BP to Canada: must soften offshore drilling regulations WTF?!?!

[nibbler]

Screw the Environment: BP and the Audacity of Corporate Greed

by Dave Lindorff

This Can't Be Happening

original article

May 23, 2010

Even as BP’s blown well a mile beneath the surface in the Gulf of Mexico continues to gush forth an estimated 70,000 barrels of oil a day into the sea, and the fragile wetlands along the Gulf begin to get coated with crude, which is also headed into the Gulf Stream for a trip past the Everglades and on up the East Coast, the company is demanding that Canada lift its tight rules for drilling in the icy Beaufort Sea portion of the Arctic Ocean.

In an incredible display of corporate arrogance, BP is claiming that a current safety requirement that undersea wells drilled during the newly ice-free summer must also include a side relief well, so as to have a preventive measure in place that could shut down a blown well, is “too expensive†and should be eliminated.

Yet clearly, if the US had had such a provision in place, the Deepwater Horizon blowout could have been shut down right almost immediately after it blew out, just by turning of a valve or two, and then sealing off the blown wellhead.

A relief well is â€too expensiveâ€?

The current Gulf blowout has already cost BP over half a billion dollars, according to the company’s own information. That doesn’t count the cost of mobilizing the Coast Guard, the Navy, and untold state and county resources, and it sure doesn’t count the cost of the damage to the Gulf Coast economy, or the cost of restoration of damaged wetlands. We’re talking at least $10s of billions, and maybe eventually $100s of billions. Weigh that against the cost of drilling a relief well, which BP claims will run about $100 million. The cost of such a well in the Arctic, where the sea is much shallower, would likely be a good deal less.

Such is the calculus of corruption. BP has paid $1.8 billion for drilling rights in Canada’s sector of the Beaufort Sea, about 150 miles north of the Northwest Territories coastline, an area which global warming has freed of ice in summer months. and it wants to drill there as cheaply as possible. The problem is that a blowout like the one that struck the Deepwater Horizon, if it occurred near the middle or end of summer, would mean it would be impossible for the oil company to drill a relief well until the following summer, because the return of ice floes would make drilling impossible all winter. That would mean an undersea wild well would be left to spew its contents out under the ice for perhaps eight or nine months, where its ecological havoc would be incalculable.

BP and other oil companies like Exxon/Mobil and Shell, which also have leases in Arctic Waters off Canada and the US, are actually trying to claim that the environmental risks of a spill in Arctic waters are less than in places like the Gulf of Mexico or the Eastern Seaboard, because the ice would “contain†any leaking oil, allowing it to be cleared away. The argument is laughable.

This is not like pouring a can of 10W-40 oil into an ice-fishing hole on a solidly frozen pond, where you could scoop it out again without its going anywhere. Unlike the surface of a frozen pond, Arctic sea ice is in constant motion, cracking and drifting in response to winds, tides and currents. Moreover, the blowout in the Gulf has taught us that much of the oil leaked into the sea doesn’t even rise to the surface at all. It is cracked and emulsified by contact with the cold waters and stays submerged in the lower currents, wreaking its damage far from wellhead and recovery efforts.

Finally, as difficult a time as BP has had rounding up the necessary containment equipment and personnel in the current blowout 50 miles from the oil industry mecca of Texas and Louisiana, the same task would be far harder to accomplish in the remote reaches of the Beaufort, far above the Arctic Circle, where there aren’t any roads, much less rail lines or airports.

In fact, it was the remoteness of the Arctic staging area, and the lack of infrastructure, that has been the oil industry’s main argument against a mandatory simultaneous relief well drilling requirement for offshore Arctic drilling. The industry claims it would be “too difficult†to drill two wells simultaneously, as this would require bring in and supplying double the personnel, and two separate drilling rigs.

In a hearing in Canada’s Parliament last week, Ann Drinkwater, president of BP Canada, told stunned and incredulous members of Parliament that she had never compared US and Canadian drilling regulations. In fact, whether by design or appalling ignorance, she had precious little in the way of information to offer them about anything to do with drilling rules, effects of spills, or containment strategems. All she wanted was relief from “expensive†regulation, so BP could go about its business of putting yet another region of the earth and its seas at risk in the pursuit of profits.

Asked if BP knew how it would clean up oil spilling out under the winter ice in a blowout, Drinkwater told the parliamentary hearing, “I'm not an expert in oil-spill techniques in an Arctic environment, so I would have to defer to other experts on that."

"You'd think coming to a hearing like this that British Petroleum would have as many answers as possible to assure the Canadian public. We got nothing today from them," groused Nathan Cullen of the left-leaning New Democrats, after hearing from the ironically named Drinkwater.

The fundamental problem in the US is that politicians purchased by campaign contributions are unwilling to look at the real risks of offshore drilling, whether on the two coasts or up in the Arctic region. With luck, maybe at least the Canadian government will conclude that such drilling in their northern seas makes no economic or environmental sense. In both countries, the amount of oil provided from offshore drilling would, over the next decade, be less than could be saved by simply making automobile mileage standards stricter.

