06-23-2010, 11:18 AM
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#12 (permalink)
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The Reforms
Location: Rarely, if ever, here or there, but always in transition
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The 10 worst BP gaffes in Gulf oil spill. [Yahoo News]
Quote:
1. Who’s in charge? On Friday, BP board Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg presented the news that many Americans had long been waiting for. Hayward was being shunted out of his lead role in the Gulf oil spill crisis, to be replaced by BP Managing Director Bob Dudley. On Saturday, BP media relations personnel said the chairman of the board was wrong. They said Mr. Svanberg was suggesting that BP was merely beginning a long-planned and gradual transition of authority to Mr. Dudley “over a period of time.”
2. The ‘small people’ It was not the first time Svanberg misspoke. After meeting with President Obama, Svanberg said he shared Mr. Obama’s compassion for the “small people” in the Gulf. Needless to say, the comment did not go over well. Spoken by a man who owns a yacht in Thailand, the phrase “small people” smelled of rank class condescension. Swedes, however, note that the word “småfolket” in Svanberg’s native Swedish has a positive connotation with undertones of egalitarianism.
3. ‘I want my life back’ Six weeks after the Deepwater Horizon blowout, Hayward uttered these words: “We’re sorry for the massive disruption it’s caused their lives. There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I’d like my life back.” To those shrimpers and fishermen who have essentially lost an entire year’s wages – not to mention the families of the 11 men killed in the blowout – this seemed an inordinately insensitive comment.
4. ‘Very, very modest’ impact On May 18 – a month after the blowout – Hayward told the BBC: “I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest.” Four days earlier, he told the British newspaper, the Guardian: “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”
5. ‘A trickle’ On June 8, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said that the spill “should be down to a relative trickle by Monday or Tuesday.” According to the best scientific estimates, between 10,000 and 35,000 barrels of oil (420,000 to 1.5 million gallons) are still leaking into the Gulf daily.
6. 5,000 barrels a day. Part of the reason for the continued leak is that BP low-balled the flow rate from the well and then refused to try to amend it. For a short time after the blowout, BP estimated that the well beneath the Deepwater Horizon was spewing 1,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf. That was swiftly changed to 5,000 barrels daily. Last week, scientists suggested that the real number could be as much as 60,000 barrels a day and no less than 35,000.
7. ‘Top kill’: 70 percent chance. The underestimation of the flow rate mirrors the repeated overestimation by BP of its own capabilities. Hayward said that the failed “top kill” procedure, which would have stopped the oil, had a 60 to 70 percent chance of working. It failed.
8. ‘We have turned the corner.’ Earlier, on May 17, BP stuck a siphon into the ruined riser pipe – collecting 1,000 barrels a day – leading Hayward to say: “I do feel that we have, for the first time, turned the corner in this challenge.” That siphoning effort was later abandoned.
9. What spill? When BP share prices recently plummeted, BP intended to convey the idea that it could handle the costs of the Gulf oil spill. Its statement, however, was obtuse to the point of absurdity: “The company is not aware of any reason which justifies this share price movement.”
10. Waste of money? Six weeks after the spill began, BP started a $50 million TV ad campaign, promising to restore the Gulf. Obama said the money would have been better spent on relief efforts and damage claims.
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-- courtesy of American Apologies
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As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic Age) as in being able to remake ourselves. —Mohandas K. Gandhi
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