The spill has so far cost BP $760m dollars. The company’s stock has fallen by a quarter. That was inevitable. What was not inevitable is the damage the company has done to its own reputation by continuing to lowball its estimates of the magnitude of the spill.
One of the beauties of being part of an oligopoly is that you don’t have to give a damn about your bad reputation. Sure, BP is going to have a few down quarters, and they’ll spend millions on ads and re-branding. But they’re not in any kind of mortal danger, in part because oil is a commodity where brand doesn’t really matter, but mostly because the sound and fury being emitted by Congress and the Obama Administration will amount to nothing.
(via Sully)
bob h
You probably could not even debar them, because it might lead to higher crude oil and gasoline prices and spark anger as the Summer driving season begins. They have got us by the short ones.
BR
@bob h:
In ordinary times that might be true, but at the moment oil prices are still headed down because of the decline of the Euro and worries about the economic situation in Europe, Japan, and, now, war games in Korea. The DOE EIA has reported that we have way more gasoline at the moment than we can use, also leading to lower prices.
Gulf crude production is minor in the scheme of things and would probably affect oil prices only on the order 1-2%.
WereBear
Why do they spend millions on ads and PR, then? To help the owners of their gas stations?
JCT
Starting my day with Joan Jett is cool by me.
Their seeming disconnect from the PR aspects of this is odd. Toyota must be thrilled as they have been supplanted as “wounded brand of the month” — but it is difficult to figure out where to aim the boot.
aimai
Werebear,
Don’t they spend millions in advertising and PR for the same reason that ads for battleships sometimes appear at the top of John Cole’s pages, or on the pages of the Washington Post? Because they are trying to influence Senators, Congressmen, and the general feeling surrounding their brand? Tons of advertising is simply meant to divert attention not to create a better market. Or to influence powerful people.
aimai
Mike Kay
“sometimes accidents just happen” R Paul
Xboxershorts
Hey, now. Sternly worded letters and public admonitions can really hurt someone’s feelings. This is way more then nothing.
Jrod, Slayer of Phoenix
@WereBear: That actually might be part of it. The gas stations themselves usually don’t make much on the gas itself anyway, so any extra business the stations get add up to more profit for BP.
My guess is that they hoped to make the BP brand synonymous with clean energy. Hell, if all you had to go by was their TV commercials you’d think they were a windmill, white linen, and green grass manufacturing company. I think that, for once, they were looking at the long-term. Make BP synonymous with green energy now, while still drilling for crude, and associate the BP logo with idyllic, clean nature. This would have been invaluable when the oil finally started running low.
Ruining BP’s carefully crafted corporate image is probably the only unbad thing to come out of the spill. But, as John said, they can always build another brand.
arguingwithsignposts
BP’s branding campaign (“Beyond Petroleum”) was a classic that was studied for its ability to effect a rebrand. Now, all that good rebranding effort is shot to hell. But I am sick of the “Obama isn’t doing enough” meme that is spreading. This disaster that is happening a mile below the surface of the GOM is in *nobody’s* best interests, and it’s just pissing me off.
Starfish
BP Cares about clean energy.
BP Global PR on Twitter made me laugh.
cleek
@arguingwithsignposts:
you’d better learn to live with it, cause the GOP is gonna be shouting about it for the next three years.
Redhand
It’s stating the obvious, but BP needs to be debarred, big time. These sons-a-bitches have the most scofflaw record in the industry, and they still don’t get it. Their idiot CEO was babbling yesterday about how, in context, the spill was “relatively minor” and even stating that, in the future, their reaction to it will be seen as a “model” response.
This is either insane arrogance, or denial taken to delusion. Either way, I don’t think Obama can cave to the industry because BP’s
shitoil is rubbing off on his Administration. Because of this I think there is some hope of real sanctions.arguingwithsignposts
@cleek: the “drill, baby, drill” irony is thick.
ND22
@BR:
That’ll change within a few months and then gas prices will skyrocket and people will be begging to bring BP back.
Jamie
Try BP, because lightning rarely strikes twice.;-)
Ranger 3
Things I need to believe:
1. Ben Rothlisberger can only rape a finite number of women before the Pittsburg Steelers cut him from their roster.
2. Big Oil can only piss on the people of the United States so many times before they get regulated… Warren G style.
Theo Bear
arguingwithsignposts
@Theo Bear: Perhaps the most cogent comment I’ve ever read.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Starfish: Sadly, satire and mockery seem to be the only weapons available against BP. What an odd world this as become.
