Oil Spill Lawsuit Information

Businessweek

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP settles oil-spill dispute with drilling fluid supplier

BP partner MOEX settles oil-spill claims with U.S., state governments

Kurt Niland — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:54:12 +0000

MOEX Offshore, a 10-percent owner in BP’s Macondo well, agreed Friday to pay the federal government and Gulf states $90 million to settle claims involving BP’s 2010 oil spill, which left hundreds of square miles of the Gulf of Mexico awash in crude oil. The settlement includes the largest Clean Water Act penalties ever recovered by the U.S. government.

The settlement was filed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, where the BP oil-spill trial will open on February 27. MOEX agreed to pay the U.S. government $45 million in civil penalties, $25 million to all of the Gulf states, and an additional $20 million to fund environmental protection projects on the coast.

“The Department of Justice has not wavered in its commitment to hold all responsible parties fully accountable for what stands as the largest oil spill in U.S. history,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. “This landmark settlement is an important step — but only a first step — toward achieving accountability and protecting the future of the Gulf ecosystem by funding critical habitat preservation projects.”

MOEX is the first of BP’s Macondo well partners and contractors to settle with the federal government over the spill, which gushed for 85 days and released more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

Last May, MOEX agreed to pay BP more than $1 billion in exchange for indemnification against thousands of damage claims the oil giant faces. BP also reached similar agreements with partner Anadarko and contractor Weatherford International.

The federal government will put its $45-million share of penalties into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is tapped to cover the cleanup costs and damages from future oil spills. Louisiana will get the largest share of damages — $67 million – followed by Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi, which will each get $5 million; and Texas, which will get $3.25 million.

Source:

Businessweek
The Associated Press

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP partner MOEX settles oil-spill claims with U.S., state governments

Court orders medical examination of “too sick to testify” BP manager

Kurt Niland — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:00:04 +0000

Transocean Ltd., the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded and collapsed into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, wants to question one of BP’s well site leaders in preparation for the upcoming liability trial in New Orleans. But there is one problem with Transocean’s request: the BP employee in question says he is too sick to testify under oath, either in person or in writing.

Transocean considers BP employee David Vidrine to be “a key source of information regarding critical events and operations that occurred immediately prior to the blowout.” In response to Mr. Vidrine’s medical claims, the offshore oil-rig company, which leased the Deepwater Horizon to BP for exploratory drilling in the Gulf, has subpoenaed the BP well site worker and his physician. “Mr. Vidrine’s medical issues do not provide a legal basis for his refusal to testify,” Transocean stated.

U.S. Magistrate Sally Shushan, however, quashed Transocean’s subpoenas to Mr. Vidrine and his doctor Tuesday, opting instead to appoint a physician who could examine Mr. Vidrine and determine whether he is well enough to give a deposition.

BP and Transocean have been embroiled in a bitter dispute over the roles each company and its employees allegedly played in causing the deadly explosion and oil spill, which flooded the Gulf with 206 million gallons of crude oil and tons of natural gas. Tranocean and contractor Halliburton, which BP hired for well cementing operations, have refused to settle with the oil giant or accept blame for the disaster.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier is presiding over the BP litigation and has scheduled a nonjury trial to open Monday, February 27, in New Orleans. The first phase of BP’s trial is considered the “incident phase” and will examine the roles and responsibilities of BP, Transocean, and other defendant companies in causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history, which killed 11 workers and dealt a devastating blow to the Gulf Coast’s environment and economy.

Phase two of the trial will start after a break and will look at actions taken to shut down the well and to calculate the amount of oil released. The final phase will address other liability issues, including laying boom, skimming and burning oil, dumping chemical oil dispersants into the spill, and other cleanup and containment efforts.

Sources:

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Court orders medical examination of “too sick to testify” BP manager

Weatherford off the hook for oil-spill penalties, punitive damages

Kurt Niland — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:42:05 +0000

Weatherford U.S. LP, a Swiss oilfield service company that built key parts of BP’s failed Macondo well, will not have to face civil or criminal penalties and punitive damages for its role in the deadly Deepwater Horizon explosion and Gulf of Mexico oil spill, U.S. District Judge Judge Carl Barbier said Friday.

Weatherford designed and built the doomed well’s float collar, a device that sat at the well’s opening three miles below the seafloor. The device was supposed to ensure the cement poured into the well did not rise to the surface before it had time to set.

Federal investigations conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Interior Department found that the Weatherford device played a key role in the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20, 2010. The float collar is sent to the bottom of the well as a two-way-valve, but once in place is converted under enormous pressure into a one-way valve.

Although federal investigations found fault with Weatherford’s float collar, government reports underscore BP’s bungled efforts to install the device. Investigations found that BP workers struggled to convert the device to a one-way valve, using four times the pressure usually required to perform the conversion and repeating the process nine times, possibly damaging the device even further.

One employee working on the conversion said in an email that the device had finally been converted to a one-way valve, “Or we hope so,” he wrote.

BP workers also pumped drilling mud into the well at an inappropriately slow speed needed to perform the conversion.

The Times-Picayune also cited government reports that found BP officials higher in the ranks “could have chosen a more debris-resistant model of the device, and they ordered it placed in a more dangerous location in the hole than they should have.”

Weatherford already settled with BP in June for $75 million, an agreement that ensured BP would cover Weatherford for economic and environmental oil-spill damage claims filed against it.

Judge Barbier, who is presiding over the BP oil spill litigation in New Orleans, said that sealed exhibits and documents he reviewed yielded “no evidence that the Weatherford float collar used in the production string of the Macondo well was defective and/or that any actions or inactions by Weatherford caused or contributed to the cause of the blowout and oil spill.”

Source:
The Times-Picayune

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Weatherford off the hook for oil-spill penalties, punitive damages

Mike deGruy, marine biologist and famed cinematographer, shared his awe of and fears for the sea

Kurt Niland — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:00:37 +0000

We often hear about the BP oil spill’s impact on Gulf business – on jobs and peoples’ livelihoods and the general economy. But few things in the media capture the amazing miracle of life in the Gulf of Mexico being hammered by BP and other reckless offshore drillers as a speech given by marine zoologist and famed cinematographer Mike deGruy to a gathering at Mission Blue, a California-based oceanic exploration and conservation group.

While the media occasionally mentions dead dolphins washing ashore in the Gulf or shows seabirds suffocating under tarry layers of crude, most media reports tie the BP spill’s deadly effects on marine life to the seafood industry, explaining what reduced shrimp populations and diseased fish mean for people and companies that rely on fishing for a living, or how negative perceptions of Gulf seafood have dealt a massive blow to restaurants, charter fishing, and the general tourism industry.

Mike deGruy, who was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, became enthralled with the ocean and its inhabitants at an early age when he had a chance encounter with an octopus while diving in the Gulf. He went on to study marine zoology at the University of North Carolina and later moved to Hawaii, where he pursued a PhD in marine biology at the University of Hawaii. Mr. deGruy then became the Curator of Invertebrates at the Waikiki Aquarium and, later, resident manager of the Mid-Pacific Marine Lab in the Marshall Islands.

Eventually, Mr. DeGruy began experimenting with underwater phot0graphy, not knowing one day his passion for the sea would lead him to become one of the world’s leading underwater cinematographers, whose accolades included the BBC’s Blue Planet series and director James Cameron’s Last Mysteries of the Titanic.

Mr. Gruy died last Saturday in a helicopter crash while working on a project in Australia. He was 60 years old.

DeGruy was “one of the ocean’s warriors,” said James Cameron, who was a close friend and associate. “A man who spoke for the wonders of the sea as a biologist, filmmaker, and submersible pilot, and who spoke against those who would destroy the sea’s web of life. He was a warm, funny, extremely capable man and one of the world’s top underwater cinematographers. His passion for exploration and for the wonders beneath the sea was boundless.”

In Mr. deGruy’s death the planet’s ocean inhabitants have lost one of their best friends and strongest allies.

Watch his presentation to Mission Blue:

Sources:

TED
Santa Barbara View
Mike deGruy

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Mike deGruy, marine biologist and famed cinematographer, shared his awe of and fears for the sea

Lawmakers race to ensure BP oil spill fine money goes to Gulf States

Kurt Niland — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:06:38 +0000

Congressional representatives and municipal officials from the Gulf Coast are in Washington pushing for legislation that would direct billions of dollars in BP oil-spill fine money to the states harmed by the 2010 spill before time runs out.

The Gulf Coast officials fear they may run out of time before they can legally procure the fine money, expected to be anywhere between $5.4 billion and $21.1 billion, before the BP trial begins in New Orleans February 27.

“Our reading of the law is pretty clear that any penalty money that comes in under the Oil Pollution Act goes to the general fund, and … it will take an act of Congress to change that,” Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La said in a conference call with the press.

To make sure the fine money goes to the Gulf Coast states and not the federal government, legislators created the RESTORE Act, a bill that was sponsored by Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and shares wide bipartisan support. Supporters of the bill, however, say that a number challenges are impeding its passage.

According to the Mobile Press-Register, “the indifference of elected officials who live far from the Gulf,” the “toxic political environment” in Washington D.C., and uncertainties about the confluence of oil spill fine money with federal revenues to the Gulf Coast are all obstacles in the RESTORE Act’s path.

Legislators are also looking at attaching the bill’s provisions onto other bills that have to pass Congress as an alternate means of quick passage. Sen. Landrieu said that two possibilities included a transportation bill and a payroll tax bill that are “coming along.”

President Obama supports sending most of the BP oil spill fine money to Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and elected officials are calling on him to do more to make sure that happens.

Source:

Source: The Associated Press

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Lawmakers race to ensure BP oil spill fine money goes to Gulf States

Environmental group sues energy company over ongoing Gulf oil spill

Kurt Niland — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:00:06 +0000

In December we reported how BP wasn’t the only driller fouling the Gulf of Mexico with oil; 10 miles off the Louisiana coast and just a few miles away from BP’s blown-out Macondo well, which flooded the Gulf with 206 million gallons of oil in 2010, sits an offshore platform and 28 oil wells belonging to Taylor Energy Company of New Orleans that may have been leaking hundreds of gallons of oil everyday for seven years. Now an environmental watchdog group hopes a lawsuit it filed against Taylor Energy on Thursday will help put an end to the spill.

New York-based Waterkeeper Alliance says Taylor Energy’s wells have been leaking oil since Hurricane Ivan swept through the Gulf in 2004, which triggered an underwater mudslide. Since that time, however, both Taylor Energy and the Federal government have refused to answer even the most basic questions about what is being done to stop the ongoing oil spill.

“This spill is in relatively shallow water,” Justin Bloom, a regional director for the group, told the Associated Press. “If it takes more than seven years to contain a spill like this in a relatively accessible environment, what would happen in a dangerous and inaccessible deepwater environment?”

The lawsuit accuses Taylor energy of violating the Clean Water Act and Resource Conservation Recovery Act and seeks civil penalties of up to $37,500 per day, a figure partially based on an estimated flow rate of 100-400 gallons per day. An analysis of satellite images showing the oil slick helped researchers determine how much oil was leaking from the Taylor Energy wells.

The U.S. Coast Guard rejects that estimate, claiming three containment domes were placed at the site to capture the leaking oil, which the Coast Guard says amounts to just 7.5 gallons per day and not enough to warrant further recovery operations.

