BP Criminal Liability Working Thread
Jason Leopold and I have both been going head on at the DOJ and Obama Administration over the issue of criminal treatment for BP and its actions in causing the Gulf disaster; see: here, here, here and here. One of the thoughts has regarded the DOJ’s ability to leverage one or both of the Federal criminal probation matters BP is currently operating under for past crimes.
One case was for the Alaska spill and BP was placed on criminal probation for three years starting in December 2007. The other case was a felony plea resulting from the Texas City Refinery explosion. Here is the plea agreement from the Texas City Refinery case and here is the concurrent statement of facts in support thereof.
The key to unlocking where we stand on this is understanding the exact relationship, and how clearly defined it is, between the parent company “BP Plc.”, the Texas City criminal defendant entity “BP Products North America Inc.” and the Alaska criminal defendant entity “BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. Also, what exact names are on the permits and leases for the Macondo well project? How do all these fit together and can we pierce these alter egos and reasonably argue that the parent entity BP Plc. is legally, including criminally, liable for all?
So this is a crowdsourcing game for one and all that are interested in helping. If we can dissect this bull manure for the cute liability dodge sham it is, maybe we can gain some traction. Put any thoughts, links, cites and results of your work in the comments. Many of you are a lot better at drilling into corporate entities than I am, so thanks for the help!
Good luck unscrambling this!
Bob in AZ
Wow.
Okay, does anyone have a list of necessary information?
Also, paging Rayne!! And paging JohnLopresti!
Suggestion: could you place a link on the sidebar, perhaps down below Marcy’s list of TIMELINE links?
That would make it simpler to get back to the page, if it’s ongoing.
Which, IMVHO, it will be.
Oh, gawd. You don’t think Marcy’s given him the key to that drawer too, do you?!
Oh, I could do that; problem is even if I put it in the sidebar like that, comments automatically turn off after three days or so. So this thread will be active for that long; if you all find things after that, just post it in the closest active thread you see and we will find it.
So you’ll need articles of incorporation for all three, I assume. Do we know in which state to look? Do oilco’s do the usual Maryland route, or do they have their own nefarious reasons to incorporate in some other particular state? I imagine Texas would be exceptionally pliant for them, for example.
Late to the discussion…Thanks for starting this thread bmaz!
According to Mary Frances Barnes, BP’s probation manager in Alaska, BP Exploration Alaska is the entity on probation there and, as you know, there is currently another criminal investigation currently taking place there as a a result of last November’s oil spill. That investigation is being lead by the FBI and the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division to determine if BP violated probation under it’s 2007 plea agreement. If the probe concludes that they did then it will affect BP Alaska but could also lead to debarment for the company as a whole.
In Texas City, OSHA slapped BP with record fines last October for failing to implement all of the safety measures that the parent company agreed to. There is also an investigation currently taking place on that one to determine if the refinery division violated probation.
Also, one thing that was agreed upon in all of these cases when the govt settled with BP, the parent company, in 2007 was that the parent company itself had to implement improved safety and maintenance measures not just in Alaska and Texas but companywide.
So according to some people who worked on both cases, an argument could be made that the same corporate culture, i.e. cutting back on safety and maintenance, was still in effect and is directly linked to the Gulf and possibly a case could be made that the disaster in the Gulf violated the probation. As bmaz said in previous threads, someone would need to make that argument.
How was this incorporated and memorialized in the agreements? What is/are the operative language and provisions? That could/would be key.
I contacted BP’s debarment counsel Jeanne Pascal regarding the 27-page compliance agreement she worked on to find out if it was in fact for BP, the parent company. Will try to find some other info while I wait to hear back from her.
DWBartoo @ 24 of the top-hat-n-tails thread lists BP Explorations and Productions,Inc. as the entity that applied for the exploration permit; his comment also cites other data that may of use in location the appropriate “defendants”.
BMAZ, in response to your question in the last thread in response to my comments, it is entirely possible that BP used an alter ego to bid on the lease. With that said, though, I know it used to be that if a lease was assigned to another entity, approval was required by MMS. I say USED TO BE because there is no telling what went on during the Bush Administration.
Oil and gas leasing is a very secretive business, and particularly in the OCS.
However, the lease itself should be a matter of public record and available from the MMS. Now, if it comes back that they have misplaced it, or the record has been wiped clean, well… ;-)
Someone in the prior thread commented about BP paying royalties on the oil and gas coming out of this blowout. Again, things may have changed, but standard leases usually use the phrase “produced, sold and saved” meaning content lost in a blowout is usually not calculated for royalties.
