@hawkeye10,
If stakeholders means stock holders, I don't think there will be much left after meeting liabilities. Secured bondholders, bondholders, and other lenders might come out okay, assuming British law is similar to US law. Still, until Bp goes into default I don't think they have a basis for action. Dunno, but that's my take.
@roger,
right, I dont see anything happening so far as a forced bankruptcy of the company until the cash runs out. BP has $5 billion cash, and has been generating $13 billion a year in free cash flow but I think a lot of that goes away as governments turn the screws all across BP's operations. This cash was generated by unsafe practices and deep cost cutting within the company, which governments will no longer tolerate.
@hawkeye10,
Quote:The new calculation suggested that an amount of oil equivalent to the Exxon Valdez disaster could have been flowing into the Gulf of Mexico every 8 to 10 days.
This assessment, based on measurements taken before BP cut the riser pipe of the leaking well on June 3 to cap some of the flow, showed that approximately 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil could have been gushing into the Gulf each day. That is far above the previous estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/us/11spill.html?hp
we are shocked yes?? If BP has to face a jury with them being 3000% wrong in their claim about how much crude was flowing, and stonewalling for weeks any attempt to get a real number......
Right now BP needs to give their CEO a kick in the ass out of the company....these boys need to completely retool if they are to have any chance of saving the company.
I predict that in the months ahead the scope of the damage to the ecosystem will also grow exponentially. The gulf is big, but there are a whole lot of toxins in it right now.
@hawkeye10,
heard " somewhere " on the news last night that to clean the oil from the marshes , the missisippi river may have to be re-channelled ?
anyone else hear that or did i just have a nightmare ?
@hamburgboy,
i heard the BP execs are sacrificing virgins to the volcano gods, hoping the super volcano under yellowstone explodes and takes the heat off them
I can't imagine that ever getting approved as an option. It took a long time for the authorities to agree to the erection of sand berms between the oil and the marshes. I thought that idea made sense: a lot easier to clean sand then plants.
So I spent part of the afternoon prowling around the British press. They are not happy with Obama...not happy at all. Brit bashing, talking about kicking ass.
> Repeating: 1 out of every 7 dividend pound paid in the U.K. comes from BP. The push towards forcing, somehow, the suspension of dividends will have ramifications with regards to whose ass is being kicked.
> 40% of BP's stock is held in the U.S. with 14% held by individuals and most of the rest held by pension funds for the benefit of Americans. $4Bn a year in dividends.
> We have no idea what the ultimate cost will be to BP other than it being humongous. But that will not, it is argued, have to be paid out all at once. Rather, even without any deliberate foot dragging by lawyers as in the Valdez case, it will take years. Meanwhile, even with oil at $74/bbl, BP is a cash machine. When the worldwide economy does right itself and oil gets to $100/bbl, BP, with relatively fixed costs, will be rolling in cash.
So my conclusion is that BP will not go into bankruptcy and may not even cut the dividend.
I am not, Hawkeye, defending BP. They f*cked up by probably taking short cuts. And the government overseers let them get away with it. I will have to leave that to the scientists.
I hope heads will roll.
And we, you and I and others, are rightfully pissed.
Thanks for remaining civil with me, hawkeye. I am looking at this from a somewhat different angle with regards to how this may or should end up.
@realjohnboy,
The costs to BP are not just the spill....for instance BP has five refineries in America all with long histories of being poorly run with safety violations. These will now be much more expensive to operate. BP Alaska drilling operations have for years been marred by the same sloppy dangerous work that BP does in the gulf, BP is going to be forced by government to do a better job, which will eat into profits.
http://blog.taragana.com/business/2010/05/05/congressmen-cite-significant-events-in-bps-alaska-operations-before-gulf-of-mexico-spill-57827/
the citizens are pissed at BP, we are not going to stand for the traditional BP stalling and failure to perform. THis stuff is going to start costing BP money right now, the $13 billion a year in profits that they have come to expect are not going to be there.
@realjohnboy,
rjb wrote :
Quote:I thought that idea made sense: a lot easier to clean sand then plants.
i'm still not sure if i heard about re-channeling the missisippi or if it was a nightmare .
... but seem to remember that " they " were talking about re-channeling the river to help " flush " the oil out of the plants in the marshes - and push the oil back into the gulf ???