SteveinSC
@cleek: Well the GOP isn’t the only one you’ll hear it from. Obama should be on that coast, with his fucking feet in some sludge, denouncing dependence on foreign oil and calling for passing the energy bill. Obama peering out the White House at the mess, Bush peering out the side of an airplane, hauntingly similar.
(And while he’s down there, he should drown Rahm in the muck.)
Gus
@SteveinSC: Hear, hear. Obama isn’t doing enough.
Thomas
I sold my shares in BP. I can only watch that shit for so long and enough’s enough. I’m sure by next year or two years from now the stock will be back over $50 and it’ll have been a bad financial decision but oh well, its the right moral decision. There are other companies that pay a dividend.
aimai
I think people who are sane are scared, really scared, that’s there’s nothing much Obama, or anyone, can do to stop the flow and the environmental damage. If there were any kind of technological fix it would actually have been used. Obama doesn’t want to “take over” because the oil spill is, like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that he so stupidly did take over, unwinnable. Neither he nor BP nor anyone else in power sees the need to break it to the rubes that we are totally fucked, ecologically, for the foreseable future. Its like a game of musical chairs where Obama and his team believe that the first one to really point this out loses.
But the reality is that demagoguing this–though that is my personal and political choice for the dems–may not work either. Its not that it couldn’t work, but it may not work. I, too, think Obama should be down there more just for the photo op. And I think he should have summoned BP’s top executives into the Oval office and read them the riot act in public. And I also think that we should, just for the hell of it, be publicly exploring the question of whether we should seize all of BP’s other wells–the ones that are working–as compensation for the damages caused by this one. Certainly we should have demanded that all BP’s wells should be shut off until their safety procedures are inspected. And that there should/would be rolling shut downs of everyone else’s wells in our territory for the same reason.
But lets face it, this is merely like Bhopal and Minimata and hundreds, if not thousands, other environmental disasters that we have either caused or turned a blind eye to around the world because they weren’t happening to us, or not on tv. BP’s union carbide, and Exxon and Shell.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Obama would like to figure out how to stop this, and/or to emerge the political victor in this fight. But he and his teams haven’t figured it out yet. And if that bunch of pretty smart and highly motivated people haven’t figured it out yet then, alas, I’m afraid there’s not much they can do. Even if Obama were the most co-opted and corrupt pro business guy in the world, and he’s not, there just doesn’t seem to be much of a way to get the spilled milk back in the broken bottle.
aimai
Hal
So he should grandstand for ratings? I really do not get all the calls for Obama to don knee high boots and wade into the water while scrubbing oil off of a penguin.
It’s the equivalent of Bush in his flight suite under a mission accomplished banner.
GVG
On the Obama Administration isn’t doing enough….my father, who was an engineer, though not the right kind for this disaster, has been reading the petroleum engineer websites. He says they are claiming that BP was cutting safety corners a lot on all its wells, but none of them will go on the record & give their names. they also claim that the other companies were all spending more and taking more time to be safer. That is suggestive but not proof because they do have self interest. They claim that BP was trying to get the well in production faster because each day of the drill well building process cost millions. Now those millions look like the cheap deal.
Another thing they claim is that all the companies have been drilling deeper and deeper the last 10 years. It didn’t used to be possible and every new well has been a new breakthrough that did something never done before. It has a lot of difficulty. Too much pressure and the hard shell of the oil bearing strata will break up and become unrecoverable non source. the pressure at that depth is such that the oil and gas coming out of a hole can expand 400 times by the time it reaches the surface so even “small” leaks are serious. Basically the government does not have the knowledge, people or equipment to help or do anything, only the oil companies do. I guess we could decide the government has to have this ability but we would have to create a whole agency with experts just for a hopefully rare occurance? Ane how could they keep up when the whole field is racing ahead into the unknown? this stuff-equipment, investments etc cost big big money and we’ve already got a lot on the governments plate. Dad thinks the only way we can “regulate” is to raise the damages cap into what an oil company would actually care about. currently the laws have caps that mean BP is losing money but not enough to really cover the cost (in spite of claims to the contrary) and not enough to really hurt them. they’ll make more money by continuing to push the safety envelope than becoming cautious apparently. this is bad.
