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Ex-BP executive can be charged with obstructing Congress -U.S. court
Source: Reuters
Ex-BP executive can be charged with obstructing Congress -U.S. court
Source: Reuters - Sun, 29 Jun 2014 19:32 GMT
June 29 (Reuters) - A U.S. federal appeals court has reinstated a criminal charge of obstruction of Congress against a former BP Plc executive accused of downplaying the severity of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Friday said a lower court judge misinterpreted the obstruction statute in dismissing the charge against David Rainey, a former BP exploration vice president.
Rainey was also charged with making false statements to law-enforcement agents, which was not at issue in the government's appeal. He has pleaded not guilty.
The April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig led to 11 deaths and the largest U.S. offshore oil spill.
Prosecutors accused Rainey of telling the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Environment on May 4, 2010, and in a subsequent letter that just 5,000 barrels of oil a day were being released, when his own estimates suggested a much higher flow rate.
Read more: http://www.trust.org/item/20140629192826-3hozr/
13 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Last edited Sun Jun 29, 2014, 07:51 PM - Edit history (1)
And this pic isn't anti-British bias, as it was hung outside a window in London itself. Not everyone loves BP there.Some of the most vociferous voices are in the UK, who speak of the cozy relationships of the royals of the UK and the oil sheikdom rulers. And the USA ended just as heavily involved in these acts.
BP plc,[5][6] sometimes referred to by its former name British Petroleum
...BP's origins date back to the founding of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909, established as a subsidiary of Burmah Oil Company to exploit oil discoveries in Iran. In 1935, it became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and in 1954 British Petroleum.[15][16] In 1959, the company expanded beyond the Middle East to Alaska and in 1965 it was the first company to strike oil in the North Sea. British Petroleum acquired majority control of Standard Oil of Ohio in 1978. Formerly majority state-owned, the British government privatised the company in stages between 1979 and 1987. British Petroleum merged with Amoco in 1998, becoming BP Amoco plc, and acquired ARCO and Burmah Castrol in 2000, becoming BP plc in 2001. From 2003 to 2013, BP was a partner in the TNK-BP joint venture in Russia.
BP has been directly involved in several major environmental and safety incidents. Among them were the 2005 Texas City Refinery explosion, which caused the death of 15 workers and resulted in a record-setting OSHA fine; Britain's largest oil spill, the wreck of Torrey Canyon; and the 2006 Prudhoe Bay oil spill, the largest oil spill on Alaska's North Slope, which resulted in a US$25 million civil penalty, the largest per-barrel penalty at that time for an oil spill.[17]
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest accidental release of oil into marine waters in history, resulted in severe environmental, health and economic consequences,[18] and serious legal and public relations repercussions for BP. One-point-eight million gallons of Corexit oil dispersant were used in the cleanup response, becoming the largest application of such chemicals in US history.[19] The company plead guilty to 11 counts of felony manslaughter, two misdemeanors, and one felony count of lying to Congress, and agreed to pay more than $4.5 billion in fines and penalties, the largest criminal resolution in US history.[20][21][22] Legal proceedings are continuing, with proceedings set to commence in January 2015[23] to determine payouts and fines under the Clean Water Act and the Natural Resources Damage Assessment.[24] BP faces damages of up to $17.6 billion in the trial...[25][26][27]
Looking at the Wikipedia page, we can see the reach of this entity worldwide. More of the history of BP, formerly British Petroleum, with name changes:
Nationalisation and coup
Discontent in Iran
Under the 1933 agreement with Reza Shah, AIOC had promised to give laborers better pay and more chance for advancement, build schools, hospitals, roads and telephone system. It had not done so.[11]
In August 1941, the Allied powers Britain and the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Iran subsequently forcing Reza Shah to abdicate in favor of his son (see also Persian Corridor) who they considered far more friendly to their interests.
