordinating Counsel for the Gulf States, a position granted him by the federal district court overseeing the national litigation resulting from the spill.
Attorney General Strange questioned Hayward about BP’s role in the disaster, Hayward’s publicized commitment that BP will make right the massive damage that was caused by the spill, and how Hayward had intended for BP to meet that obligation. Due to a court-imposed confidentiality order, particular details about the content of Hayward’s testimony may not be disclosed at this time.
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