Another problem is that because its never happened before that we’ve had such a deep spill, things are happening that even the experts didn’t predict. Dad mentioned that some of the oil has formed a huge (mile sized?) glob beneath the surface, sort of midway up, and its staying there. Dead zone to all life? Imagine what it’ll do to plankton? fish that swim into it? why is it doing that? Not all the oil is going to the surface which we didn’t expect. what is it going to do in the next year- to 50 years?
SteveinSC
@Hal:
Ratings? Ratings? Who said anything about ratings? How about leadership to get the congress off the dime? I have pointed it out before that Lyndon Johnson, (pacem Vietnam) went down to New Orleans after a hurricane and with nothing but a flashlight said “I am you President, and I am here with you.” That is leadership and commitment. Corporate Obama better get his ass out of the bubble and get involved.
It’s not the first time this observation has been correctly made. The last time was when HCR was in trouble and Scott Brown got elected.
Xboxershorts
@Hal:
Yes, a little political capitol and some cheerleading would go a long long way.
chopper
never thought the lyrics of ‘moon over marin’ would actually be topical.
sigh.
some other guy
I would think the fact that oil is a commodity would work against BP in that they don’t have much control over the price of their “product.” They can’t simply raise prices in order to recoup the massive cleanup and litigation costs. They’ll have to eat the losses.
Face
Uh, something’s broke here. When I hit the “Reply” button, it takes me to YouTube. WTF?
Steeplejack
@Face:
Could it be because the Reply button is floating over a YouTube link?
That, and the difficulty of copying text, is why I don’t like the floaty button.
Punchy
Obama cant un-shit the ocean, so why is everyone expecting him to don a SCUBA tank and swim down there and tell the oil pipe to knock it the fuck off?
cleek
@SteveinSC:
Obama should be down there like Jack in the cave, with his Giant Magic Cork, struggling to stay alive, sacrificing himself to save the rest of us.
Linda Featheringill
@Starfish:
You can follow BP Global PR on Twitter for ongoing deep sarcasm. Love crude-gray logo. :-)
mistermix
The point about the Obama Administration and Congress is that it’s doubtful that either is going to seriously regulate offshore drilling, not that “Obama isn’t doing enough” on this particular spill.
Corner Stone
@cleek:
I’m assuming this is some oblique reference to Lost?
If that’s accurate then I am glad I never watched that infernal show.
Linda Featheringill
@GVG:
Gulf oil spill:
Monkeyfister, at
http://monkeyfister.blogspot.com/
has ascension video of a camera-bearing ROV that was brought topside for windshield wash and delousing [his phrase]. You can see what the camera saw. There are a couple of plumes that the machine traveled through, or perhaps they were arms of the same plume.
Worth a look if you like being depressed.
tkogrumpy
@aimai: As proof of that contrast the ads on meet the press,with the ads on the nightly news.
El Cid
@cleek:
Oh, right, c-o-r-k. My bad.
SteveinSC
@mistermix: Leadership? Leadership? We don’t need no stinking leadership!
Paul in KY
@cleek: I don’t think he is doing enough either. He could turn the panhandle from Repub to Democrat if he made this our current Nat. priority (which it needs to be, IMO).
He should temporarily nationalize the American part of BP (or whatever assets they have here in US) & then use their funds to lease our warships, etc. to bring out vast amounts of concrete or whatever is needed to plug that fucking hole.
Our gulf is being destroyed by this (right now as I type)!
cat48
You guys do know that Obama did go there on May 2, I think.
On a Sunday. He talked to fishermen, etc. Wouldnt hurt to go again. The only sure fix is the relief well that BP is drilling now……2 more months. I don’t know why everyone is excited now because BP AND Obama explained this right after the accident. I freaked out then & I’m over that part.
Jay Patel
The ecological damage is reversible by the tragic accident at BP. I fail to see our current congressman and congresswoman in Washington D.C. doing anything substantial about the situation. Ryan Brumberg, running in the 14th congressional district in New York, may just be what we need to revitalize Congress.