But the Coast Guard hasn’t been the most trustworthy source for oil spill estimates, as its calculations throughout the BP oil spill disaster have shown. Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank into the Gulf, the Coast Guard announced that no oil was leaking from the well. When a massive oil slick formed on the surface, the Coast Guard upped its flow-rate estimates to 42,000 gallons per day but would not say how it came up with that number.

Government estimates continued to climb as physical evidence and estimates from independent analysts mounted. In the end, federal officials admitted 206 million gallons of oil gushed from BP’s Macondo well over 85 days, which amounts to an average of 2.4 million gallons per day.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Environmental group sues energy company over ongoing Gulf oil spill

Judge: BP must indemnify Halliburton from oil spill damage claims

Kurt Niland — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:30:32 +0000

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans said on Tuesday that BP must honor it contract with Halliburton and indemnify the company for third-party compensatory claims.

BP contracted with Houston-based Halliburton to provide cementing services for the Macondo well, which failed to prevent explosive gas from blasting out of the oil reservoir in the Gulf of Mexico. The resulting disaster destroyed the Deepwater Horizon rig, killed 11 workers, and set off the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The ruling means BP will now have to bear the full brunt of lawsuits seeking oil-spill damages. Halliburton, however, still faces paying punitive damages as well as civil fines under the federal Clean Water Act.

BP has been fiercely trying to share expenses from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill with its partners and contractors by playing the blame game, but its efforts have been largely unsuccessful. Although the oil giant did reach pre-trial agreements with some of its other partners, Halliburton and Switzerland-based Transocean, which owned the Deepwater Horizon rig, resisted settling. Both companies had indemnity clauses in their contracts with BP releasing them from the liabilities that the oil giant has been trying to pin on others.

Halliburton’s contract required BP to indemnify it from all damage claims, even in the event that Halliburton employees were found to be partly responsible for a disaster resulting in litigation.

In January, Judge Barbier said BP was bound to its contract with Transocean, which indemnified the company from compensatory damage claims. BP sought to have the court shift $15 billion in oil-spill related costs to Transocean.

BP also rang in the New Year by suing Halliburton for all of its oil-spill costs, which have amounted to more than $21 billion.

Sources:

Reuters
Businessweek

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Judge: BP must indemnify Halliburton from oil spill damage claims

South Alabama children, communities languish in BP oil spill aftermath

Kurt Niland — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:00:50 +0000

BP’s television advertisements proclaiming that the Gulf of Mexico is open for business have helped the tourism industry in the Gulf States rebound from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and a disastrous 2010 season. But behind the sparkling beaches, the heaping plates of fresh seafood, and happy fishermen shown in BP’s ads are families living in near third-world squalor and whole communities on life support because the BP oil spill destroyed so many jobs.

A recent report in the Mobile Press-Register describes the plight of children and teenagers whose parents lost their jobs after the BP oil spill. Many families in South Alabama are living in houses with no running water or electricity because oil-spill claim money ran out months ago and a program to help families harmed by the BP disaster pay utility bills is no longer in service.

School counselors report children in middle school and high school attending class in dirty uniforms and using school facilities to bathe and wash clothes, hoping nobody notices. Some families can no longer afford medicine for their children, which often results in behavioral problems, fighting, poor performance, and poor attendance.

Domestic violence and substance abuse have become rampant in communities where BP’s oil spill decimated fishing and seafood processing jobs. Counselors at one Mobile school told the Mobile Press-Register that they are working with “emotionally scarred” girls whose desperate families prostituted them.

And there are formal studies that show the BP oil spill has threatened to throw South Alabama communities into a cycle of poverty and crime if jobs and healthy conditions aren’t restored soon. Already too many children are missing out on their education or dropping out of school altogether – a trend that does not bode well for the future in any community.

According to the Press-Register, a study conducted by the University of South Alabama found that 35 percent of students at Bryant High School in Irvington “reported being significantly and personally traumatized by the oil spill.” A third of students reported that the oil spill caused their parents to lose their jobs. Meanwhile, the number of children getting in trouble at school has soared anywhere from 20 to 100 percent in one year, depending on the school.

One state worker familiar with the oil spill’s aftermath told the Press-Register that the BP oil spill dealt a brutal blow to communities that were trying to recover from other disasters.

“You take a community that was already suffering, with Hurricane Katrina and the economy, and you layer the oil spill on top of it,” she told the Press-Register.

“What I’ve seen since the BP oil spill is that things have steadily gotten worse,” Bryant High School’s principal told the Press-Register. Like many in hard-hit south Alabama, he hopes that things can only get better from here.

Source:

The Mobile Press-Register

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › South Alabama children, communities languish in BP oil spill aftermath

Internal emails indicate BP hid early oil-spill rate estimates

Kurt Niland — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:00:47 +0000

Emails and other documents obtained under Freedom of Information Act lawsuits or turned over as part of court proceedings ahead of the February 27 BP oil spill trial suggest politics and spin had more influence on determining the amount of oil BP’s blown-out Macondo well spewed into the Gulf of Mexico each day than actual science.

According to the Associated Press, internal BP emails and memos submitted in the court proceedings show that on the day the Deepwater Horizon sank into the Gulf of Mexico, BP officials warned that oil could gush out of the runaway well at a rate of 3.4 million galls per day.

That “open hole” scenario, as one BP official described it, was a far cry from the 42,000 gallons per day that the Coast Guard reported on April 24 using undisclosed data and methods, and much closer to the 2.4 million gallons per day average government and independent scientists determined months later.

The emails suggest that BP officials knew the disaster’s actual potential soon after the Deepwater Horizon explosion – much earlier than they let on. Just after the explosion, it was reported that no oil was leaking from the well. Forty-eight hours later, the Coast Guard announced a daily flow rate of 42,000 gallons, and that figure climbed steadily higher and higher until satellite images, hundreds of miles of soiled coastline, and other physical evidence emerged, hinting at the oil spill’s true size.

The federal government eventually assembled groups of government and independent scientists to study the flow rate, which was ultimately pegged at 2.4 million gallons per day; that’s 206 million gallons spilled over an 85-day period. But even the government’s own estimates may not have been entirely straight-forward at first, as documents obtained by a Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) lawsuit indicate.

BP’s internal emails also reveal that BP managers wanted to make sure its spill-rate estimates weren’t shared with anyone outside the company and that they were having “heated discussions” with U.S. Coast Guard authorities, according to the AP.

Determining the amount of oil spilled is critical because federal fines levied under the Clean Water Act are calculated on a per-barrel basis. Companies found liable for polluting U.S. waters can be fined between $1,000 and $4,300 per barrel of oil spilled, depending on circumstances and whether gross negligence is found to be a cause.

Source:

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Internal emails indicate BP hid early oil-spill rate estimates

Lawsuit claims BP fired Miss. man for blowing whistle on oil cleanup

Kurt Niland — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:00:14 +0000

A former BP employee who helped form BP’s oil-spill cleanup response in Mississippi is suing the oil giant, alleging his bosses terminated him after he complained to them about how the company was handling cleanup efforts.

According to the Associated Press, August Walter, a Louisiana resident, filed the complaint last week in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, contending one of his BP supervisors “manipulated data on shoreline cleanup” and failed to convey vital information to the Coast Guard about cleanup efforts.

The April 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion set off the largest oil spill in U.S. history about 45 miles off the Louisiana coastline. The massive slick heavily oiled beaches and coastal habitats in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

Mr. Walter’s lawsuit accuses BP of firing him in retaliation for complaining that BP was failing to abide by environmental regulations and “picking and choosing what oil to pick up.”

The plaintiff also contends that he would not misrepresent data to the Coast Guard, leading it to believe that the Mississippi cleanup efforts were closer to being finished than they actually were.

Mr. Walter, who began working for BP as a “state planning lead” for Mississippi oil spill cleanup efforts in May 2010, alleges in his lawsuit that BP’s work on the coast “was all based on money and had nothing to do with actually cleaning up the oil or meeting the (Shoreline Treatment Recommendations) or environmental requirements.”

According to the AP, the lawsuit also accuses BP of taking “short cuts” in cleaning up the contaminated coastline. One BP official, for instance, allegedly said the company would only clean up the larger tar balls that were washing ashore and not all the smaller oil deposits and debris.

Mr. Walter’s lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, including three years of lost wages, for BP’s alleged violations of the Louisiana Environmental Whistleblower Statute.

Source:

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Lawsuit claims BP fired Miss. man for blowing whistle on oil cleanup

Judge finds Transocean contractually protected from oil-spill claims

Kurt Niland — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:46:26 +0000

Transocean Ltd., the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that BP leased for offshore oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, is officially off the hook for oil-spill related expenses that BP tried unsuccessfully to share with the company.

U.S. federal judge Carl Barbier said Thursday that BP is bound to a clause in its contract with Transocean that indemnifies the Switzerland-based rig owner from compensatory damage claims involving the Macondo well drilling operations. BP sought to have the court shift $15 billion in oil-spill related costs to Transocean.

The ruling means that unless Halliburton, the Houston-based energy company BP hired to cement the Macondo well, is held liable for compensatory claims, BP will have to bear the full brunt of lawsuits seeking oil-spill damages. The oil giant faces hundreds of lawsuits filed by fishermen, hoteliers, restaurateurs, and other business owners seeking compensation for livelihoods and revenues diminished by the massive oil spill, which flooded the Gulf with 206 million gallons of oil.

Judge Barbier did not require BP to indemnify Transocean for all financial liability. Transocean still faces paying punitive damages and civil penalties, either in full or in part, that the U.S. federal government imposes for violations to the Clean Water Act. Federal fines for the largest oil spill in U.S. history could range from $3.5 billion to $20 billion, depending on whether gross negligence played a role in the sequences leading to the disaster.

To date, BP has paid $7 billion in claims to individuals and businesses harmed by the oil spill, and has set aside another $8.2 billion for future claims and litigation.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Judge finds Transocean contractually protected from oil-spill claims

Newly acquired documents indicate White House purposely low-balled BP oil spill size

Kurt Niland — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:34:44 +0000

Top White House officials manipulated the scientific findings of independent experts to “seriously lowball the amount of oil leaking from the BP Deepwater Horizon,” according to a group of federal, state, and municipal employees.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a national alliance of publicly employed scientists, law enforcement authorities, land managers, and other professionals dedicated to upholding U.S. environmental laws and values, filed a scientific integrity complaint Monday after reviewing documents it obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

According to PEER, the documents, which include a series of high-level emails, “indicate White House pressure to present low-range estimates as best estimates. In fact, numbers presented to the public were less than half the true flow rate.”

PEER explains how shortly after the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, the White House assembled a group of experts from academia, industry, and government to estimate the rate of oil gushing from BP’s blown-out Macondo well. That group, the Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG), would provide these vital calculations independent of the estimates BP’s engineers offered.

In its complaint, PEER charges that Dr. William Lehr of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who was appointed as leader of one of the most critical FRTG groups, “manipulated the scientific results of the FRTG experts thoughout the entire crisis to significantly understate the spill reate.”

PEER also points out that the same Dr. Lehr is author of the report that concluded 75 percent of the oil had disappeared from the Gulf of Mexico little more than 3 months after the spill began.

