Sunday, June 13, 2010

BP facebook discussion. If you don't feel comfortable having your name displayed, let me know and i'll x it.


Henrique Akaishi Since April 20th BP, APC, RIG and HAL lost a combined $140 Bil in market cap... BP = Bankrupt Petroleum?

June 9 at 9:39pm  ·  · 
Varun Saluja
Varun Saluja 
bp made more than 20 billion in profits last year, i doubt they will be bankrupted
June 9 at 10:57pm · 
Henrique Akaishi
Henrique Akaishi 
personally i agree. they also have 12 billion in capital reserves. but analysts are skeptical. it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out
June 9 at 11:27pm · 
Jack Carpentier
Jack Carpentier 
New estimates have BP paying upwards of $40B just for cleanup, excluding any lawsuits and additional litigation costs. It'll be interesting to see if they can survive, IMO.
June 10 at 9:41am · 
Kristie Kranzler
Kristie Kranzler 
my birthday is April 20th :)
June 10 at 9:46am · 
Drew Kestell
Drew Kestell 
4.20 .... :P
June 10 at 1:37pm · 
Pete Jacobson
Pete Jacobson 
2 words, drilling moratorium.
June 10 at 3:21pm · 
Jack Carpentier
Jack Carpentier 
Jack Carpenter likes Pete Jacobson's comment.
June 10 at 9:11pm · 
Henrique Akaishi
Henrique Akaishi 
how do you guys feel about the White House's push for unlimited liability cap for oil spillers. Current law has a cap on the liability that BP may face. I believe it's 75 million. The White House is pushing to raise that limited to unlimited. These liabilities include payment of lost wages due to the moratorium, litigations, clean up and more. If it passes, Goldman Sachs estimates total costs could reach upwards of $180 billion, sure to bankrupt BP. This would costs upwards of 50,000 U.S. jobs and would skyrocket the price tag on oil. Furthermore, if BP files for chapter 11, they could end up avoiding these costs altogether, leaving tax payers to foot the bill, increased unemployment (already at 9%) and higher oil costs. Not to mention the political repercussions it will have between the U.S. and Great Brittan.
June 10 at 9:29pm · 
Jack Carpentier
Jack Carpentier 
BP is already going to file for Chapter 11 (most likely), which does NOT mean that they get to throw away all of their debt obligations. Liquidation (Chapter 7) would be the only true means of doing so. Also, they have already put, in writing, that they will be responsible for all cleanup costs and "reasonable" lawsuits arising from the issue.

have absolutely ZERO sympathy for the oil companies (especially Exxon) who continue to post record profits even with lower oil prices, and if it wasn't for their own sheer negligence (BP, that is), none of this would have happened in the first place.

The absolute last thing we need to do is bail out an oil company or limit their liability. They can buy insurance for that if they really need it. Besides that, though, not many jobs will end up being lost because other companies would be foolish to not pursue the platforms and drill operations that BP has. It's their own damn fault that jobs would be lost anyhow, not ours.

If they REALLY want to make sure something like this doesn't happen, they can put more than a half-assed effort into renewable energy when automakers are making legitimate strides and saving their own companies by doing so.

I am not, nor will I ever be, an oil apologist.
June 10 at 9:38pm · 
Jack Carpentier
Jack Carpentier 
Exxon, Chevron, Tesoro, et al would love nothing more than a liquidation of BP, I am sure. I'm also quite sure that BP has safeguarded itself against a total company collapse by registering different business units in different countries to spread liability (hence listings on both the London Stock Exchange and NYSE) and would only lose its US operations at worst. As for Britain, tough shit - they have enough to deal with already with their political party collapse and prime minister shakeup.
June 10 at 9:44pm · 
Henrique Akaishi
Henrique Akaishi 
When it comes to sympathy toward BP, I, like most americans, have none. However, the question at hand is whether these accountability efforts are making a bad situation worse. The entire U.S economy could suffer tremendously. It's choosing the lesser of two evils. The economy's already weak, are we really looking for a double dip recession here? We're not looking to bail out BP by any means. But if BP goes bankrupt there will be no more BP to pay for all these cots. Tax payers will foot the bill. Thousands of jobs WILL be lost. When financial institutions went bankrupt because of the financial crisis, the jobs lost weren't just the employees, the effect trickled down to thousands of Americans.
June 10 at 9:52pm · 
Henrique Akaishi
Henrique Akaishi 
My concern is not towards BP or Britain. It's the repercussion these actions will have on the U.S economy. We don't need more problems.
June 10 at 9:56pm · 
Jack Carpentier
Jack Carpentier 
From an economic standpoint, that IS a good point. I guess to sum up my argument, though, there will be very little job loss since the other oil companies will clamor for bargain-basement prices on the now-"abandoned" operations of BP. From a cleanup aspect, though, it is certainly a big issue. I agree with you there 100%.
June 10 at 10:15pm · 
Jack Carpentier
Jack Carpentier 
It's a really good topic to talk about, though! Thanks for the great discussion you have sparked here!
June 10 at 10:15pm · 
Henrique Akaishi
Henrique Akaishi 
i'm getting really interested this stuff. I'm glad more people share my interest :]
Friday at 12:38am · 
Dean A Schumann II
Dean A Schumann II 
Hey, I am getting ticked at some of the tories. one Boris Johnson was" accusing the U.S. President of 'buck passing' and 'beating up' the British-based company.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285467/BP-OIL-SPILL-Lord-Tebbit-Boris-Johnson-attack-Obamas-anti-British-rhetoric.html#ixzz0qbF7qmNm