I would love to see that lease…
In addition to my comment above, it is often standard practice for some smaller entity to do the leasing on behalf of a larger company in an effort to keep the larger company’s name out of the picture. For one thing, it tends to drive up lease prices. The smaller entity will do the leasing and eventually assign the lease to the company that will actually drill.
I used to be involved in acquiring State of Louisiana leases for other companies, and I have to assume that the practice continues even in deeper federal waters.
This is a link to the Macondo well project. Have not gone through everything there yet to see what the name on the lease is
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/lsesale/206/cgom206.html
This also may be a relevant lease document http://www.docstoc.com/docs/19716996/Central-Gulf-of-Mexico-Oil-and-Gas-Lease-Sale
not sure why I “stuttered” on this comment. Sorry for the duplication
Your Tourettes has been cured.
Ha! Thank you!
bmaz, I am aware that you are capable of many things, but I was not aware that curing Tourette’s was one of them ;-)
Shit fuck damn!!!
Good scotch usually cures that ;-)
HA! You made me laugh like Chris Matthews
OK. here’s some info. Check out this link: http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/fastfacts/war/war.asp?-150975
It’s definitely MC 252 and lease number G32306. So maybe we can trace some info from that.
But notice the operator name: BP Exploration & Production. I may very well be wrong, but I thought there was something on the Texas Case that had the same name.
I’m wondering if this can also be a violation of their Alaska probation because it’s also part of the exploration group
Also, there are very interesting maps showing areas for lease sale, such as the one here: http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/lsesale/205/cgom205_bids.pdf
was just checking that out. It looks like they were carving out the whole thing for sale!
Definitely cheneyesque.
Right, but – at least on the case pleadings – that is BP Exploration (Alaska). Are they separate entities?
I simply cannot believe that BP really has these alter egos truly independent and isolated from the parent; if they did they would have a command and control problem and that does not comport with how they do business. But if they don’t, then I think it is a lot easier to make the argument that are all in fact simply BP for purposes of liability, even criminal liability.
Good point. Doug Suttles was head of BP Alaska and is now COO of BP global exploration and production, which also includes overseeing Alaska operations. That’s part of the parent.
Also, BPXA is a wholly owned subsidiary of BP America. That would not make it truly independent I don’t believe.
MMS pretty much made the Gulf of Mexico the number one target for oil companies.
See “Table 1. Anticipated Production”, p. 10.
In “Environmental and Social Costs” is this: “This approach cannot and does not try to measure the effects of any individual spill, nor does it take into account the unlikely event of a catastrophic spill of unprecedented proportions.” p. 12
Instead, they reached a happy middle ground: “If OCS oil and, to a lessor extent, natural gas are not produced, imports of foreign oil will increase substantially. Most of this oil would be imported by tanker, entailing risks of oil spills and environmental costs. Subtracting the environmental costs associated with these increased imports from the environmental costs associated with OCS production leaves an estimate of the net environmental and social costs associated with OCS activities.” p. 13
Their formulas are a hoot, and the “Table 3. Program Area Net Benefits” has some eye-popping “Nets”, expressed in billions of dollars p. 17
LINK.
OK, now to try to stay within the assignment by bmaz.
Here’s BP’s statement after the settlement was announced on the Alaska and Texas incidents and the deferred prosecution agreement on the manipulation of the propane market:
This is what they said in the statement, although the company does not indicate that this is directly related to the plea agreement:
Is this of any help?
https://amadeus.bvdep.com/amadeus/top20/report_2.htm
It lists 361 subsidiaries. BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc is #19.
BP Products North America Inc is #83
Oh that’s great Harpie! Thanks for that link
“Before January 1999 the company was registered as the British Petroleum Company PLC. In January 1999 following a merger the company took on the Amoco name [27]. They retained the name BP Amoco, until April 2000 [28] The transition to the BP PLC name was managed by BPs advertising agency: Ogilvy & Mather and PR Consultants: Ogilvy PR. The change of name culminated in BPs new logo and re-branding, in the first quarter of 2001 [29].
.. .
“The company’s recent history has been dominated by a number of mergers. BP already held a 55% stake in the US Standard Oil Company and in 1987 successfully acquired the remaining 45% and formed the company BP America [39]. 1987 also saw BP acquire Britoil the North Sea exploration company [40].