As leader of the FRTG “Plume Team” that analyzed videos of the gushing well to produce early flow-rate estimates, Dr. Lehr relied on Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) to estimate a leak rate in the range of 25,000 barrels per day. However, other members of the team using a more accurate measuring system found that PIV analyses were underestimating the leak by more then 50 percent. Their estimates of 50,000-60,000 bpd were not acknowledged in the Plume Team’s final report. The lower figures were reported to the public and the national media repeatedly.

FRTG members complained to Dr. Marcia McNutt, Director of the U.S. Geologic Survey, about the disagreements and omissions. She responded to them on May 29, saying pressure from the White House was to blame.

“I cannot tell you what a nightmare the past two days have been dealing with the communications people at the White House, DOI, and the NIC who seem incapable of understanding the concept of a lower bound. The press release that went out on our results was misleading and was not reviewed by a scientist for accuracy.”

While the oil was gushing from the Macondo well, scientists had to rely on analytical calculations to determine the size of BP’s oil spill. Those estimates would serve, officials presumed, as the basis per-barrel fines against BP for violating the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws. The lower the spill estimate, the lower BP would have to pay in civil fines.

However, “the leak rate was physically measured by an Energy Department team as the well was capped. This final official estimate set the leak rate at 62,000 bpd (decreasing to 53,000 bpd when finally closed), proving correct the suppressed estimates from dissenting Plume Team members,” according to PEER.

Sadly, the President’s National Commission concluded that gross underestimation of the oil spill hampered clean-up efforts and caused numerous attempts to cap the well to fail.

“This complaint serves as a litmus test as to whether the Obama administration will apply its scientific integrity rules to its own actions,” stated PEER executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that his organization has waged an 18-month court battle to obtain approximately 100 highly redacted emails while several hundred more emails are still being withheld.

“Hopefully, the investigation of this complaint will force the immediate release of the full deliberations so that the scientific record can be set straight.”

Source:

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Newly acquired documents indicate White House purposely low-balled BP oil spill size

U.S. Justice Dept seeks oil-spill fines against BP, Transocean, Anadarko

Kurt Niland — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:38:36 +0000

Lawyers for the federal government are posturing to collect heavy fines from BP and other companies for playing a role in the causing 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The Justice Department argued in a hearing in New Orleans Friday that BP, Transocean, and Anadarko should be found liable ahead of February’s trial for violating U.S. pollution laws.

Holding BP in violation of the Clean Water Act and Transocean and Anadarko in violation of the Oil Spill Act, another set of environmental-protection laws for which BP has already accepted responsibility, would mean the companies couldn’t dispute allegations that they violated the environmental laws at the trial, which opens on February 27 and will seek to determine how much each company is to blame for the disaster.

“They have admitted they are owners. They have admitted they discharged oil into the Gulf of Mexico,” one U.S. Justice Department attorney told U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier. “Each should be punished according to his own culpability.”

Judge Barbier then asked if the intention was to penalize one company $1,100 per barrel of oil spill while levying higher per-barrel fines against the others, to which the U.S. attorneys said yes. Barbier called the arguments “interesting” and said he would take them under advisement.

According to Businessweek, “Even if Barbier does rule for the U.S. on its bid for a pretrial decision, the question of gross negligence, which will determine whether the companies are subject to enhanced fines under the Clean Water Act, will be considered at trial.”

Should the court determine a company’s gross negligence contributed to the spill, fines could be assessed as high as $4,300 per barrel. The blown-out Macondo well released about 4.1 million barrels of oil into the Gulf, according to U.S. estimates.

Denying the motion would mean that Barbier would determine which companies can be held liable and subject to fines at the trial. BP leased the Deepwater Horizon platform from Transocean, while Anadarko had 25 percent ownership in the Macondo well.

Source:

Buisnessweek

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › U.S. Justice Dept seeks oil-spill fines against BP, Transocean, Anadarko

Alabama attorneys see positive outcome for state in BP oil spill trial

Kurt Niland — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:55:00 +0000

Luther Strange

Jere Beasley, Founding Shareholder of the Beasley Allen law firm, believes Alabama is in good hands with Attorney General Luther Strange and his staff representing the state in the trial against BP for damages stemming from the oil company’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The trial is set to begin next month in New Orleans.

“He’s doing an excellent job of representing the state, and I feel very confident that he’s up to the challenge,” Mr. Beasley told the Mobile Press-Register. Mr. Strange decided he and his staff were up to the challenge of representing Alabama when he assumed office a year ago, replacing former Attorney General Troy King.

“I just felt that we had the legal talent in house to handle it,” Mr. Strange told the Press-Register. “If we’re successful, we’ll be able to keep all of the recovery (funds) for Alabama taxpayers.”

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who is overseeing the BP oil spill litigation, appointed Mr. Strange coordinating counsel in the BP trial, a key role that the Press-Register likens to “the quarterback on an all-star team of lawyers representing the various plaintiffs.”

According to the Press-Register, “Beasley said the case is too complex to make predictions about its outcome.”

“Their conduct was as close to criminal as you’ll ever find in a civil case. So there has to be great motivation to put this behind them,” Mr. Beasley told the Press-Register. “Luther is a good negotiator.”

The trial is structured in three phases; the first one will focus on the Deepwater Horizon explosion and establish the role and liability of BP and the other defendants. The second “source control” phase will focus on how the defendants responded to the oil spill and why it took nearly 90 days to kill the well. The trial’s last stage will focus on the oil spill cleanup including the use of chemical oil dispersants used in unprecedented quantities and manners.

Mr. Strange told the Press-Register that the BP oil spill case is “the biggest environmental case in the history of the United States” and “one of the most important cases in the history of Alabama.”

“It’s incredibly complex, but we feel very confident heading into the trial,” Mr. Strange told the Press-Register.

Source:

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Alabama attorneys see positive outcome for state in BP oil spill trial

BP plans big U.S. expansion, wants public trust back

Kurt Niland — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:14:06 +0000

Priding itself on “making things right” in Gulf of Mexico and coastal communities hard-hit the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP says it has big plans for expanding its operations in the United States. The announcement wasn’t supposed to comfort residents and businesses still struggling to recover in the BP spill’s oily aftermath, but to reassure investors that it doesn’t intend to hold back on its push to find and extract more oil and gas from U.S. lands and waters, despite the ongoing destruction of Gulf ecosystems and frustration of people who depend on them for a living.

BP’s Bob Dudley, who replaced Tony Hayward as BP’s CEO in October 10, told investors in Chicago that BP was planning to expand its footprint in the U.S. while working to restore the American public’s trust in its company.

“If we stay on course, I am confident we can deliver a safer, stronger BP, and regain the trust of the country where are our roots are deepest and I believe our future is brightest,” Dudley said.

BP’s election of Mississippi-born Dudley is part of the British oil company’s attempts to cozy up to the Gulf again after unleashing the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Dudley replaced Tony Hayward, a British national whose public gaffes during the disaster painted him as an out-of-touch elitist.

Dudley said trust was the “key element” of its business plans outlining a return to the Gulf of Mexico and other parts of the United States, but did not elaborate on how the company sought to restore that trust.

A trial to determine liability issues among BP and its partners and contractors, the first of three trials involving the record oil spill, is set to begin next month in New Orleans.

Source:
NWI.com
UPI

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP plans big U.S. expansion, wants public trust back

Beasley Allen firm seeking BP oil spill damages for city of Troy, Alabama,

Kurt Niland — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:30:46 +0000

The Troy, Alabama, city council voted recently to allow the city to pursue a claim against BP for revenues lost during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and in its aftermath. The disastrous oil spill erupted less about 50 miles south of Louisiana in April 2010, flooding the Gulf of Mexico with crude oil just before peak tourism and fishing seasons began.

Although Troy is situated 100 miles north of the Gulf Coast, it sits on heavily-trafficked routes to Florida beaches. Motorists going to and leaving the Gulf Coast often stop in Troy to eat, refuel, and rest – activities that provide the city with vital revenue. The tourism slump following the oil spill dealt a swift and painful blow to the residents and economies of communities directly on the Gulf, but the impact rippled outward to Troy and other cities along the state’s popular beach routes.

The Beasley Allen law firm will enter a claim on behalf of Troy with the condition that the city won’t have to pay legal fees if it doesn’t win the suit. The amount of damages the city of Troy and Beasley Allen seek has not yet been determined.

The firm has filed two class-action lawsuits against BP and other companies that allegedly played a role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The lawsuits represent individuals and businesses harmed by the oil spill, including commercial fish, shrimp, and oyster operations, seafood processors and packagers, charter boat owners and operators, marina owners and operators, hotels, restaurants, and property owners, and a number of municipalities.

Typical damages resulting from the oil spill include damage to property, both real and personal, loss of profits and earning capacity, loss of commercial and subsistence use of natural resources, increased public services costs, and loss of revenue.

Source:

Beasley Allen law firm

The Troy Messenger

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Beasley Allen firm seeking BP oil spill damages for city of Troy, Alabama,

BP’s failure to follow rules caused Gulf oil spill, new report says

Kurt Niland — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:00:44 +0000

BP began drilling operations at the Macondo well on October 7, 2009. Less than seven months later, on April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in a series of massive fire balls, leaving 11 workers dead and setting off the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. What events caused the BP oil disaster will likely be disputed for some time to come. But one thing seems evident: Had BP followed its own and government-mandated safety procedures more carefully, the catastrophe likely wouldn’t have happened.

A new risk analysis report written by Frank Licata of Licata Risk & Insurance Advisors Inc. “illustrates vividly how proper risk management would have prevented the catastrophe – not in a ‘hindsight” manner, but rather in a factual and clearly observable way.”

The report points out that less than a week before the Deepwater Horizon explosion, BP ceased drilling in an area known as a “sand-shale interface,” even though, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s findings, BP’s own internal guidelines “specify that drilling should not be stopped in [this kind of area because it] increases the likelihood of cement channeling or contamination.”

The same day the drilling was stopped, BP engineer emailed supervisors, describing the Macondo well as “a nightmare well that has everyone all over the place.”

The Licata report also asserts that in addition to internal and government rules, BP personnel ignored safety and loss control standards for the oil exploration industry and “core risk management principles,” which the author expounds within the report.

“In most companies risk management falls under the domain of the CFO,” the report explains, adding that CFOs ought to note the Deepwater Horizon disaster “would have been prevented – not with heroic risk management efforts, but with a reasonably competent risk management effort.”

The Licata analysis is based on a series of reports, including studies published by the Bureau of Ocean Management, BP, and the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill’s report to the President, among others. Licata Risk & Insurance Advisors is based in Boston, Mass.

Source:

Licata Risk Advisors

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP’s failure to follow rules caused Gulf oil spill, new report says

Sick fish discovered in surf off Alabama’s Dauphin Island

Kurt Niland — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:00:47 +0000

Mobile Press-Register reporters went to Alabama’s Dauphin Island Monday looking for tar balls deposited on the beaches by BP’s Gulf oil spill, but they found the most telling signs that all is not right in the Gulf in a number of fish pulled from the surf with “bloody red lesions.”

Aren’t you glad you ate that free fish taco tourism promoters handed to you on your way to the BCS Championship game in New Orleans Monday?