REPUBLICAN RYAN BRUMBERG ANNOUNCES BID FOR CONGRESS IN NEW YORK’S 14TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT—CHALLENGES DEMOCRATIC INCUMBENT
New York, NY–-Ryan Brumberg has resigned his position as a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company to challenge incumbent Rep. Carolyn Maloney for New York’s 14th Congressional District. Socially liberal and fiscally conservative, Mr. Brumberg is the new breed of the Republican Party.
Mr. Brumberg outlined his philosophy: “History has repeatedly shown that despite good intentions; corporate bailouts, massive stimulus spending, and heavy corporate regulation will weaken the economic recovery, increase deficits, and drive the country towards bankruptcy. Innovation and private industry, not government and bureaucracy, create sustainable jobs.”
In challenging Democratic Representative Maloney, candidate Brumberg has pledged to bring a fact-based approach to the nation’s most pressing problems. Brumberg elaborated: “The problems facing our economy and finances are too severe to allow ideology—Democratic or Republican—to guide our national decisions. Government needs to be smarter. America should continue to be the envy of the world, and New York the envy of America.”
Mr. Brumberg’s campaign officially kicked off Thursday night, April 29th, at a fundraising celebration hosted by supporters of Brumberg for Congress. Brumberg has already raised approximately 50% per cent as much campaign funds in the past three weeks, as the prior three Republican candidates raised in the past three elections combined.
A lifelong New Yorker, Ryan Brumberg grew up just outside of the city. He has deep roots in Manhattan’s East Side, where his family has lived for more than 60 years. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University, with top honors from Stanford Law School, and then returned home to New York City to join McKinsey & Company.
Visit Brumberg 2010 for more information.
cat48
@mistermix:
I think you’re wrong about that one. He’s a quick learner. He will never want to go thru this again. They should make them drill a relief well when they drill the regular well since that is the only sure way to relieve the pressure. I read this is what Canada requires.
Linda Featheringill
BTW, the date-and-time stamp is back on the video of the oil gush.
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html
artem1s
would this be a ‘casus belli’ for Great Britain? We are dealing with a foreign company. So for that reason alone it becomes a much touchier matter for the White House. It’s not like BushCo had to worry about alienating a major ally if FEMA had done its job after Katrina.
For once the Randers are correct in that this isn’t a problem that the government can fix. At least as far as the leak itself is concerned its all Monday Morning Quarterbacking. They can seize the well but are going to be relying on the expertise of exactly the same people no matter who is in control. Right now BP has to bear the brunt if they mismanage it and probably they should. I certainly don’t want them just walking away from the thing because Obama went all Rambo on their asses and sent in the National Guard or Navy Seals to take over the situation.
Can the administration do more to move on re-regulating the industry. Sure, but historically this industry hasn’t really had much regulation to go back to because its not unionized like coal mining. Labor issues (safety and compensation) get dealt with privately and quietly. Its going to be difficult to go back and determine what regulations make sense for actual safety and spillage prevention. I hardly want this to turn out to be the same kind of slight of hand crap that the airline industry has been pulling since 9/11. That won’t do any good at all.
An environmentalist on NPR last night was commenting that the damage might take years to quantify. So it may be a good thing that the White House isn’t rushing in just to maintain their own PR. Just saying, the damage control goes way beyond putting the cork back in the bottle.
Elie
I completely disagree that nothing will happen. This.will.be.different.
I think that most people have a vision of oil covered birds and some messed up marshes. They do not actually understand what it is going to mean to see a completely destroyed ecosystem and the accompanying financial disaster for the region. BP executives might actually spend some quality time acquainting themselves with lawyers. There is also prison for some..
This is a game changer in my opinion. Unfortunately because this is a game changer in many ways for a lot of things in this country and not all the effects are knowable or positive. The scale of this economically, even health wise is way bigger than what people have a model for in their minds and each day this thing remains unplugged, we are one step closer to the worst case scenario.
One thing that will not happen…BP and the whole oil royalty will be on a different plane from where they were and BP itself may have to disappear.
Paul in KY
@artem1s: The problem is that BP is doing this on the cheap. They made 18 billion fucking dollars last year. If it takes all that & more to plug the damn thing, then sorry about your luck, BP. BP needs to throw the entire weight of their company & all their assets to get this thing fixed, pronto.