“On August 11 1998 BP and Amoco: the American Oil Co. Established in 1910 [41], announced that they had agreed the world’s largest-ever industrial merger [42].
On April 7th 1999 BP announced that it would buy from Enron the 50 per cent stake it did not already own in the solar electric company Solarex, the company would be called BP Solarex [43]. . . ..Also in recent years BP has combined its operations with Burmah-Castrol, well known for its Castrol branded lubricants [45] and ARCO, whose petrol is on sale across a large part of the United States [46]. ”
LINK.
The BP-AMOCO Plan of Merger.
“This AGREEMENT AND PLAN OF MERGER, dated as of
August 11, 1998 (this “Agreement”), among THE BRITISH PETROLEUM
COMPANY p.l.c. (“BP”), an English public limited company, AMOCO
CORPORATION, an Indiana corporation (“Amoco”), and EAGLE
HOLDINGS, INC., an Indiana corporation and a direct, wholly owned
subsidiary of BP (“Merger Sub” and, together with Amoco, the
“Constituent Corporations”); ”
LINK.
Jason — great work at finding those documents! Initially, you have this — BP was awarded Mississippi Canyon Block 252 (roughly 9 square miles) for $5903.37 per acre, plus a bonus payment to MMS for $34 million!! If you look at some of the other bids, they had to be pretty darned certain something was there…
On the questionable side, your link at http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/fastfacts/war/war.asp?-150975 is curious. BP was drilling away during that particular time, yet is reporting little or no activity. I wonder if MMS allows them to keep their information off of the reports. On the other hand, if you can’t trust the government to keep it secret, well — who can you trust??
Seriously, that looks like a weekly drilling and operations status report, but they are not reporting anything…
bonus payment to MMS! Wonder how much some of those individual regulators made off with. Wow!
Interesting about the other document. I have not looked at it closely. I’ll take a peek at it now. Could it be that they keep it secret for market purposes?
The so-called “bonus” payments are pretty much standard practice as an enticement to sign a lease.
The document here has some pretty interesting information about BP’s plans for that particular lease.
Doing a quick scan, I find paragraph 7.1 of particular interest regarding BP’s ability to respond to a worst case scenario. I particularly like the statement that “I hereby certify that BP Exploration and Production has the capability to respond, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worst-case discharge, or a substantial threat of a discharge, resulting from the activities proposed in our Exploration Plan.”
Paragraph 9.1 regarding Stipulation 3 should really raise some eyebrows! Essentially, it states that MC Block 252 is located within the Eglin Air Force Base water test area, and the BP must coordinate activities with it. I think that is where the restrictions on communications and reporting come in.
Checked in to see whether there were any new comments on this thread.
Absolutely brilliant.
I’m sitting here with a huge, shit-eating grin just amazed.
Well, golly gee whiz! I am glad to make someone grin tonight!
And, just in case you missed it, BMAZ thinks he can cure Tourette’s…
By cursing, no less!
Given the size and scope of BP’s mess, limiting this to U.S. courts and lawsuits may be ignoring another possibility.
The oil(BP’s) in the Gulf is the greatest threat to national security this country has ever faced on it’s own shores. Security types have been waving the terrorism flag for a while now trying to scare the crap out of people.
Oil production and transport is one of the big tools they have trumpeted loudly.
http://www.iags.org/oiltransport.html
Since this oil in the Gulf is a threat to the national security, could an Executive Order or National Security Directive be used against BP, similar to war reparations?
Where is the line between willful negligence causing a disaster of catastrophic proportions and the damage incurred by terrorism?
I don’t know what the legal line is for negligence and criminal conduct, but it seems likely that this could reach the ‘crimes against humanity’ level.
Back on a prior thread, alabama left a comment that intrigues:
If alabama comes around, any additional info or sources would be appreciated. Anyone else know about this…?
Nice find!!
Elgin Air Force Base! I wonder if that could possibly be connected in any way to a military contract as well?
On the certification about being to handle the a “worst case discharge,” is that something that something that has legal ramifications? Meaning, is that done under penalty of perjury?
I think that’s the statement that BP made that Boxer now wants the DOJ to conduct a criminal probe to determine “false statements.”
Doesn’t matter if it was sworn in light of the False Statements statute.