Mobile Press-Register reporters pulled 21 fish from Dauphin Island’s surf. Of those caught, two-thirds had lesions on their bodies – eight with lesions up to a quarter inch in diameter and six with “much larger blemishes.” The newspaper reported that most of the fish caught were whiting, a species that dwells year-round close to shore throughout the Gulf of Mexico. The reporters also caught a 12-pound black drum with a number of lesions.

Last year, fishermen and scientists were alarmed by the number of sick fish they were catching in the Gulf. CBS reported in August that fishermen who have plied the Gulf waters for years were pulling more and more sick fish out of the water – fish with open, bloody lesions, rotting fins, and infections that the fishermen said they had never seen before in all their years of fishing.

Although some scientists believe a link exists between BP’s Deepwater oil spill and unprecedented numbers of sick fish in the Gulf, most caution that there are so many possible causes of disease that it’s hard to tell what is to blame. Sometimes outbreaks of disease and parasites can cause lesions on fish, marine biologists caution.

“Certainly there is reason to be concerned about these kind of results,” John Valentine, head of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, told the Mobile Press-Register. “Understanding what it means will require a more carefully designed scientific investigation,” he said after reviewing photographs of the fish caught on Dauphin Island.

“You’d want to know how widespread this is. There’s plenty of reason to be concerned if it turns out to be a widespread phenomenon, and if it spreads across multiple species.”

Dauphin Island sits about 150 miles northeast of BP’s blown-out Macondo well, which engineers successfully contained after months of failed attempts to stop the oil flow that erupted when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank. The spill released 206 million gallons of oil and tons of natural gas into the Gulf, contaminating Gulf waters and habits from Louisiana to Florida.

Source:

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Sick fish discovered in surf off Alabama’s Dauphin Island

BCS Championship game gives BP golden advertising opportunities

Kurt Niland — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:12:41 +0000

Monday night’s BCS National Championship showdown between the University of Alabama and Louisiana State University, broadcast nationwide from the Superdome in New Orleans, provided a tantalizing opportunity for BP to release what the Associated Press aptly called a “slick nationwide public relations campaign to persuade Americans that the Gulf region has recovered.”

The BP ads show beaming business owners from Louisiana to Florida welcoming guests and proclaiming that the Gulf of Mexico is open for business, while children frolic in pristine water, fishermen display their daily catch, servers lay down plates of seafood, and nature enthusiasts marvel at birds and other wildlife. These ads and other marketing strategies funded by BP have led to record tourism numbers in some parts of the Gulf. But for many residents and businesses still languishing from lost revenues, unpaid claims, and oil-devastated fishing grounds, the advertising campaigns look like propaganda.

Ever since BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster killed 11 workers and flooded the Gulf with oil for months in 2010, the oil giant has continually promised to “make things right” in the Gulf again. It seems the biggest part of that effort was to give Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi $150 million for tourism promotion. Hence came the commercials painting a rosy picture of the Gulf, but there were several other efforts to attract visitors.

According to the Beaumont Enterprise, “City officials in Pensacola, Fla., handed out $30,000 worth of sports towels and another $30,000 worth of fleece blankets at local events,” while “Okaloosa County gave away a trip to the Super Bowl and tickets to the BCS championship football game to drive traffic to its Facebook page.”

According to the AP, BP “is paying chefs Emeril Lagasse and John Besh to promote Gulf seafood, it’s hired two seafood trucks to hand out fish tacos and seafood-filled jambalaya to the hundreds of thousands of tourists and fans pouring into the city for the football games and it’s spreading its messages at galas, pre-game parties and vacation giveaways.”

“They talk about areas being all open. There are areas that are still closed,” A.C. Cooper, a shrimp fisherman in Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish, told the AP, enumerating bays and other fishing areas that the state has shuttered due to ongoing oil contamination. “It’s bogus, it’s not the truth,” he told the AP.

Like many shrimpers, fishermen, and seafood distributors in Louisiana, Mr. Cooper said the last shrimp yield was a disaster. “The numbers on our shrimp are way down,” he told the AP. “(BP) made it sound like they’re doing a lot, but they’re not doing much to help the fishermen out … I got good fishermen struggling to pay their bills right now.”

Clint Guidry, head of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, told the AP that the BP ads were propaganda. “When you have a lot of money, you can pretty much get any point across,” he told the AP. “It’s kind of like indoctrination.”

Source:

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Transocean, Halliburton say BP contracts clearly indemnified them against oil spill liability

The Beaumont Enterprise

BP Plc Youtube channel

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BCS Championship game gives BP golden advertising opportunities

Transocean, Halliburton say BP contracts clearly indemnified them against oil spill liability

Kurt Niland — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:00:48 +0000

After BP settled oil-spill liability issues with Cameron International, the fourth of its Deepwater Horizon partners and contractors to reach an agreement with the oil giant, BP CEO Robert Dudley took a shot at the two remaining holdouts: Halliburton and Transocean. Both companies have refused to accept blame for the disastrous oil spill, which flooded the Gulf of Mexico with more than 200 million gallons of crude in the spring and summer of 2010.

“Unfortunately, other companies persist in refusing to accept responsibility for their roles in the accident and for contributing to restoration efforts,” Dudley said following the Cameron agreement.

Tensions between BP and Halliburton increased on December 3, when BP accused the contractor of intentionally destroying cement samples, test results, and computer models that, it alleged, would have demonstrated Halliburton’s role in the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Halliburton denied the accusation, and this week BP ratcheted up its offense by suing the former contractor for all costs and damages related to the oil spill.

But whether or not Halliburton employees played a role in causing the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, the fact remains that it had a contract with BP that clearly required the oil giant to indemnify it from all damage claims, even in the event that, as Halliburton pointed out, its employees were found to be partially responsible for the disaster.

Transocean, which owned the Deepwater Horizon rig and leased it to BP for exploratory drilling, also had indemnity clauses in its contract with BP. In a motion for summary judgment filed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, Transocean says BP contractually assumed the liabilities that it is now trying to pin on others.

“Instead of living up to its word—not to mention its sloganeering to ‘make things right’—BP refused to …’PROTECT, RELEASE, DEFEND, INDEMNIFY AND HOLD HARMLESS’ Transocean,” the motion states, adding that BP’s refusal to release it from liability counters not just its contractual obligations but accepted industry standards as well.

“Major international corporations, like private citizens, must honor their promises,” Transocean concluded. “If BP, a major oil company with legions of attorneys is allowed to simply ignore contracts which have been in existence for decades, what does this say about our legal system? What does this bode for the thousands of contractors working throughout the Gulf Coast?”

Source:

Transocean

More deepwater oil rigs drilling in Gulf than before BP spill

Kurt Niland — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:34:49 +0000

After BP’s Macondo well blew out in April 2010, sinking the Deepwater Horizon and unleashing the worst oil spill in U.S. history, for a short time it appeared that offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico would be forever diminished. In reality, President Obama’s moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf lasted only 6 months and affected less than one percent of the 3,600 oil and natural gas drilling operations there. Today, about 19 months after BP’s oil disaster, there are more deepwater drilling operations than there were before the Deepwater Horizon explosion, and they are drilling deeper than ever.

A Shell platform floats two hundred miles off the Texas coast, tethered to the sea floor. The rig’s location is so remote that Shell named it “Perdido,” Spanish for lost. Its pipes stretch 9,627 feet (nearly two miles) below the surface and continue even deeper through the sea floor, grasping for a giant pocket of oil that could meet U.S. demand for two years. According to an Associated Press (AP) report, “no other well on the globe produces oil in deeper water and that’s about as deep as the Gulf gets.”

While Perdido is isolated from the shore and the resources it would need to stop a BP-style blowout, it’s in the company of many other deepwater drilling operations. According to the AP, “now the Gulf is humming again and oil executives describe it as the world’s best place to drill.”

Thanks to technology and lax regulations, no part of the Gulf is off limits to drillers. The AP quotes Marvin Odum, head of Royal Dutch Shell’s drilling unit in the Americas, saying that depth is no longer the biggest obstacle. “I do not worry that there is something in the Gulf that we cannot develop … if we can find it,” Odum said.

Oil companies covet Gulf of Mexico drilling leases perhaps more than any other. As the AP explains, “Its oil fields are enormous; it straddles the world’s biggest consumer of oil; it’s in a politically stable part of the world; and drillers can easily tap into a vast network of pipelines and refineries.”

Also, despite all the industry and political spin, “the cost of royalties, taxes, and regulation in the U.S. are among the lowest in the world.”

“Everybody wants to be there,” Gulf analyst Mohammad Rahman told the AP.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Miami Herald

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › More deepwater oil rigs drilling in Gulf than before BP spill

BP sues Halliburton for all oil-spill costs

Kurt Niland — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:20:21 +0000

BP filed a claim in federal court Monday seeking all costs and damages related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill from Halliburton, the Houston-based energy and well-completion services company the oil giant contracted to cement the blown-out Macondo well.

According to BP’s website, the company has spent more than $21 billion in cleanup efforts and compensation to individuals, businesses, and municipalities harmed by the oil spill. BP has dedicated $40 billion altogether to fund ongoing environmental and financial recovery efforts in the wake of the disastrous oil spill, which erupted when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank, killing 11 workers and releasing more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

BP contracted Halliburton to make and pour the cement slurry for the Macondo well, which sat more than a mile beneath the Deepwater Horizon oil platform. The cement plays a critical role in deep-sea drilling operations; its performance in the well shaft can prevent or permit a blowout of oil and gas from deep within the oil reservoir.

In December, BP formally accused Halliburton of intentionally destroying cement samples, test results, and computer models that would have demonstrated the contractor’s culpability in the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP asked U.S. District Judge Judge Carl Barbier, who is presiding over the oil spill litigation, to consider these allegations ahead of February’s liability trial.

BP has reached agreements with all but two of the companies involved in the Deepwater Horizon drilling operation. Cameron International, Weatherford U.S. LP, Anadarko Petroleum Corp., and MOEX Offshore have reached settlements with BP totaling more than $5 billion.

Transocean Ltd, the owner-lessor of the Deepwater Horizon rig, and Halliburton insist the oil spill was the result of the actions of BP and its employees. Additionally, Halliburton said in court papers that the cementing-services contract it signed with BP stipulates that it be indemnified from all damage claims, even if Halliburton employees share blame for the oil spill.

BP rejects Halliburton’s argument and accused the company of gross negligence in its court filing Monday.

BP, Halliburton, and Transocean are named as defendants in more than 500 lawsuits filed by Gulf Coast businesses, cities, and individuals since the oil spill.

Sources:

Bloomberg

Reuters

ABC

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP sues Halliburton for all oil-spill costs

U.S. prosecutors prepare criminal charges against BP engineers

Kurt Niland — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:20:13 +0000

“U.S. prosecutors are preparing what would be the first criminal charges against BP PLC employees stemming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident, which killed 11 workers and caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history,” the Wall Street Journal reported this morning.

Citing “people familiar with the matter,” the Wall Street Journal reports the prosecutors currently “are focused on several Houston-based engineers and at least one of their supervisors at the British oil company, although the breadth of the investigation isn’t known.” The U.S. prosecutors allegedly believe the engineers “may have provided false information to regulators about the risks associated with the Gulf of Mexico well while its drilling was in progress.”