All this is even more true when the drilling in question is in the fragile ecological environs of the Arctic Ocean.

Edited May 26, 2010 by Guest

[Guest Low Roller]

[Davey Boy 2.0]

I heard BP issued the statement, 'We'll sue you if you take beach oil'

[edger]

The Canadian news media should be all over this!!!

[nibbler]

The Canadian news media should be all over this!!!

Don't hold your breath. The Canadian News Media is owned by Big Business. Where ownership is impossible, powerful influence over public media does the trick. ( e.g. Vale-Inco-TVO partnership etc.)

Sharing the story is the only remedy for the sound of silence. Its up to us to decide wether or not we're happy with the Emperor's Oily New Clothes.

[AD]

Besides the inflammatory article posted above, any real journalistic stories that you've found about the drilling in Canada's North?

Here's a story from Canwest: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/spill+Arctic+might+intractable+Canada+head+says/3026897/story.html

Here's Reuters: http://ca.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idCATRE64C4V620100513

I'm sure there are many more, you just gotta look for them.

[nibbler]

Besides the inflammatory article posted above, any real journalistic stories that you've found about the drilling in Canada's North?

Here's a story from Canwest: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/spill+Arctic+might+intractable+Canada+head+says/3026897/story.html

Here's Reuters: http://ca.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idCATRE64C4V620100513

I'm sure there are many more, you just gotta look for them.

The work of independent journalists is far more in-depth than Main Stream Media coverage. Where conflicts with advertisers prevent MSM journalists from getting to the bottom of stories, Indy Media journalists have the freedom to criticize whomever they please. In this case, Dave Lindoff's 38 years experience in the field of journalism serves us well.

When an oil rig explodes and leaks millions of gallons of flammable goo- then yes- its an inflammatory issue deserving plenty of scrutiny from the press. The Canadian economy is being increasingly staged around Big Oil, thus Canadian Journalists should be covering this story like flies on shit.

You have provided two examples from Main Stream Media referencing BP's attempts to soften Canadian regulations governing offshore oil drilling. After reviewing these pieces, I would argue that the coverage they provide only amounts to the bare minimum- to some people they seem like they are doing their job, but in reality they are spinning the pieces in favor of the oil industry.

The Vancouver Sun article barely slaps BP on the wrist for negligence in the Gulf accident, the failure to cleanup, or for their audacity in lobbying our government to soften our drilling regulations. Instead of pouncing on BP for earning over 10 Billion in profits first quarter 2010 while penny-pinching at the expense of the environments they operate in; the author spends half the article planting seeds of hope that BP is on the cusp of "solving the problem" in the Gulf.

The Reuters article spins in an entirely different direction. i.e.:

"I was very disappointed. I think British Petroleum is going to have to do a lot better job if they want to drill in Canadian waters,"

This comment by a representative of the Canadian Government leads the unsuspecting reader to believe BP will have obstacles to overcome if they want to drill in Canadian waters. The article obfuscates around the fact that BP drilling in the Arctic is inevitable at this point. BP has already cut through the red tape and bought the rights to "explore" (translation=drill). What BP is trying to do now is lobby the Canadian Government to roll back the regulations even further, which given the Gulf disaster is absurd and should be met with an inflammatory reaction from the press.

From the same Reuters article- more spin, this time subtly reassuring Canadians that Newfoundland's Government trusts in the present safety practices of the Oil Companies:

"The government of Newfoundland is also launching a review of offshore safety practices, though it said it is satisfied with the current level of environmental protection practiced by the industry."

For the record, I did get a laugh out of your statement juxtaposing the words 'real', 'journalistic', and 'stories'- you funny guy!

[AD]

Do you think the article you posted is 'journalism?'

[nibbler]

Goebbels would throw a party praising the Can West and Reuters articles; during the celebrations he would send out the gestapo to deal with Dave Lindorff

[AD]

KQgfgB-vgT0

[SaggyBalls]

The article is the reporting of events to a wider audience, AD - it's journalism.

So where does the 'inflammatory' article fall short, AD?

Does it read more like an opinion piece to you or do you criticize the source and position rather than the content, relevance, and importance?

Edited May 30, 2010 by Guest
What the hell was I talking about?

[AD]

I think the first article posted is an editorial; I critique stories differently depending on the viewpoint of the writer, as I believe most people do. If the facts are there and are proven and are strong, why the need to attack people based on their name, why the need for snide comments? It might be journalism, but it's amateur hour.

Oil spill = bad. BP's stuff regarding Arctic Canada drilling = bad. The writing in that first article = bad. That sums up what I think.

I don't know what you're talking about in most of your post so I'll stop there.

[SaggyBalls]

The snide comments are long overdue IMO.