Got it. Thank you! That’s a good resource
Just as an aside, I would hate to be the woman who attested to that statement and signed the document. Her name is apparently Scherie D Douglas if I am reading it correctly. In the string of emails dumped earlier, she apparently states that she is new to her job…
There is a clause in the basic lease form giving the Lessor (MMS) the right of first refusal to any production for military usage at prevailing rates.
sorry-hit the wrong “reply”
Sounds like an escape clause, to me.
Bob in AZ
I looked at the link from Harpie 24. Two things I noted: 1) The list of stockholders reads like a who’s who the investment banking world, and 2) the list of subsidiaries does not list a BP Exploration and Production,Inc. Maybe your comment about applying for leases under an assumed name should be considered here, even though the application (from DWBartoo, cited by me @ 7), states that the applicant has adequate resources to deal with an accident (seems to invoke BP’s deep pockets)..
In June 2008, a Senate subcommittee held a hearing on commodities price manipulation, and the oil spot prices surged in July. It was a short time later (Sept) that the market imploded.
All of these things are surely connected, and almost certainly involve accounting fraud, offshore accounts, and shell corporations.
So I view this thread as important.
You betcha.
That 53-page document is very interesting reading. Would like to further understand the whole Elgin Air Force Base issue and Section 13b, which you noted in another comment above.
Jason, I had a thought about the nexus of “Elgin AFB” and this disaster.
We have now learned that the well itself did not have structural integrity.
However, an AFB would use the seas for ‘target practice’ and drop ordinance, would they not? Is it possible that somehow ordinance played into this? (If it did, BP would probably claim injury from the government, but I am pretty sure that the liability would be all BPs for not confirming that there was no ordinance near where they drilled. Or could some triggering of ordinance in this region also explain the source of the plume a distance from the rig…?)
Don’t mean to get OT, just thought I’d put a note in case anyone has more info.
You know what I think of when I see “Elgin AFB”? State secrets. Even Jesse Trentadue finally hit the “state secrets” law in his FOIAing and litigating for Oklahoma City bombing records, when he FOIAed for CIA records. Interview link
Nobody could have foreseen? I can. BP and the Energy Department, Interior Department, is there any meaningful difference? After Cheney?
Some info on Elgin, FWIW:
It would also perhaps be useful to include Barksdale AFB,located in Louisiana. Wiki has an interesting entry for them. Here is only a snippet:
Barksdale Air Force Base
Air Force Global Strike Command
IATA: BAD – ICAO: KBAD – FAA LID: BAD
Summary
Airport type Military: Air Force Base
Owner United States Air Force
Operator Air Force Global Strike Command
Location Bossier City, Louisiana
Built 1931
In use 1931-present
Occupants 2d Bomb Wing
Elevation AMSL 166 ft / 51 m
Coordinates 32°30′07″N 093°39′46″W / 32.50194°N 93.66278°W / 32.50194; -93.66278
Website http://www.barksdale.af.mil
Sources: official website[1] and FAA[2]
Barksdale AFB
Location of Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana
Entrance to Barksdale Air Force Base located approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) east-southeast of Bossier City, Louisiana.
The host unit at Barksdale is the 2d Bomb Wing (2 BW), the oldest Bomb Wing in the Air Force. It is assigned to the Air Force Global Strike Command’s (AFGSC) Eighth Air Force (8 AF). The 2 BW is equipped with the B-52H Stratofortress bomber, and provides flexible, responsive, global combat capability, autonomously or in concert with other forces, and trains all Air Force Global Strike Command and Air Force Reserve Command B-52 crews.
NOTE:Some may recall that Barksdale was the AFB involved in the nuclear warheads being mistakenblt transported a couple of years back. Here’s just one link:
Search ResultsB-52 mistakenly flies with nukes aboard – Army News, news from …Sep 10, 2007 … But the nuclear warheads should have been removed at Minot before being transported to Barksdale, the officers said. …
http://www.armytimes.com/news/…/marine_nuclear_B52_070904w/ – Cached – Similar
(Just for the record, the Army has a training facility at Fort Polk,Louisiana–quite near the SPR in West Hackberry.La. mentioned upthread.)
Interesting links at this website, from some entity called “Corporate Dirt Archives.” Hahaha
Examples of headings:
British Petroleum / Amoco / ARCO History & Mergers
BP Amoco’s Solar Power Greenwashing Exposed
Interesting observation:
“While headlines from the Gulf of Mexico will focus upon the clean-up effort and environmental repercussions of the spill in the coming days, headlines from the Middle East will deal with the Obama administration’s plan for renewed sanctions on Iran, the possibility of an escalation of tension between Washington and Tehran, as well as the planned summer U.S. troop withdrawal in Iraq. With BP’s deep involvement in all three contexts, perhaps they are not entirely separate stories.”