Following World War II, nationalistic sentiments were on the rise in the Middle East; most notable being Iranian nationalism. AIOC and the pro western Iranian government led by Prime Minister Ali Razmara initially resisted nationalist pressure to revise AIOC's concession terms still further in Iran's favour. In May 1949, Britain offered a "Supplemental oil agreement" to appease unrest in the country. The agreement guaranteed royalty payments would not drop below £4 million, reduced the area in which it would be allowed to drill, and promised more Iranians would be trained for administrative positions. The agreement, however, gave Iran no "greater voice in company's management" or right to audit the company books. In addition, Iranian royalties from oil was not expected to ever drop to the proposed guarantee of £4 million and the reduced area covered all of the productive oilfields. When the Iranian Prime Minister tried to argue with AIOC head Sir William Fraser, Fraser "dismissed him" and flew back to the UK.[12]
In late December 1950 word reached Tehran that the American-owned Arabian American Oil Company had agreed to share profits with Saudis on a 50-50 basis. The UK Foreign Office rejected the idea of any similar agreement for AIOC.[13]
On March 7, 1951 Prime Minister Haj Haj Ali Razmara was assassinated by the Fadayan-e Islam. Fadayan-e Islam supported the demands of the National Front, which held a minority of seats in Parliament, to nationalize the assets of the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. As Prime Minister, Razmara had convinced the majority that nationalization would be folly, but his assassination eliminated the sole voice powerful enough to oppose the demands of the National Front. Iranian anger towards lack of progress in the nationalization of AIOC was apparent when the assassination of Razmara,[14] yielded a distinct lack of mourning from the Iranian public. A raucous walkout of protest by newspaper reporters ensued when a visiting American diplomat urged 'reason as well as enthusiasm' to deal with the imminent British embargo of Iran.[15]
By 1951 Iranian support for nationalisation of the AIOC was intense. Grievances included the small fraction of revenues Iran received. In 1947, for example, AIOC reported after-tax profits of £40 million ($112 million)—and the contractual agreement entitled Iran to just £7 million or 17.5% of profits from Iranian oil.[11] In addition, conditions for Iranian oil workers and their families were very bad. The director of Iran's Petroleum Institute wrote that
Wages were 50 cents a day. There was no vacation pay, no sick leave, no disability compensation. The workers lived in a shanty town called Kaghazabad, or Paper City, without running water or electricity, ... In winter the earth flooded and became a flat, perspiring lake. The mud in town was knee-deep, and ... when the rains subsided, clouds of nipping, small-winged flies rose from the stagnant water to fill the nostrils .... Summer was worse. ... The heat was torrid ... sticky and unrelenting—while the wind and sandstorms shipped off the desert hot as a blower. The dwellings of Kaghazabad, cobbled from rusted oil drums hammered flat, turned into sweltering ovens. ... In every crevice hung the foul, sulfurous stench of burning oil .... in Kaghazad there was nothing—not a tea shop, not a bath, not a single tree. The tiled reflecting pool and shaded central square that were part of every Iranian town, ... were missing here. The unpaved alleyways were emporiums for rats.[16]
Nationalisation
Later in March 1951, the Iranian parliament (the Majlis) voted to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and its holdings, and shortly thereafter Iranians democratically elected a widely respected statesman and champion of nationalisation, Mohammed Mossadegh, Prime Minister.[17] This led to the Abadan Crisis where foreign countries agreed not to purchase Iranian oil under British pressure and the Abadan refinery was closed. AIOC withdrew from Iran and increased output of its other reserves in the Persian Gulf.
Mossadeq broke off negotiations with AIOC in July 1951 when the AIOC threatened to pull its employees out of Iran and Britain warned tanker owners that "the receipts from the Iranian government would not be accepted on the world market."[18] The British ratcheted up the pressure on the Iranian government and explored the possibility of an invasion to occupy the oil area. US President Harry S. Truman and US ambassador to Iran Henry F. Grady opposed intervention in Iran but needed Britain's support for the Korean War. Efforts by the U.S. through the International Court of Justice were made to settle the dispute, but a 50/50 profit-sharing arrangement, with recognition of nationalization, was rejected by both the British government and Prime Minister Mossadegh.[citation needed]
As the months went on, the crisis became acute. By mid-1952, an attempt by the Shah to replace Mossadegh backfired and led to riots against the Shah and perceived foreign intervention; Mossadegh returned with even greater power. At the same time however, his coalition was weakening as Britain’s boycott of Iranian oil eliminated a major source of government revenue, and strategically made Iranians poorer and thus unhappier by the day.