@realjohnboy,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/oil-spill-fallout-could-pollute-the-special-relationship-1997395.html
just made quick check of the " independent " and found these comments :
Quote: That the spill could infect the "special relationship" became clear early yesterday when the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, aired his concerns in a radio interview. "I do think there's something slightly worrying about the anti-British rhetoric that seems to be permeating from America," he said.
"It starts to become a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the international airwaves."
When Mr Obama said he wanted to know whose "ass to kick" in the Gulf, it was obvious he had BP in mind. BP's shares, which ended 6.7 per cent lower in London, recovered sharply in New York yesterday, but only after plunging by 16 per cent on Wednesday amid fears that the US government was looking for ways to force BP to suspend its dividend payments to shareholders.
Traditionally, BP stock accounts for 12 to 13 per cent of dividend payouts in Britain and many retirement funds depend on it to retain value. "You attack the dividend and you are attacking millions of British pensioners," said Tom Watson, a Labour MP who plans to table a motion in the Commons supporting BP.
... shows the " slightly " different views of the americans and the brits re. BP dividands .
those british pensioners seem to get a lot of attention from the opposition .
@hamburgboy,
Okay. I googled in "rechannel Mississippi flush oil gulf." Evidently, upstream water was released in mid-May keep away oil that was thought to be coming. There was some objection, with the argument being that shrimp would be flushed into the oil.
The article you probably found today was an interview with Doug Brinkley (whoever he is) by Anderson Cooper. Pretty much two incoherent people.
I really couldn't make any sense of it.
Flow rate estimates for the original leak are now at 40k barrels per day (they started out estimating 5k barrels a day). Is anybody really surprised? I'm not.
Oops, underestimated the damage rate just a bit.
I wonder if being off by a factor of 8 (or more) affected the success/failure of the first attempt to plug the thing? In other words, I wonder if they *really* didn't know the flow rate, or if they just understated it to protect themselves.
@rosborne979,
My personal opinion is that they knew. I mean, they have to know something about their business, don't they?
@realjohnboy,
Several stories on NPR two weeks ago suggested that the cost of clean up was just about equal to one year's income for BP.
@plainoldme,
plainoldme wrote:Several stories on NPR two weeks ago suggested that the cost of clean up was just about equal to one year's income for BP.
I think it depends on how you define "cleanup". Since I believe this is impossible to clean up, the actual cost is infinite. The real cost lies somewhere between those two thresholds; minimal cleanup or perfect cleanup. The question is, "what is the cost of reasonable cleanup", and the answer is, "how much do you have to spend".
I was surprised to learn yesterday that the administration is 'asking/demanding' that BP pay the salaries of all of the laid off rig workers affected by the moratorium placed on offshore drilling. This would be employees of various oil companies...not just BP, working in the Gulf.
Reporters were asking Gibbs about it in yesterday's WH briefing where he seemed to imply that BP is responsible for the moratorium and therefore must compensate those out-of-work rig employees.
@rosborne979,
Quote:I think it depends on how you define "cleanup
for instance is putting it back the way you found it part of the clean-up? The gulf ecosystem can not be put back the way it was, this disaster has changed it forever, probably in a very negative way...is BP going to compensate everyone for that??
Quote:BATON ROUGE, La., June 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The BP oil disaster, hurricanes and wetlands loss threaten a net value of $330 billion to $1.3 trillion in natural system goods and services, according to the first study of the Mississippi River Delta as a capital asset. Even the low end estimate of the Delta's value exceeds BP's market capitalization before the oil disaster on April 20 of $189 billion.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20100610/pl_usnw/DC18961_1
So, I was wondering (after watching that WH briefing yesterday) whether it's legal for the government to force BP to pay the wages of off-shore rig workers who've been idled by the moratorium. Found this report in Politico, who's wondering about it, too:
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38406.html#ixzz0qYc1lij6
@Irishk,
Quote:So, I was wondering (after watching that WH briefing yesterday) whether it's legal for the government to force BP to pay the wages of off-shore rig workers who've been idled by the moratorium.
Certainly not before BP signed an agreement, and probably not even now. The Brits are getting pretty pissy, gotta wonder when BP will stop writting checks when ever the WH tells them to. It will happen.
@rosborne979,
If you want to see BP shareholders turn pale, just start talking about the value of just one pelican's life. Try to ask in a sort of whiney Sally Struther's voice.
