Around 10:30 AM Eastern this morning, just as the five executives of the major global oil companies were settling in for what was set to be a brutal hearing from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a fire broke out on BP’s Enterprise drilling ship, which is processing thousands of barrels a day of oil diverted from the Gulf of …
Oil
Could the BP Oil Spill Help the U.S. Get Beyond Petroleum?
Though you wouldn’t know it from the words chosen by angry American politicians—who can’t stop talking about the company’s Englishness—BP’s name doesn’t actually stand for British Petroleum anymore. The name was changed back in 2001, a few years after what was then British Petroleum—which in its early years had been the British …
Thinking Outside the Box on the Oil Spill
If there were ever a time and place for “so crazy it might just work” ideas, it’s the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. More than 50 days after the Deepwater Horizon exploded, the finest minds in the offshore oil industry are still trying to figure out a way to plug the leak for good. Even as the joint BP/government brain trust in Houston …
BP Mendacity Watch: #1
From the beginning of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, there have been questions over just how much crude really is bleeding out of BP’s well. The first figure—supplied by the company—was 1,000 barrels a day. The government later upped that to 5,000 barrels, a number that stood despite the skepticism of a raft of outside experts. …
Obama Gets Tough(er) on BP
From the beginning of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill—which has now resulted in at least 50 million gallons oil spewing into the ocean, if not far more—President Barack Obama has been in an awkward position. The energy giant BP is financially responsible for the spill, but it is also the only company that has the technology, expertise …