The Brilliantly Profitable Timing of Alaska Oil Pipeline Shutdown: Palast

August 8, 2006 at 11:45:14
The Brilliantly Profitable Timing of the Alaska Oil Pipeline Shutdown
by Greg Palast

http://www.opednews.com

BRITISH PETROLEUM'S "SMART PIG"

Is the Alaska Pipeline corroded? You bet it is. Has been for more than a decade. Did British Petroleum shut the pipe yesterday to turn a quick buck on its negligence, to profit off the disaster it created? Just ask the "smart pig."

Years ago, I had the unhappy job of leading an investigation of British Petroleum's management of the Alaska pipeline system. I was working for the Chugach villages, the Alaskan Natives who own the shoreline slimed by the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker grounding.

Even then, courageous government inspectors and pipeline workers were screaming about corrosion all through the pipeline. I say "courageous" because BP, which owns 46% of the pipe and is supposed to manage the system, had a habit of hunting down and destroying the careers of those who warn of pipeline problems.

In one case, BP's CEO of Alaskan operations hired a former CIA expert to break into the home of a whistleblower, Chuck Hamel, who had complained of conditions at the pipe's tanker facility. BP tapped his phone calls with a US congressman and ran a surveillance and smear campaign against him. When caught, a US federal judge said BP's acts were "reminiscent of Nazi Germany."

more at:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_greg_pal_060808_the_brilliantly_prof.htm

by screwing the average American citizen

nt

more...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_greg_pal_060808_the_brilliantly_prof.htm

"Now let's talk timing. BP's suddenly discovered corrosion necessitating an emergency shut-down of the line is the same corrosion Dan Lawn has been screaming about for 15 years. Lawn is a steel-eyed government inspector who has kept his job only because his union's lawyers have kept BP from having his head.

Indeed, it's pretty darn hard for BP to claim it is surprised to find corrosion this week when Lawn issued a damning report on corrosion right after a leak and spill were discovered on March 2 of this year.

Why shut the pipe now? The timing of a sudden inspection and fix of a decade-long problem has a suspicious smell. A precipitous shutdown in mid-summer, in the middle of Middle East war(s), is guaranteed to raise prices and reap monster profits for BP. The price of crude jumped $2.22 a barrel on the shutdown news to over $76. How lucky for BP which sells four million barrels of oil a day. Had BP completed its inspection and repairs a couple years back -- say, after Dan Lawn's tenth warning -- the oil market would have hardly noticed.

But $2 a barrel is just the beginning of BP's shut-down bonus. The Alaskan oil was destined for the California market which now faces a supply crisis at the very height of the summer travel season. The big winner is ARCO petroleum, the largest retailer in the Golden State. ARCO is a 100%-owned subsidiary of ... British Petroleum.

BP could have fixed the pipeline problem this past winter, after their latest corrosion-caused oil spill. But then ARCO would have lost the summertime supply-squeeze windfall..."

I am getting sick and fucking tired of this kind of corporate screwing. :mad:

Man, I want to live 100% off the energy/oil grid so damn badly... soon, hopefully soon...

and boost profits. For so long, I thought they wanted more oil. Now it's obvious, they want less. Wait till you see what happens when the lid blows off Iran! Those oil guys are going to be even richer! What I want to know is, honestly, how much money is enough?

Remember that saying about too thin? Too rich?

To say these people are repugnant is barely scratching the surface...

Of course since most people HAVE to buy gas to get to work, there's little chance that we would quit buying the stuff...at any price..

If you work 30 miles away, and you have a mortgage, are you going to quit your job and lose your income and benefits(if you still have those) to make a point to some oil company?

Of course not.. You will just cut back elsewhere and continue to drive..

Most places in the US do not have adequate public transportation, and in most places car-pooling is not really an option..

The days of many people in a given area, all working 8-5 at the local factory are long gone..

People live scattered all over the place, and many people need access to their car DURING their workday...and have staggered work hours, so car-pooling does not work for most people..

It's just another way to "blame the victim".. Some say "workers live too far from their jobs"...but housing prices have DRIVEN people further from their jobs.. there used to be a time when people COULD afford to live near their jobs, but greedy businesspeople kept moving the companies where they could get tax breaks, and as soon as THAT area built up, and it started costing them more too, they move again.. Employees tied down to houses, have no choice but to commute..

Why am I not surprised?

"That'll do..."

Energy is a national security issue and being held captive by fascists in corporate America is not conducive to strong national security policies.

Oh, yeah, and healthcare too!

a small group of people controlling a necessary consumable.

Democracy doesn't work without freedom.
Freedom doesn't work without free markets.
Free markets don't work with privileges.

The root evil is privilege - advantages given by law to a few, at the expense of the many.

BP and others have many individual monopolies in their ability to withdraw crude oil from the commons.
BP and others have a monopoly on transporting oil from the north slope to the ports via the Alaska Pipeline.
BP and others have a partial monopoly, due to nimbyism and regulation, on the construction and operation of refineries.
BP and others have many individual monopolies on prime retail locations for gas stations.
BP, Utility Generators, and many others have the privilege of using the commons - the atmosphere - as a dumping ground for their carbon and other pollutants.
A great many private entities have the privilege of monopolizing desirable urban locations - underusing them and exacerbating sprawl - virtually guaranteeing the need for private automobiles and petroleum use.
Utility companies have the monopolist's privilege of distributing energy without competition.
Utility companies have partial monopolies, again, through nimbyism and grandfathered regulations, on energy generation: try and build a windfarm somewhere, or even a state of the art coal plant.

Eliminate these privileges where you can, and make the recipient pay full value where you can't, and we'd have no problems with energy prices, healthcare prices, unemployment, or low wages. We'd also have very little need for a bureaucracy to regulate them - just a smaller bureaucracy to assess and collect fees.