Although the charges are possible, another News Corp. report published by Fox News explains that the Justice Department could ultimately decide not to carry through with the charges against the BP employees, noting “it’s not unusual for prosecutors to use the threat of charges to pressure people to cooperate in investigations.”

The first BP trial is set to begin in February and will focus on liability issues surrounding the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the 206-million-gallon oil spill that it unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico. BP recently settled disputes with four of its contractors and partners over the spill, but remains in bitter disagreement with Transocean and Halliburton over the roles those companies allegedly played in the disaster. Both companies argue that BP and its employees were solely responsible for causing the disastrous spill.

NPR reports the engineers facing the possible charges are prepared to answer them should they be filed, noting that their attorneys have the option of appealing to the Justice Department’s higher ranks.

“An attorney for one of the engineers said a decision to prosecute would be the beginning of the legal process, not the end,” NPR reported. A decision on whether to proceed with the charges is expected to be made before the February trial.

Sources:

The Wall Street Journal

National Public Radio

Fox News

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › U.S. prosecutors prepare criminal charges against BP engineers

Court subpoenas BP exec for February trial

Kurt Niland — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:20:53 +0000

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier has subpoenaed Lamar McKay, BP’s highest-ranking U.S. executive, to testify at the forthcoming trial in New Orleans that will determine liability for 206-million-gallon oil spill that erupted in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans is presiding over multidistrict litigation involving the BP oil spill and has scheduled a nonjury trial to open on February 27. BP and its partners Transocean, which owned and leased the Deepwater Horizon rig to BP, and Halliburton, the company BP contracted to cement the Macondo well, face about 350 lawsuits filed by thousands of individuals and businesses seeking compensation for damages caused by the oil spill.

BP has already settled liability disputes with four other Deepwater Horizon partners. Earlier this month, the oil giant reached an agreement with Cameron International, the manufacturer of the Macondo well’s failed blowout preventer. Similar agreements were made with Anadarko Petroleum, Weatherford U.S. LP, and Moex Offshore, amounting to about $5 billion altogether.

In other legal woes for the oil giant, lawyers for the federal government sought to have BP’s probation revoked last month for a 2009 oil spill that released about 13,500 gallons of oil on Alaska’s North Slope tundra. BP had been on a 3-year probation after pleading guilty in 2007 to violating the Clean Water Act when it spilled 200,000 gallons of oil from its Prudhoe Bay operations onto the North Slope tundra in 2006.

For that spill, BP also paid $12 million in fines and $8 million for restitution and community service. Critics say the fines amounted to nothing more than a faint slap for BP and didn’t provide enough incentive for the oil giant to operate with greater regard for the environment and the lives of its workers.

Source:

Bloomberg

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Court subpoenas BP exec for February trial

One year after BP oil spill, Lousiana shrimpers report rock-bottom yields

Kurt Niland — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 14:30:47 +0000

Shrimp season ended in the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday night, bringing a close to possibly the worst season for catching white shrimp in many years. Officials probing the possible causes of this season’s disastrous shrimp yield say it’s too early to tell whether BP’s record-shattering Gulf oil spill is to blame for the disastrous shrimp yield.

Of course, it’s likely no coincidence that the BP oil spill, which was successfully stopped about 16 months ago, was an environmentalist’s nightmare in many ways – from record numbers of dead dolphins washing ashore, to massive fish and coral die offs and algae blooms, to the unprecedented appearance of diseased fish with open lesions and tumors.

Danny Babin, general manager of Gulf Fish Inc. in Houma, told the Daily Comet “I’ve been in the shrimp processing business for 34 years, and this is the worst fall shrimp season I’ve ever seen.”

Dean Blanchard, a seafood processor on Grand Isle told the Daily Comet that his company generally processes upwards of a million pounds of shrimp in November. However, this year, his company brought in just 40,000 pounds.

“It’s terrible. It’s not even close,” Blanchard told the Daily Comet. “The only shrimp we’re getting are from somewhere else.”

For Mr. Babin and Mr. Blanchard and many others in the shrimp business, BP is the main suspect for such a disastrous decline in shrimp.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says that near-record flooding in the Atchaflaya and Mississippi Rivers last spring could have introduced too much fresh water and depleted oxygen levels in shrimp habitats.

“Everyone speculates, but it sure is a coincidence that this happens the year after the oil spill,” Mr. Babin told the Daily Comet. “I don’t think it is a coincidence. But we’re not biologists, we’re just shrimpers and processors.”

Slow recovery, lingering distrust of Gulf seafood, and future uncertainty are some of the factors that persuaded the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) to double compensation for Gulf fishermen with unresolved claims and quadruple the payout shrimpers and crabbers. In parts of Louisiana hardest hit by the oil spill, companies are still going out of business and fishermen are looking for other jobs.

A federal plan to study all aspects of the BP oil spill’s impact on the Gulf is underway, but will take upwards of 10 years to complete.

Source:

The Daily Comet

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › One year after BP oil spill, Lousiana shrimpers report rock-bottom yields

Report says BP oil spill created pollution of large city in middle of Gulf

Kurt Niland — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:30:08 +0000

Not long after the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010, people in the coastal areas of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida began complaining of respiratory irritation, headaches, dizziness, and other symptoms they believe were linked to the noxious fumes of the BP oil spill. Now a new government report about the pollution emitted from the spill and the attempts to clean it up may support such claims.

As millions of gallons of oil spread out over the Gulf of Mexico, cleanup crews moved in to try to contain the mess. One of the methods they used in an effort to keep the oil from reaching fragile coastal areas was burning the oil as it emerged.

“We could see the sooty black clouds from the burning oil, but there’s more to this than meets the eye. Our instruments detected a much more massive atmospheric plume of almost invisible small organic particles and pollutant gases downwind of the oil spill site,” said Ann M. Middlebrook, scientist at NOAA ESRL’s Chemical Sciences Division (CSD) and lead author of the study.

Air pollution from the oil’s natural evaporation – the oil that wasn’t burned – released 10 times more toxic particles into the air than the burning oil.

Daniel Murphy, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientist and co-author of the report, said that all the smoke and fumes were “like having a large city’s worth of pollution appear out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Normally, the marine air is very clean in that part of the Gulf,” said Joost de Gouw, another of the NOAA report authors. “The oil spill put a source of pollution in there that brought levels of levels of ozone and particulates that are normally seen in cities.”

The new report, published Wednesday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined the levels of ozone and particulates created by the BP oil spill. The NOAA researchers found that two giant atmospheric plumes of pollution reached the coast.

One plume consisted of ozone, the result of hydrocarbons from the evaporating oil reacting with nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere, and measured two miles wide. The other, made up of particulates, was 18.5 miles wide by the time it reached the coast. Both types of pollution can have an adverse impact on the lungs.

Source:

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Report says BP oil spill created pollution of large city in middle of Gulf

Shell spills oil, drilling mud off Alabama coast

Kurt Niland — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:30:43 +0000

Global oil giant Royal Dutch Shell announced on Sunday that its Appomattox well off the Alabama coast spilled 319 barrels of oil and drilling fluids into the Gulf of Mexico. This latest spill occurred about 20 miles from BP’s failed Macondo well, which was ground-zero for the massive oil spill that erupted in the Gulf on April 20, 2010.

According to Shell officials, the leak sprang from a booster line connected to the well bore under the Deepwater Nautilus rig, which Shell leased from Transocean just as BP had leased the Deepwater Horizon from Transocean for exploratory drilling. Shell said it isolated and stopped the leak, but that it had shut down and abandoned the well until it could complete the necessary repairs.

Shell downplayed the incident in its statement, saying that “at no time were there safety or well control issues,” and that “the integrity of this well was also not compromised.” Although the synthetic drilling mud that escaped from the well is described as “biodegradable” by its manufacturer’s safety sheet, according to the International Business Times, the compound poses a number of health risks, including cancer and eye, skin, and respiratory tract irritation.

The Mississippi Canyon, where the Shell leak occurred, is also home to BP’s Macondo well. Oil companies typically address relatively minor spills with language that makes them seem harmless, but with hundreds of active drillers in the Gulf and thousands more inactive and abandoned rigs, every gallon of oil released on top of any natural seeps hammers away at the health of this vibrant ecosystem and the people who live there.

Less than one week ago, the U.S. federal government conducted its first auction for Gulf of Mexico drilling leases since the BP oil spill, setting the stage for expanded offshore drilling despite lingering deficiencies in drilling safety measures and enforcement. A number of environmental groups are suing the U.S. government to stop offshore drilling in the Gulf before the necessary improvements are made.

Sadly, the U.S. also gave Shell permission to begin drilling in the remote Chukchi Sea next summer, regardless of the lack of proven resources and abilities to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic’s remote location and extreme conditions.

Source:

Offshore

YubaNet.com

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Shell spills oil, drilling mud off Alabama coast

Engineering Academy finds offshore oil drilling regulations and safeguards still dangerously lax

Kurt Niland — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:30:24 +0000

Gulf coast communities remain at risk for the devastating consequences of another oil spill because the safety-deficient culture of the oil industry has not been fully corrected since the BP oil spill, says a new report by the National Academy of Engineering.

The Academy, a nonprofit group of engineering professionals that advises the federal government on a spectrum of technical issues, says that drilling safety has improved somewhat in the Gulf of Mexico since the BP oil spill erupted in April of last year, but critical safety measures that would make another spill unlikely are still missing.

Funded by the Department of the Interior, the Academy’s study of the Deepwater Horizon disaster asserts that “companies involved in offshore drilling should take a ‘system safety’ approach to anticipating and managing possible dangers at every level of operation — from ensuring the integrity of wells to designing blowout preventers that function ‘under all foreseeable conditions.’”

The blowout preventer (BOP) that topped BP’s Macondo well was supposed to regulate the erratic pressures and uncontrolled flow of oil and gas pushing upward from the reservoir. Blowout preventers in general are so critical to the safety of the crew, the oil rig, and the environment that they are supposed to be fail-safe.

Yet in BP’s case, federal investigators found that the Macondo well blowout preventer had at least four significant problems, including a hydraulic leak and a dead battery that failed to activate the “deadman” trigger, which likely contributed to the system’s failure. Still other backups that should have stemmed the oil flow also failed. These flaws, coupled with BP’s failure to properly conduct required pressure tests on the BOP, resulted in a disaster.

The Engineering Academy also recommended adopting “an enhanced regulatory approach” that would “combine strong industry safety goals with mandatory oversight at critical points during drilling operations.” Ideally, oversight of regulations governing drilling safety would become the responsibility of a single government agency instead of being spread out across agencies with overlapping authority as it currently is, the Academy recommended.

Despite some improvements made after the BP oil spill, many critics say offshore drilling regulation and enforcement remains woefully inadequate.

“It’s back to business as usual as if the BP disaster never happened,” one environmental attorney said in a statement. “The National Academy of Engineering tells us that deep water drilling still has a high risk of disaster that the culture of corner-cutting in the industry and lax oversight by government haven’t changed. That means that the fishing communities and all the jobs in tourism and recreation in the Gulf region are at risk,” he added.