I have an Idea hear lets go over there and start pumping oil down the river theams and see how the brits react. I am tried of BP not doing there F ING JOB. I am a center right political person. I like the idea that buiness big or small take resposibity for the things they do. NOT BLAME others. CLEAN YOUR SHIT UP BP
Friday at 8:56pm · 
Dean A Schumann II
Dean A Schumann II 
The us economy is fine, what we need to work on is China under valuing its currancy. That is a way bigger problem than any oil issue. Oil is paid for by US Dollars all around the world. It trades on the CBOE, with the united states as having a good political back bone, one which has a very good legal system, I see that every other country will putmoney hear no matter what. The us econome is strong, it just needs to diversify into somthing new. I think the united states needs to start a technoligical new deal. Lets focus inward on re newable energy and become the golba leader. then we can sell what we know to china when it gets so pulted it has no idea what to do.

Take a look at our puliter prize winning neigbor who grew up here in st louis park

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdQvdIArOVQ
Friday at 9:04pm · 
Mac Perrsen
Mac Perrsen 
Where there is oil, there is BP. Forever.
Friday at 9:08pm · 
Dean A Schumann II
Dean A Schumann II 
BP is already going to file for Chapter 11 (most likely), which does NOT mean that they get to throw away all of their debt obligations. Liquidation (Chapter 7) would be the only true means of doing so. Also, they have already put, in writing, that they will be responsible for all cleanup costs and "reasonable" lawsuits arising from the issue.

I don't think you can file chapter 11 or 7 in british law, I do agree with you oil co's suck
Friday at 9:15pm · 
Jack Carpentier
Jack Carpentier 
They can file Chapter 11 in the US, though, since their operations here are set up separately.

1 comment:

  1. Henrique Akaishi No one is saying that BP shouldn't take responsibilities for its action. As much as I agree that BP should pay every single cent that it cost the U.S and the world, when that equals upwards of $180B there's no way it will be able to pay all that off. So we can either spend the time and energy sticking it to BP (granted they deserve it) or find a better way to handle this which might put BP better off but as long as it puts US better off, than it's the better choice. Perhaps BP can make annual payments to the US until it pays off everything. Now i certainly don't claim to know the legality behind something like this or how it would work, but I'm confident there are better steps of action than just bankrupting them.

    When their debt obligations are potentially far beyond anything they can possibly pay, how are they not getting away with it. Sure their company is now bankrupt but what good does that do US? An extra pep in our step knowing we showed them who's boss?

    Our economy is not fine. Sure we're still the greatest financial super power in the world but that's not to say it can't and wont change. We had the Mayans, the Egyptians, the Romans, the English etc. How many of them are still the super power today? None. And they all thought they were going to last forever. Like us. It's newton's law of gravity: what goes up, must come down. Albeit a law of physics, it's seen throughout history. Nothing goes up for ever, without coming down.

    We depend on China like it's nobody's business. When we export so much of our manufacturing and production to china, we are under the belief that it's a fair trade and both sides are benefiting. We hold ourselves as the great thinkers and innovators and we're trading that for cheap labor from china. We get cheap products, they get our innovation and growth, fair, right? No! We became the super power of the world through manufacturing and production. That of which we are doing less and less every day. We have an enormous budget deficit, funded by who? China. Who's buying all our treasury bills? China. We're becoming scarily dependent on china. or better word, needy. like dean said, we need to work on china undervaluing its currency. Our dollar is becoming more and more depend on China's currency. That, to me, is a cause for concern.

    As for diversifying into something new. I think it's a fantastic idea. But that's why I'm so concerned. I don't think the government has done a good enough job diversifying. I'm a big fan of Tom Friedman and his work. And this is no exception. My concern isn't that there's nothing we can do, it's that we're going to choose not to do the right things. Our dependency on oil is staggering. If you were to assume oil consumption to be a bell curve. we're already past the peak of the bell curve. The war on terror or just can excuse to invade oil rich nations?

    Focusing on renewable energy might be a good idea. But this needed to be done YEARS ago. We're lagging drastically in advancements of renewable energy. It's seem we're not ahead of the curve ever anymore. We're just big and powerful and can harvest the people and ideas that ARE ahead of the curve.

    Overall, i think every we needs to stop bitching (senate, house, republicans, democrats, white house, the Fed, Wall Street, the american people) and start creating. innovating and doing, and not just passing the buck.

    ReplyDelete