LINK.
Oh, shoot, I’m off course again. Sorry.
PS Well, while I’m off-course, I may as well add this:
“Obama biggest recipient of BP cash” [Congress, too]
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64420A20100505
I’m really glad you linked to that article about BP’s links to Iran, etc. I don’t think it’s “off course” at all!
Thanks, harpie. You and I share a love of into, don’t we? I’m kind of being a loose cannon today, all over the place, rather than concentrating as bmaz asked.
From BP Global website, under the Investors tab
http://www.bp.com//extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9021605&contentId=7040949
You can download their annual reports from 2001 to 2009. The 2009 report includes:
Excellent! If they do “not distinguish” why should we or the DOJ??
This is the case we have to hand on a silver platter to the fucking DOJ so they will do their job.
Yessiree, bmaz!
And, I hate to admit how exciting it was to see that list of documents [and this whole thread, for that matter]…now I’m off to read.
Objection! Assumes actions not in evidence!
Boxturtle (They’re not going to do their jobs unless ObamaLPP is threatened)
And they almost . . . “reach nearly as many consumers as Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer.” Whoopee.
Profile and some detail from “Investments and Income” page.
Just so everybody here knows, I just put the following in as an update to the prior Top Hat and Tails Thread:
UPDATE: Henry Waxman, Bart Stupak and the Energy and Commerce Committee have made a notable document dump:
Wow! A sunday document dump! Don’t recall the last time that happened.
Well now, that’s a mighty interesting observation.
And, just to keep y’all pissed off and working, check this shit out:
BP CEO Hayward Denies Existence Of Underwater Plumes:
These corporations really do think we’re all stupid don’t they?
I have a question. As a technical type and not a legal/corporate type, and if BP supplies so many oil products to the military, who knows if all the fines paid in Texas City (and elsewhere) were not simply offset by the military paying higher prices for their supplies? A nice little ‘under the table’ agreement between the government and a powerful corporation.
Yeah, this statement is of a piece why BP is opposed to getting tankers to scoop up the goop and sort it out. His solution: a large wet blanket. I guess he wants to wait until it washes up in the marshes.
Bob in AZ
I was thinking of a giant hoola hoop on the floor around the spill with a monstrous hose to the surface. Sounds easy enough. /s
If you could get the giant hula hoop spinning around, maybe you could separate oil from water using centrifugal force. Or something.
BP Products North America, Inc. investment review:
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=4224618
Under “Key Developments”:
Air BP Wins $124,754,182 Fixed-Price Contact
04/7/2010
Also found a complaint against them [concerning pricefixing [?]][no lo comprendo]:
http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/public/@lrenforcementactions/documents/legalpleading/enfbpproductscomplaint.pdf
That’s actually one of my next stories! Diving into the military contracts. Last year, one of the guy’s who worked on reupping BP’s military contract left the government to go to work for BP
I’m looking forward to reading that!
Nowhere am I finding the actual lease document that was signed, along with any stipulations that were entered into. I would LOVE to see that!
This is interesting (e.g., the “promises” oil companies must make relative to insurance and other such stuff).
Federal Regs: Oil Spill Financial Responsibility for Offshore Facilities in 1998. Although dated 1998, the MMS web page links directly to them, so they should be current/
LINK.
OK, I dunno if you can call it criminal… This is the basic MMS lease form as of 2004.
So far, as I am reading through it, Section 11 regarding Safety Requirements, jumped through the screen and slapped me in the face.
Section 13b is probably why the federal government is not just jumping into the fray.
Section 18d goes into the national defense restrictions and needs again — and (although IANAL) could likely be used by the government to restrict access to the area by reporters.
There are different MMS lease forms for mineral, and oil/gas offshore leases.
I think MMS-2005 “OIL AND GAS LEASE OF SUBMERGED LANDS
UNDER THE OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF LANDS ACT” is the one that is used for the lease area that is leaking.