Source:

National Academy of Engineering
Environmental News Service
Earthjustice

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Engineering Academy finds offshore oil drilling regulations and safeguards still dangerously lax

BP, Cameron International reach oil-spill agreement

Kurt Niland — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:30:15 +0000

BP has reached a settlement with Cameron International, another one of its contractors involved in the Macondo well operations that ended in a deadly explosion and set off the catastrophic Gulf oil spill. BP sued Cameron and other companies involved in the Deepwater Horizon‘s drilling operations, claiming each played a role in the April 2010 explosion that killed 11 workers and set off the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

Houston-based Cameron designed and built the failed blowout preventer (BOP) that sat atop BP’s Macondo well. Because the device regulates the erratic pressures and flow of oil and gas pressing up from the tapped reservoir, its plays a vital role in protecting the the environment, the oil rig, and offshore workers.

Cameron agreed to pay $250 million to BP to settle claims related to the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which released an estimated 206 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico just south of the Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi coastlines.

In a statement released on Friday, BP CEO Robert Dudley said the “settlement allows BP and Cameron to put our legal issues behind us and move forward to improve safety in the drilling industry.” The settlement is the fourth BP has reached with its partners and contractors involved in the Deepwater Horizon drill; Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Weatherford U.S. LP, and MOEX Offshore have all agreed to pay BP to settle oil spill claims. Collectively, those agreements amounted to more than $5 billion.

“Unfortunately, other companies persist in refusing to accept responsibility for their roles in the accident and for contributing to restoration efforts,” Dudley added, taking a swipe at Transocean Ltd, the Deepwater Horizon rig’s owner-lessor; and Halliburton, the energy services company BP hired to cement the Macondo well. Both companies place the blame for the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill squarely on BP.

According to BP, Cameron acknowledged that the Deepwater Horizon blowout “resulted from complex and interlinked causes involving multiple parties.” The oil giant said that it was working with Cameron to “improve processes and procedures, managerial systems, specifications and safety and best practices in offshore drilling operations.

Cameron said its agreement with BP “removes uncertainty facing Cameron in the litigation associated with the Deepwater Horizon event.”

“Though this agreement does not provide indemnification against fines and penalties, punitive damages or certain other potential noncompensatory claims, we do not consider these items to represent a significant risk to Cameron,” CEO Jack Moore said in a statement.

Source:

BP Announcement
New York Times

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP, Cameron International reach oil-spill agreement

Conservation groups challenge federal government in court over lax oil drilling regulations

Kurt Niland — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:43:29 +0000

A new lawsuit filed Tuesday in a Washington D.C. federal court challenges the federal government’s decision to accept bids from oil and gas corporations for new drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the complaint, brought by a group of conservation organizations, asserts the federal government “dismissed the lessons learned during the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster from its assessment of oil-spill risk for the Gulf of Mexico, the possible size of an oil spill, and resulting damage — all considerations that could help prevent or mitigate a future spill.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Oceana, Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Center for Biological Diversity in an effort to prevent the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) from issuing new deep- and shallow-water drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico without regard to the same hazards that made the BP oil spill possible.

Before BP engineers successfully capped the blown-out Macondo well, more than 200 million gallons of oil had been released into the Gulf. An enormous section of the Gulf floor remains devoid of life, covered with a blanket of sticky black crude.

“BOEM is continuing the same irresponsible approach that led to the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and harm still being felt in the Gulf,” said one of the attorneys involved in the case. “It’s easier for the government and oil companies to return to business as usual without considering the oil spill’s impacts on the Gulf, but it’s illegal and irresponsible.”

Jacqueline Savitz, senior campaign director for Oceana, said the federal government is putting the interests of oil corporations above all other considerations. “The administration has buried its head in the sand, ignoring the devastating impacts of the BP spill, and acting as if nothing ever happened. But the spill’s impacts on endangered and commercially important species must be considered,” she said. “We are suing the Department of the Interior to force it to protect wildlife and ultimately, the fishing, recreation and tourism industries, rather than just selling out to Big Oil.”

A collective statement released by the conservation groups and their attorneys said that the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe blew the lid off “a history of negligence and complicity” in the now-defunct Minerals Management Service (MMS), which was charged with regulating and policing offshore drillers. But the agency that was supposed to protect the Gulf from oil-spill disasters instead used a “rubber stamp process of approving and profiting from the oil-drilling lease sales.”

As it stands, the government is relying on the same old assumptions the BP oil spill has already proven wrong, such as the maximum size of a potential oil spill, the amount of time needed to stop and clean up a spill, and accounting for technological failures, illustrated so well by the Macondo well’s failed blowout preventer and BP’s subsequent failed attempts to kill the gushing oil.

Source:

The Center for Biological Diversity

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Conservation groups challenge federal government in court over lax oil drilling regulations

Victoria Principal funds oil-spill research and response

Kurt Niland — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:59:39 +0000

She married into a family of scheming oil barons on the television series Dallas, but in real life Victoria Principal is calling for tougher oil drilling regulations while supporting organizations working to prevent another environmental catastrophe like BP’s Gulf oil spill from occurring again. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Oceana, two groups that oppose an expansion of offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic, recently announced that Ms. Principal made “extremely generous six-figure donations” to their organizations.

“Waiting until a disaster happens is waiting until it’s too late,” Ms. Principal said Tuesday in an announcement. “The strategy and campaign must begin now, in order to achieve success and prevent further devastation from increased offshore drilling and by imposing tougher standards and having improved safeguards firmly in place,” Principal said. “I hope others will join me at this crucial juncture in the future of our oceans and our planet.”

NRDC and Oceana said they have received “significant contributions” from Ms. Principal in the past that united the organizations in their efforts to shore up oil-spill prevention and clean-up efforts in Florida’s coastal communities during the BP disaster. Those efforts included deploying “a state-of-the-art underwater robot off Florida’s Gulf Coast to detect any encroaching oil, in order to rally defenses before it reached them.”

The environmental organizations plan to use the additional funds donated by Ms. Principal for their campaigns to stop big oil polluters like BP from drilling and unleashing further damage off the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The money will also help fund the push “to require critical scientific assessment and demonstrated oil spill response capability in the Arctic before allowing additional leasing.”

Many environmentalists assert that President Obama’s moratorium on offshore drilling in the wake of BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill was essentially a stall tactic engineered to allow the public’s anger to abate before federal regulators gave BP and other oil giants the green light to drill in the Arctic — an area that has always been off limits to offshore drillers.

As we have blogged in the past, BP’s spill-response plans and worse-case scenarios for their Arctic drilling are every bit as inadequate and irresponsible as its Deepwater Horizon plans, which the old Minerals Management Service (MMS) approved. Scientists have warned that a deep-sea spill in a remote region of the Arctic would be practically unstoppable.

“Americans watched in horror and disbelief as millions of gallons of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico during the BP disaster nearly two years ago,” NRDC President Frances Beinecke said. “If we’ve learned anything from this tragedy, it’s that we must not allow it to happen again.”

Source:

NRDC And Oceana launch joint effort to protect U.S. coasts from more offshore drilling: Donation from actress Victoria Principal funds advocacy for protecting against future spill (Oceana)

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Victoria Principal funds oil-spill research and response

Federal regulators still lax as oil spills plague the Gulf

Kurt Niland — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:11:26 +0000

BP and federal authorities have denied the blown-out Macondo well may still be leaking, even as miles-long slicks of fresh oil continue to blanket areas of the Gulf near the site occupied by the Deepwater Horizon before it exploded in April 2010. In the fall, a number of flyovers thoroughly documented the new spill, and samples of crude collected by investigative reporters from the site were sent to Louisiana State University for analysis. Scientists there confirmed those samples as a “dead ringer” for the Macondo well oil. Still, even as several large ships contracted by BP lingered near the Macondo well site, neither BP nor the federal government offered answers that could satisfactorily explain the size and volume of all these new oil slicks.

Other flyovers and satellite images have revealed that BP’s Macondo well isn’t the only well leaking in the Gulf. According to regulatory data, other wells just 10 miles away or so from BP’s Macondo well have been leaking since Hurricane Ivan blew through the area in 2004. These leaks have been attributed to offshore wells owned by Taylor Energy Co. LLC of New Orleans.

According to the Mobile Press-Register, federal officials have refused “to answer a series of questions about the ongoing leaks, including how many wells are involved, how much oil has escaped into the Gulf and whether any fines have been issued to Taylor Energy …” Oil spill estimates given by the Coast Guard don’t jibe with scientific estimates, as the Press-Register reports.

The Taylor Energy leak has been releasing oil into the Gulf for the better part of a decade, yet the Mobile Press-Register “could not find any record of Taylor fines during an examination of criminal and civil penalties assessed in the Gulf oil field by the federal government between 2003 and 2010.”

If federal regulators were doing their job, they would have collected thousands of dollars in fines from Taylor Energy – money that could have been applied to better enforcement and environmental cleanup. Instead, our regulatory agency did nothing.

It soon became apparent when the BP oil spill erupted in the Gulf of Mexico last year that the federal government’s oversight and regulation of offshore oil drilling was a dismal failure. The oil industry, it turned out, was literally in bed with the federal regulators. A 2008 Department of the Interior investigation found that Minerals Management Service employees, including its former director, were engaged in drug use and illicit sex with employees of energy firms.

According to the Washington Post, in 2009 a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform investigation found that MMS’s “mismanagement and cozy relationships with industry officials … led to the loss of billions in revenue.” And the list of scandals goes on.

The nature of that relationship leaves little wonder that BP’s reckless actions in the Gulf went unnoticed until the Deepwater Horizon exploded, killing 11 workers and setting off the worst oil disaster the country had ever seen. Before it was successfully capped, 206 million gallons of Louisiana crude flooded the Gulf of Mexico, strangling entire ecosystems and destroying livelihoods.

Nobody can tell what the future holds in the Gulf. Nobody knows what it will cost or how long it will take to restore the contaminated regions of the Gulf back to health. But despite the uncertainty, individuals and businesses, desperately trying to stay afloat in the wake of the BP oil spill, are forced to settle their claims with BP.

Two months after the BP oil spill began, the federal government gave the MMS a makeover and renamed it the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. But given the federal government’s response to continued reports of oil spills in the vicinity of the Macondo well, you have to wonder who the BOEMRE answers to. Has anything really changed?

Sources:

Health Freedom Alliance

Gulf Restoration Network

The Washington Post

Mobile Press Register

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Federal regulators still lax as oil spills plague the Gulf

Dispute heats up over use of BP oil spill fine money

Kurt Niland — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:50:43 +0000

A group of Gulf Coast officials went to Washington this week to urge passage of the RESTORE Act, a piece of legislation designed to ensure that 80 percent of the oil-spill fine money BP pays to the federal government would go to the states directly affected by the disaster: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

Among the contingent were Gulf Shores mayor Robert Craft, and Congressmen Joe Bonner of Mobile and Steven Palazzo of Biloxi, both Republicans. Each told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Wednesday that their communities are still in dire need of help in the wake of the BP oil disaster, which flooded the Gulf of Mexico with 206 million gallons of oil, in addition to methane gas, benzene, chemical oil dispersants and other toxic compounds.

BP and other companies involved in the operation of the Deepwater Horizon and Macondo well will likely pay between $5.4 billion and $21.1 billion in fines under the Clean Water Act. The Gulf state officials hope to see that money diverted into environmental projects and further economic recovery efforts.