Coup[edit]
Main article: 1953 Iranian coup d'état
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
Britain was unable to subvert Mossadegh as its embassy and officials had been evicted from Iran in October 1952, but successfully appealed in the U.S. to exaggerated anti-communist sentiments, depicting both Mossadegh and Iran as unstable and likely to fall to communism as they were weakened. If Iran fell, the "enormous assets" of "Iranian oil production and reserves" would fall into Communist control, as would "in short order the other areas of the Middle East".[19] By 1953 both the US and the UK had new, more anti-communist and interventionist administrations and the United States no longer opposed intervention in Iran.
The anti-Mossadeq plan was orchestrated under the code-name 'Operation Ajax' by CIA, and 'Operation Boot' by SIS (MI6).[20][21][22] In August the American CIA with the help of bribes to politicians, soldiers, mobs, and newspapers, and information from the British embassy and secret service, organized a riot which gave the Shah an excuse to remove Mosaddeq.
The Shah seized the opportunity and issued an edict forcefully removing the immensely popular and democratically-elected Mosaddeq from power when General Fazlollah Zahedi led tanks to Mosaddeq's residence and arrested him. On 21 December 1953, he was sentenced to death but his sentence was later commuted to three years' solitary confinement in a military prison followed by life in prison. He was kept under house arrest at his Ahmadabad residence, until his death, on 5 March 1967.[23][24][25][26]
Consortium[edit]
With a pro-Western Shah and the new pro-Western Prime Minister, Fazlollah Zahedi, Iranian oil began flowing again and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which changed its name to British Petroleum in 1954, tried to return to its old position. However, public opinion was so opposed that the new government could not permit it.
Under pressure from the United States, British Petroleum were forced to accept membership in a consortium of companies which would bring Iranian oil back on the international market. It was incorporated in London in 1954 as a holding company called Iranian Oil Participants Ltd (IOP).[27][28] The founding members of IOP included British Petroleum (40%), Gulf Oil (later Chevron, 8%), Royal Dutch Shell (14%), and Compagnie Française des Pétroles (later Total S.A., 6%). The four Aramco partners—Standard Oil of California (SoCal, later Chevron), Standard Oil of New Jersey (later Exxon, then ExxonMobil), Standard Oil Co. of New York (later Mobil, then ExxonMobil), and Texaco (later Chevron)—each held an 8% stake in the holding company.[27][29]
This group of companies at various stages came to be known as the Supermajors or the "Seven Sisters" or the "Consortium for Iran" cartel and dominated the global petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the 1970s.[30][31] Until the oil crisis of 1973 the members of the Seven Sisters controlled around 85% of the world's known oil reserves.
All IOP members acknowledged that National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) owned the oil and facilities in Iran, and IOP's role was to operate and manage on behalf of NIOC. To facilitate that, IOP established two operating entities incorporated in Netherlands, and both were delegated to NIOC.[27][28] Similar to the Saudi-Aramco "50/50" agreement of 1950,[32] the consortium agreed to share profits on a 50–50 basis with Iran, "but not to open its books to Iranian auditors or to allow Iranians onto its board of directors."[19][33] The negotiations leading to the creation of the consortium, during 1954-55, was considered as a feat of skillful diplomacy for the "Seven Sisters".[29] Some viewed the move as one to quell the rising tensions of Iranians since it allowed IOP to divert and hide profits with ease - effectively controlling Iran's share of the profits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Persian_Oil_Company#Coup
Knew a number of Iranians who moved to the USA for a better life than they had under the Shah. They were complete secularists and fit in well with unions. blue collar work, supported feminism, etc. They really loved the USA.
Every week, Iranians were in front of the ARAMCO corporate offices to protest its support of the Shah. This was before Khomeini and the hostage crisis. They were all very friendly to Americans, but puzzled by the USA supporting the Shah, who was bad news. It did not fit with their dream of America.
BP has now gained the title of 'Beyond Petroleum' as they are heavily invested in wind and other alternative energies. But they are unlikely to escape their past and present wrongdoings.
Just sayin'
