BP Should Weigh Rebuffing U.S. on Spill Costs, Former Shell President Says

Source: BLOOMBERG



By Jim Snyder and Janet Guyon

June 15 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc may need to offend “or even alienate” U.S. government officials pressuring the company to spend more money on restitution for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, said former Shell Oil Co. President John Hofmeister.

BP’s cost to clean up the spill, the worst in U.S. history, may escalate enough to threaten the London-based oil company’s future, Hofmeister, who now runs the advocacy group Citizens for Affordable Energy, said today at a Bloomberg Link Boards & Risk Conference in Washington.

“The current political movement by the U.S. government is basically an unlimited liability,” said Hofmeister, who ran the U.S. operations of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company by market value, from early 2005 through mid-2008.

BP has spent about $1.6 billion to stop the leak, clean up the oil, and compensate local businesses and residents since the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. U.S. officials are increasing pressure on the company to accelerate payments, replace lost wages of idled oil rig workers, and suspend dividend payments to shareholders.

“At some point the entity will have to defend itself,” Hofmeister said. “At what point are they willing to offend or even alienate certain government officials in the interest of the enterprise because the alternative would basically be to give up the enterprise?”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJmuu3vV_rRg&pos=6

Really, isn't that the most important thing to remember in all of this?

:grr: :grr: :grr:

Screw the environment, screw people and their elected governments, all for profits.

None of this should surprise anyone...

Of course, that might involve taking them out of it, but at this point, it may be what the world needs, if we are to survive.

These parasites are a danger to the very survival of the human species.

If they are not going to leave us with any other choice......If it's us or them.....

Well, I'll just stop there.