“There is still a lot to be done to fully heal the scars and to ensure that future threats to our region will be minimized,” Bonner told the committee.

“All we ask is that as those who are negligent are fined, that the fine money be directed to the coastal economies that were damaged,” Craft said.

Garret Graves of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority of Louisiana told the Committee it made no sense for the federal government to profit from the Gulf States’ losses.

“If these funds are not returned to the Gulf states, that means that the federal government profits,” he said. “Why should the federal government profit from the Gulf Coast’s loss?”

The RESTORE Act has met with a good deal of resistance within the House and Senate. Bobb Gibbs, R-Ohio, said that BP and other responsible parties “have already agreed to fully pay the costs of the spill response, damages, and restoration activities,” indicating that the companies responsible for the oil spill could be trusted to keep their word.

According to the Mobile Press-Register, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Ok) has said he would bar passage of the RESTORE Act “if it even gets near the floor,” adding that, “It’s another way for Louisiana to suck money.”

Source:

Times-Picayune

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Dispute heats up over use of BP oil spill fine money

Federal regulators charge BP with another set of safety violations

Kurt Niland — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:44:14 +0000

Federal regulators have cited BP with another round of violations in connection with the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the workers killed in the incident, and the massive oil spill that erupted from the Macondo well a mile below the surface. Each safety violation the government cites BP for entails a civil penalty that the oil giant will have to pay should the charges stick.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), which replaced the corrupted Minerals Management Service after the Gulf oil spill, cited BP for five noncompliance violations Wednesday. The citations included four for failing to suspend drilling procedures when data determined the operations became unsafe, indicating that BP ignored critical signs on four separate occasions, which if heeded might have prevented the disaster. The BSEE issued a fifth citation to BP for its failure to conduct the required pressure integrity tests on the Macondo well.

BSEE regulators handed down the first set of safety citations to BP and its partners and contractors in October. BP received seven of the original 15 citations; Transocean, the Deepwater Horizon platform’s owner-lessor, and Halliburton, which BP hired to cement the well, each received four of the citations.

Regulators based the original citations on the findings of an investigation jointly conducted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Regulation and Enforcement and the Coast Guard. According to the Times-Picayune, all three of the companies were cited for “failing to to protect health, safety, property and the environment by failing to perform all operations in a safe and workmanlike manner, for not taking measures to prevent unauthorized discharge of pollutants into offshore waters and for not taking the necessary measures to keep the well under control at all times.”

BP received additional violations for its failure to conduct a vital pressure integrity test, properly cement the well, maintain the blowout preventer system (BOP), and obtain approval for the temporary abandonment procedures it used.

BP says is plans to appeal both rounds of charges.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Federal regulators charge BP with another set of safety violations

BP tells court Halliburton destroyed key oil-spill evidence

Kurt Niland — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 22:52:29 +0000

BP levied some hefty accusations against Halliburton Energy Services in court Monday, claiming the company intentionally destroyed cement samples, test results, and computer models that would have demonstrated the contractor’s culpability in the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

BP contracted Halliburton to make and pour the cement slurry for the Macondo well, which sat more than a mile beneath the Deepwater Horizon oil platform. The cement plays a critical role in deep-sea drilling operations; its performance in the well shaft can prevent or permit a blowout of oil and gas from deep within the oil reservoir.

Papers filed by BP in a New Orleans federal Court assert that Halliburton staff conducted an internal investigation of the Macondo well blowout, but they destroyed both the cement samples taken from the Macondo well and the early results of their testing. BP claims Halliburton’s role in the blowout is further evidenced by a deposition provided by Halliburton’s chief cement mixer for Gulf of Mexico prospects, who testified that the Macondo well’s cement slurry seemed thin to him. Federal tests also back that claim.

The Halliburton worker also testified that he failed to properly document the testing and then dumped the results, fearing they could be misinterpreted in litigation.

BP also says Halliburton violated court orders by not submitting computer modeling results, claiming the evidence is “inexpicably missing.” The oil company has asked U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who is overseeing BP oil spill litigation in New Orleans, to penalize Halliburton for its failure to provide the potentially incriminating computer models, and has requested that a third-party computer forensic team recover the data.

The first phase of the BP oil spill litigation will begin February 27 in New Orleans and will establish the liability of all companies involved in the Macondo well and Deepwater Horizon drilling operation.

In addition to Halliburton, BP’s other partners or contracted companies are Transocean, Anadarko Petroleum, and Cameron International Corp.

Source:

CNN

CBS

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP tells court Halliburton destroyed key oil-spill evidence

Federal prosecutors want to keep BP on the hook for Alaska environmental crimes

Kurt Niland — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:01:41 +0000

BP is a repeat offender of environmental laws on Alaska’s oil-rich North Slope, and its probation from a negligent oil spill in 2007 should not be revoked, federal prosecutors say. The oil giant is currently lobbying for an end to its probation, put in place after a 2006 oil spill that flooded the Alaskan tundra with 200,000 gallons of North Slope crude – the largest spill ever in Alaska’s oil patch.

Prosecutors will make their case in a four-day hearing in Anchorage starting November 29. According to the Anchorage Daily News, the prosecutors will present evidence that the BP Exploration has failed to act in accordance with a court edict that it should “give high priority to maintenance and maybe a little less priority on profits.” Supporting that claim: a 2009 spill that occurred when a BP pipeline froze and burst, releasing 13,500 gallons of oil onto the land at the Lisburne oil field.

“The cause of the 2009 oil spill was completely predictable and absolutely preventable,” the prosecutors asserted in their court filing. “BP simply failed to take adequate precautions and implement proper safeguards.”

According to the Anchorage Daily News, federal prosecutors will argue that BP has had a long history of environmental crimes in Alaska beginning in February 2001 “when it pleaded guilty to releasing hazardous materials at its Endicott facility on the North Slope.” For that crime, BP was fined $500,000, placed on a five-year probation, and ordered to implement an environmental management program nationwide that, in BP’s words, “ensures that all projects and operations are designed and conducted in accordance with legal and internal environmental standards.”

BP’s environmental program, however, didn’t do much good in preventing the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – the largest and most devastating oil spill in U.S. history. The Gulf oil spill made two record oil spills for BP: one for Alaska and one for the entire U.S.

BP argues that circumstances beyond its control caused the 2009 oil spill, and that the oil did not reach U.S. waters, which would translate to a violation of the Clean Water Act. Prosecutors point out that the 2006 and 2009 BP oil spills were astonishingly similar because, according to the Anchorage Daily News, “BP ignored alarms that warned of the pipe’s eventual rupture and leak.”

After BP experienced another pipe freeze and rupture in 2001, the company’s own experts recommended BP institute a series of measures designed to prevent a similar incident from occurring in the future, yet BP failed to act on that as well, prosecutors said.

Sources:

The Alaska Daily News

Business Week

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Federal prosecutors want to keep BP on the hook for Alaska environmental crimes

Two new court rulings concerning Gulf oil spill go against BP

Kurt Niland — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:14:06 +0000

NEW ORLEANS, LA — Oil giant BP is doing everything it can to sew its pockets and recover the billions of dollars it lost in the wake of its disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but things don’t always go its way. This week, despite BP’s best efforts to steer court opinion in a direction favorable to its future interests and liability, the oil giant lost two major rulings.

Considering the agonizing slowness with which the Gulf Coast Claims Facility approves and pays claims to millions of individuals and businesses harmed by its oil spill, one of this week’s rulings seems like a case of insurance karma. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled that BP is not entitled to collect insurance money for the oil spill under policies held by Transocean Ltd., the owner of the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon.

“Because Transocean did not assume the oil pollution risks pertaining to the Deepwater Horizon Incident — BP did — Transocean was not required to name BP as an additional insured as to those risks,” Judge Carl Barbier wrote in his ruling. Judge Barbier is handling BP oil-spill litigation from the U.S. District Court in New Orleans. “Because there is no insurance obligation as to those risks, BP is not an insured … for those risks. Therefore, BP is not entitled to the declarations of coverage it seeks,” Judge Barbier concluded.

According to the Associated Press, Transocean holds $750 million in insurance coverage. The company had been leasing the Deepwater Horizon to BP when the offshore platform exploded, killing 11 workers and allowing the Macondo well to gush oil out of control for months.

In another decision, Judge Barbier ruled in favor of Alabama and Louisiana, saying the states could, under Maritime Law and the Oil Pollution Act, pursue punitive damages against BP and other companies it holds liable for the oil spill. However, because the oil spill that harmed the coastline of four Gulf states was not in any of them, Judge Barbier said the states could not pursue claims under their various state laws, adding that their claims under federal law should be sufficient to fund their recovery.

A spokesperson for Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell told the Associated Press that Judge Barbier’s ruling was still under review, but that the state was disappointed by elements of the decision.

Source:

FDA, Asleep on the Job? Study Questions Gulf Seafood Safety

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Two new court rulings concerning Gulf oil spill go against BP

New study finds FDA’s seafood-safety analysis ‘flawed and unrealistic’

Kurt Niland — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 15:49:42 +0000

We seem to live in a time when it has become normal for big business interests and politicians, when confronted with a problem, to say one thing while a group of independent scientists and researchers studying the same problem reach an entirely different conclusion. While industry and their legislative allies grab headlines, the “other” voices are generally ignored or relegated to the fringe. There’s probably no finer example of this information war than the BP oil spill, which continues to plague the Gulf of Mexico, despite what all the commercials and government officials want you to believe.

So while scientists such as Doctor Bonny Schumaker fly over the Gulf documenting and filming fresh oil slicks in the Gulf near BP’s blown-out Macondo well, and tests on oil samples taken from those slicks reveal a “dead-ringer” match for BP oil, BP and federal agencies insist there are no fresh oil emissions from that well. That is just one example of this ongoing oily dichotomy. Another is the safety of Gulf seafood.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, and others have all more or less declared Gulf seafood to be safe to eat. Donald Kraemer, deputy director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said that the agency is “very confident” in the safety of Gulf seafood:

“We put in an extensive program of sampling, and the results have consistently been 100 to 1,000 times below our levels of concern. So, we’re quite confident that the seafood that’s in commercial channels is safe.”

But a new study, conducted by the National Resources Defense Council has found that the FDA “significantly underestimates risk from seafood contaminants” in six different ways. According to the study’s authors, the FDA does not account for the “increased vulnerability” of developing fetuses and children; fails to factor “appropriate seafood consumption rates” into its calculations; does not include all of the relevant health endpoints in its research; fails to “incorporate health protective estimates of exposure duration and acceptable risk,” and other “major flaws.”

“For example, FDA said that 123,000 micrograms of naphthalene per kilogram of shrimp was safe for everyone to eat,” said Miriam Rotkin-Ellman, one of the scientists and authors of the study. “According to our calculations, only 5.91 micrograms should have been allowed to protect pregnant women and children who eat a lot of seafood. For comparison, our calculations show that 46.99 micrograms of naphthalene per kilogram of shellfish would be safe for an adult consumer.”