Gus
I’m amazed that the Obama administration is getting such a pass on this from so many in this thread. They have been way too deferential to BP in this whole mess.
arguingwithsignposts
@Gus:
They are at the mercy of BP in this instance. Seriously, WTF do you want them to do? Short of a full military mobilization, I’m at a loss as to what they could do. This is a colossal fuck-up, but not a fuck-up that any administration could control. I mean, they could do some photo ops, but WTF does that solve.
Maude
@Elie:
This. Also. Too.
cleek
@Gus:
they get no pass from me.
i’ll grant that the Fed Govt probably doesn’t have any more technical skill in such matters than BP does, but their unfocused, confused, cross-talking, leaderless management of the situation is awful.
Lukeness
Maybe they’ll just go back to using the Amoco name and make us remember they’re an American company that merged with a British company.
Gus
@arguingwithsignposts: To be perfectly frank, I’m not sure what I expect them to do. A full military mobilization, if that would help, I guess. It seems to me like BP was able to control the situation from the get-go. They kept important information about the spill to themselves for far too long. I’m sure there is a lot of politics involved in Jindal’s request for more boom and permission to dredge to create sand berms to try to keep oil from hitting shores, but I’d like to see them try to help Jindal achieve those goals. Most of all, I’d like to see him use this as an opportunity to level with people about the real costs of our oil addiction. It’s disappointing to see him unwilling to back off the plans to allow for more off-shore drilling. As Cleek points out at the very least the symbolic reaction has been weak and confused. And finally, yes, I’d like to see him scuba dive down the leak and plug it with Rush Limbaugh’s fat ass.
arguingwithsignposts
@Gus:
a to the fuckin’ men.
artem1s
@Paul in KY:
yes, they are doing it on the cheap. do you think the government has MORE money to spend than BP? So in the long run, blaming the messenger and insisting they are withholding some secret resource that will make the whole thing magically go away isn’t going to get BP to spend more money or do anything different than it is doing.
Playing the ‘government bad’ blame game isn’t going to make BP accountable. if you want responsible government you have to concede that some things are not easy to fix and take time to resolve. and some things are not fixable. they are only clean up scenarios. The time for the government to fix this was when they were passing out the permits.
I want BP to be responsible for all of it. Pay for all of it. Take the heat for saying they could drill without screwing up. Once the feds step in, BP is off scott free and all of the experimentation in trying to fix this won’t be on the backs of the oil industry. Even though the EXACT SAME PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE DOING THE WORK. Also, once the feds step in the contracts will be paid for by the government. The tax payers will be paying BP subcontractors to clean up and fix the mess they made. That’s the major problem with the feds taking over the operation.
Then they really will be doing it on the cheap.
Gus
I think that since government isn’t trying to protect profits they’ll be more willing to make money a secondary consideration to fixing the mess.
I disagree. If they’re not spending their own money, why would they care if it’s being done on the cheap? I don’t disagree with your larger point, though, that BP should be on the hook for the whole mess.
Paul in KY
@artem1s: The Feds step in (if possible) & start spending BP’s money for them. Lots & lots of money.
Kathy in St. Louis
Not to nitpick, but wasn’t there a time, a couple of years ago, when BP and the other big oil companies were announcing profits of a billion dollars a quarter? Am I really supposed to feel bad for them that they now actually have to pay to clean up that probably would not have been necessary had they not resisted government saftey regulations? Perhaps they could have saved money on the salaries of the many lobbyists they employed to weaken saftety regulations. By the time you add in the campaign money and gifts to congresspeople, it might not have payed for their cleanup, but it would have made a dent in their expenses. As the old saying goes, “Pay me now, or pay me later.”
Elie
@artem1s:
Totally agree..
The role of the government here is to make sure that BP does its job and to protect the interests of the people to make sure that happens. It is also to head up the investigation of what was screwed up that has major impact on the Gulf population, economy and habitat. It can certainly assist BP with certain operations and logistics and information, but this is NOT the responsibility of the government to fix it. In fact, that is the most ridiculous assertion that I have read lately, ridiculous and obscenely hypocritical for many of the people demanding this (not necessarily Gus who may come from the context that government is responsible for EVERYTHING)
goposaur
Regarding rebranding, I hear the name, Blackwater isn’t being used anymore.
Derek
Mistermix, your musical taste is as impeccable as DougJ’s.