The idea that BP might one day file for bankruptcy, particularly as part of a merger that would enable it to cordon off its liabilities from the spill, is starting to percolate on Wall Street. Bankers and lawyers are already sizing up potential deals (and counting their potential fees).
... The question is, who would buy BP, given its enormous potential liabilities?Shell and Exxon Mobil are both said to be licking their chops. And already, flinty legal minds are dreaming up scenarios in which BP would file a prepackaged bankruptcy and separate the costs of the cleanup — and potentially billions of dollars in legal claims — into a separate corporate entity. ...NYT
That's the way it happens. At first the corporation's assets seems invulnerable and then the mood changes. It's not just that there are doubts and predatory talk on Wall Street, now BP's claims about its cleanup are being challenged.
With no consensus among experts on how much oil is pouring from the wellhead, it is difficult — if not impossible — to assess the containment cap’s effectiveness. BP has stopped trying to calculate a flow rate on its own, referring all questions on that subject to the government. The company’s liability will ultimately be determined in part by how many barrels of oil are spilled. ...NYT
BP's liability will determine its future. Experts are saying that the rate of the oil leak may be growing, not diminishing. Damage becomes greater and often irreversible. BP's viability as a corporation collapses.
At least one expert, Ira Leifer, who is part of a government team charged with estimating the flow rate, is convinced that the operation has made the leak worse, perhaps far worse than the 20 percent increase that government officials warned might occur when the riser was cut.
Dr. Leifer said in an interview on Monday that judging from the video, cutting the pipe might have led to a several-fold increase in the flow rate from the well.“The well pipe clearly is fluxing way more than it did before,” said Dr. Leifer, a researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “By way more, I don’t mean 20 percent, I mean multiple factors.” ...NYT
NPR says we may begin to learn more today. The government has appointed a Flow Rate Technical Group to monitor the leak and put together more accurate numbers.
Look at the New York Times photo: the Gulf looks as though it's developing a thick chocolate icing .
BP may die along with huge areas of the Gulf and its coast. But Exxon is just around the corner waiting to buy its assets and drill for more oil.
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The Washington Post reports that (surprise!) BP's safety problems extend back more than a decade, have been worse and more persistent than in another other major oil company. Internal investigations at BP during the Bush-Cheney administration -- in 2001, 2004, and 2007 -- were ignored by managers.
The confidential inquiries, which have not previously been made public, focused on a rash of problems at BP's Alaska oil-drilling operations. They described instances in which management flouted safety by neglecting aging equipment, pressured employees not to report problems and cut short or delayed inspections to reduce production costs.
Similar themes about BP operations elsewhere were sounded in interviews with former employees, in lawsuits and little-noticed state inquiries, and in e-mails obtained by ProPublica. Taken together, these documents portray a company that systemically ignored its own safety policies across its North American operations -- from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico to California and Texas. Executives were not held accountable for the failures, and some were promoted despite them. ...
...Because of its string of accidents before the April 20 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, BP faced a possible ban on its federal contracting and on new U.S. drilling leases, several senior former Environmental Protection Agency department officials told ProPublica. That inquiry has taken on new significance in light of the oil spill in the gulf. One key question the EPA will consider is whether the company's leadership can be trusted and whether BP's culture can change.
"Can be trusted..."? "Can change..."? It seems that the Bush-Cheney culture still has its grip on the throats of government agencies.