And the picture isn’t any brighter for other Gulf shellfish. “According to our calculations, the risk of cancer associated with eating Gulf shellfish contaminated at the levels FDA says is safe could be as high as 20,000 in a million,” Dr. Rotkin-Ellman writes. “Put another way, this means that if 1,000 pregnant women (and their children) ate Gulf seafood contaminated at the levels FDA said are safe, 20 of the children born to them would be at significant risk of cancer from the contamination. This is not public health protection.”

In conclusion, the study’s authors call the FDA’s seafood-safety assessment “unrealistic and outdated” and call on the agency to update its assessment methods. “Major reforms are needed at FDA to better safeguard our food supply,” Dr. Rotkin-Ellman said.

Sources:

FDA’s Bad Science: Agency Allows Unsafe Levels of Contaminants in Seafood

Seafood Contamination After the BP Gulf Oil Spill and Risks to Vulnerable Populations: A Critique of the FDA Risk Assessment

On Wings of Care

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › New study finds FDA’s seafood-safety analysis ‘flawed and unrealistic’

LSU professor testifies to Congress about BP oil spill’s harm to Gulf fish

Kurt Niland — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:31:36 +0000

Louisiana State University Assistant Professor Fernando Galvez presented his findings about the lingering effects of BP’s Gulf oil spill before the House Committee on Natural Resources in Washington D.C. earlier this month. Dr. Galvez and his colleague, Associate Professor Andrew Whitehead, led a study that looked at how the massive oil spill is having a toxic effect on marine life at the cellular level, particularly on killifish, a species of small fish that abounds in Louisiana’s marshes and plays a key role in the base of the food chain.

Dr. Galvez and Dr. Whitehead, both Canadian natives who joined LSU’s Biological Sciences Department in 2006 and 2005 respectively, found that the BP oil spill continues to have “sub-lethal” effects on the killifish, including physiological and reproductive impairments; deformity; damaged gills, intestines, hearts, and lungs; a smaller size; and behavior one fellow researcher described as “listless.”

According to Lafayette, Louisiana’s KATC, Dr. Galvez testified that the killifish show signs of “exposure to toxic components of hydrocarbons” 18 months after the oil spill, and “while the fish are safe for human consumption, the magnitude of tissue, cellular and genetic effects seen in the fish from the oiled site in Louisiana suggest impacts on growth, reproduction, development and performance.”

Fewer, smaller killifish with reduced life spans could have a serious, destructive impact on the larger ecology of the Gulf.

According to KATC, “At the hearing, Galvez also took the opportunity to promote the need for reliable sources of federal emergency funding for early-response scientific research following natural and man-made disasters. This funding would make it possible for transparent, cutting-edge and unbiased academic research to be conducted at the most critical times following such tragedies.”

Sources:

LSU Biological Sciences Researcher Testifies about Oil Spill Findings at House of Representatives

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › LSU professor testifies to Congress about BP oil spill’s harm to Gulf fish

Feds give BP green light to resume deepwater Gulf drilling

Kurt Niland — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:01:40 +0000

It’s been little more than a year since BP successfully plugged its blown-out Macondo well, and the effects of that catastrophic oil spill still abound on the Gulf Coast and deep beneath the surface. Years or even decades may pass before scientists finally get a handle on the spill’s impact, but that unfortunate mystery hasn’t stopped BP from acquiring the right to drill another exploratory well in the Gulf much like the Macondo well, only deeper.

The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has cleared BP to drill the well about 250 miles south of Lafayette, Louisiana, in an area known as the Keathley canyon. The wellhead will sit about 6,000 feet below the surface, about 1,000 feet deeper and 200 miles further from shore than the Macondo well. BP says that it already has a drilling rig onsite and will start drilling as soon as it is “operationally possible.”

According to the BSEE, BP has met the stricter safety regulations developed by the federal government in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

“BP has met all of the enhanced safety requirements that we have implemented and applied consistently over the past year. In addition, BP has adhered to voluntary standards that go beyond the agency’s regulatory requirements,” BSEE Director Michael R. Bromwich said. “This permit was approved only after thorough well design, blowout preventer, and containment capability reviews.” The agency also approved BP’s broader drilling plans for the vicinity of the new well, known as the Kaskida prospect.

Environmentalists look upon the BSEE more favorably than the Minerals Management Service – the agency that it replaced after the Deepwater Horizon disaster revealed it to be incompetent and marred by conflicts of interest. Many caution, however, that the big oil companies and federal regulators have a way to go before offshore drilling safety, blowout preventers, and cleanup procedures are adequately improved.

Sources:

CNN

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Feds give BP green light to resume deepwater Gulf drilling

BP settles Gulf oil spill dispute with partner Anadarko

Kurt Niland — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:57:59 +0000

BP has settled a legal dispute with another of its Macondo well partners over damages stemming from the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, which killed 11 workers and set off the 5-million-barrel Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year. Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum, a 25-precent owner in the Macondo venture, has agreed to drop its claims of gross negligence against BP and give the oil giant one cash payment of $4 billion in exchange for indemnification for certain legal claims.

Although the agreement is not an admission of liability for Anadarko, it could help BP in a forthcoming trial that will determine liability for the oil company and all of its Deepwater Horizon partners and contractors. That trial is on track to start in New Orleans in February.

BP insists that it alone is not liable for the deadly oil disaster, and has sought to diffuse the blame among itself and its partners and contractors by portraying the spill as something of a perfect storm involving multiple parties and faulty decisions.

That strategy has sparked bitter legal disputes between BP and other companies involved in the Macondo venture, including Anadarko, Transocean, and Halliburton.

Months ago, BP settled a dispute with Moex Offshore, which owned a 10-percent stake in the well, after Moex agreed to pay BP $1.065 billion. BP put that money into the $20-billion trust established to compensate victims of the oil spill and said it would do the same with the Anadarko payment. BP also reached a similar agreement with Weatherford U.S. LP, a Swiss oilfield service company that designed parts of BP’s blown-out Macondo well, which agreed to pay BP $75 million in exchange for wide-reaching indemnity.

According to BP, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility that administers the $20-billion fund has paid out about $7 billion in claims to individuals and businesses harmed by the oil spill.

Praising the Anadarko agreement, BP chief executive Robert W. Dudley said it represented “clear progress with parties stepping forward to meet their obligations and help fund the economic and environmental restoration of the gulf.”

“It’s time for the contractors, including Transocean and Halliburton, to do the same,” Dudley said.

So far, however, neither Transocean, which leased the Deepwater Horizon to BP, nor Halliburton, which cemented the failed well, have shown any signs of settling with BP.

In its agreement with BP, Anadarko will give its stake in the Macondo well back to BP and BP will shield Anadarko from a number of claims, excluding government penalties, civil claims, and punitive damages.

Sources:

CNN

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP settles Gulf oil spill dispute with partner Anadarko

Orange Beach reaches settlement agreement with BP

Kurt Niland — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:53:33 +0000

The city of Orange Beach, Alabama, and BP reached an agreement Wednesday over tourism revenues the city lost during and after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The settlement came after a year of negotiating, with BP agreeing to pay $1.27 million to cover lodging and retail taxes and other “small claims” the city has tried to recover since the BP oil spill fouled Alabama’s coastline.

Although a step in the right direction, the agreement does not settle a number of claims for other lost revenues the city wants to recover. According to the Associated Press, Mayor Tony Kennon said that BP still owes the city at least $6 million for other damages and the city was prepared to use “whatever legal avenues we have to go through to go after that revenue.”

Other fiscal losses for Orange Beach stemming from the BP oil spill include franchise taxes, sewer fees, business licenses, and building permits for “multimillion-dollar projects that could have come to fruition but did not because of the oil spill,” the AP reported.

Mr. Kennon said that agreement, which was reached after BP consented to pay an additional $300,000, computes to a 10-percent increase over 2009 revenues. “We used this summer as validation for our claim that we could have been up 15 (percent) to 20 percent in 2010, had it not been for the oil spill,” Mr. Kennon told the Associated Press. “But the bottom line is we knew what was fair and we just stood by that number.”

Coastal Alabama reported a record tourist season in July of this year, with nearly $70 million in lodging revenue collected just in the month of July. Gross retail sales in July were just shy of $95 million.

Source:

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Orange Beach reaches settlement agreement with BP

LSU study finds BP oil spill damaged fish at the genetic level

Kurt Niland — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:08:10 +0000

A slew of upbeat public relations and advertising campaigns, together with a healthy dose of political spin, have helped rehabilitate the public’s perception of the Gulf Coast, left battered by the BP oil spill. But while tourists return to the Gulf in record numbers, the results of a new study by a group of scientists from Louisiana State University offer strong evidence that, despite appearances, all is not right in the Gulf.

The study, published this week in the National Academy of Sciences Journal, has found that BP’s oil spill is taking a toll on an abundant species of fish in Louisiana’s marshes, even in areas where there is no oil in sight.

According to an Associated Press report, the LSU scientists have found that the oil spill continues to have “sub-lethal” effects on killifish, a type of small fish that provide a main food source for larger fish species, including speckled trout and redfish. Louisiana fishermen also use killifish for bait. While previous studies analyzed the links between biological damages and contamination levels, the LSU study looked for damage on the DNA level caused by contamination … and found it.

Some of the damage the scientists discovered in the sampled killifish included physiological and reproductive impairments; deformity; damaged gills, intestines, hearts, and lungs; a smaller size; and behavior one researcher described as “listless.”

“We have done all this chemical testing of wildlife, seafood and water and the message has gone out that seafood from Louisiana is safe to eat,” Andrew Whitehead, an LSU genome researcher involved in the study, told the AP. “The message is that the animals are out of the woods because they are not carrying a chemical burden. But when you ask the fish directly, when you look at their biology, they show that they have been exposed and that may be a problem for populations,” Dr. Whitehead said.

Another scientist who contributed to the study said it mirrored findings in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, where serious problems in the fish population became apparent to scientists several years after the Exxon-Valdez spill.

Source: The Associated Press

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › LSU study finds BP oil spill damaged fish at the genetic level

Auburn University study finds BP tar balls are barely disintegrating

Kurt Niland — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 22:14:31 +0000

Globs of tar that washed ashore in Alabama and elsewhere during Tropical Storm Lee prove that oil from BP’s blown-out Macondo well isn’t rapidly breaking down as some high-ranking officials have claimed.

Auburn University researchers conducted a study of the tar balls that they collected earlier this month on Alabama beaches. Their analysis found that the tar appeared to be fresh and wasn’t much different from oil that was deposited on the same beaches a year ago during the peak of the spill.

The findings foreshadow a Gulf whose ecosystem may continue to be poisoned by the BP oil spill for many years to come. Seeing just how little the oil has changed over a year means that millions of barrels worth of oil and tar are likely still submerged, covering the sea floor as many scientists have confirmed. The Auburn study concluded that the BP oil spill may continue to have a negative long-term impact on Gulf ecosystems.

Fortunately, all the fresh tar on Alabama’s beaches hasn’t kept vacationers away. Gulf Shores and Orange Beach tourism officials released numbers that show that the tourism industry on Alabama’s Gulf coast is booming.

According to WSFA, July set a tourism record in Alabama with just short of $70 million in lodging revenue collected in July alone. Gross retail sales that same month amounted to $94.8 million. The previous tourism highpoint for coastal Alabama was in 2007, when $51.9 million in lodging revenue and $80.4 million in gross retail sales poured into the communities.

Sources:

Voice of America