LINK: http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/mmsforms/FormMMS-2005.pdf
However there have been revisions on multiple occasions, and this document (linked in this comment) has this note at the bottom:
“MMS Form MMS-2005 (October 2009) (Supersedes all previous editions of MMS-2005 which may not be used). Page 7”
Wonder if it’s possible, and how many hoops are involved, in getting these completed forms for BP:
“A new or renewed application for OSFR approval must include only one original of each of the following:
1. Form MMS-1016, Designated Applicant Information Certification, 2. Form MMS-1017, Designation of Applicant (from each responsible party who did
not previously submit this form),
33. One or more of the following forms appropriate for the type of financial evidence used:
A. Form MMS-1018, Self-Insurance or Indemnity Information, along with a bound, audited financial statement, and a signed Treasurer’s letter.
B. Form MMS-1019, Insurance Certificate.
C. Form MMS-1020, Surety Bond. 4. Form MMS-1021, Covered Offshore Facilities.
A submittal for an addition(s) or a deletion(s) to a current, approved OSFR application must include only one original of each of the following:
For addition(s): Form MMS-1022, Covered Offshore Facility Changes. Form MMS-1017, Designation of Applicant (from each responsible
party). Form MMS-1019, Insurance Certificate (only if the Schedule Option
is selected).”
LINK.
These should be public documents, but I won’t be surprised if they’re not.
My friends, I think I have contributed what I can to the thread and am thrilled that I managed to made RoTL grin! I have to run off and take care of some other things but will stop by from time to time to read the mail. Have a good evening!
Thanks so much for highlighting those important points in the documents. I am going to try and get a copy of the lease from MMS if it is not available publicly.
Here’s one way BP is going to avoid paying compensation:
The fishermen and the tax man
BP’s request for tax records poses a problem for some residents of fishing communities in southeastern Louisiana — the nonconformists who haven’t kept records or reported their cash income
LINK.
A
scribdlink to Lease Sale 206 pdf. The main site is ODS-Petrodata, and they have other useful things. The link to the few other lease sales docs they have is missing from the top pages somehow, but they also do turn up separately under google.~~~First link repaired – NOTE: Direct-to-PDF~~~
Getting a 404 at the first link.
Hunh, sorry —I don’t know what to say. Both just now worked for me.
Please excuse.
Please disregard my previous comment as it now works for me.
Tried it twice when I commented earlier??
Oil Spill Protest in Jackson Square Sunday May 30, 2010
Photos from the Times-Picayune – NOLA.com
Spike Lee was there, too, BTW.
LINK.
Go People!
List by year of MMS news releases.
Jason — you there? check for a DM from me re: emails, thanks.
Hey Rayne! Got it.
how do we hold BP liable for killing all of humanity ???
Lt. Gen. Russel Honore on CNN Brooke Baldwin segment tonight arguing that the U.S. should invoke a special law (can’t remember; can’t find link) to give the Coast Guard special powers. His argument deserves more attention.
Oh, BTW, turns out Honore is probably(?) going to run against Vitter.
Bob in AZ
OK, I found a link (emphasis added in quote) for what Lt.Gen. Honore is proposing:
Bob in AZ
Othniel makes a good point in a Seminal diary:
Don’t let obsession with the oil spill distract us too much for keeping pressure on for REAL financial regulation reform.
Bob in AZ
Your money or your life? Jack Benny.
You didn’t finish the story. On the old Jack Benny show, it went:
Robber: Your money or your life!
(long silence)
Robber: Well?
Jack Benny: …I’m THINKING!
Bob in AZ
badaboom!
(you’re right :-)
OT: the film Fair Game premiered 5/21/10 in Cannes Film Festival
and this past Friday 5/28/10 , Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson returned their Political Courage award to the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club of California out of protest when the club snubbed another potential nominee for being Republican (The nominee Mickey Weinstein is fighting the Christianists’ attempts at a takeover of the US military)
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/05/29/furious-valerie-plame-ca-dems-snub-key-leader-fighting-theocratic-takeover-of-military/
I need to say good night. Keep up the good work, everyone!
bmaz, based on what Harpie found in the annual report as to the structure of BP and its subsidiaries do you think that alone could be used in terms of leveling a probation violation wrt the Gulf?
I do realize there’s still a lot more work to do and that it would likely take a prosecutor who would be willing to make that case. What do we know about the US atty who has jurisdiction on the BP disaster?
ianal — but my question is, why wouldn’t this go to a corporate monitor with a sweet fine to govt? They’re happy all around, we’re screwed. That’s the pattern isn’t it?
bmaz wrote about BP Alaska specifically here:
You have some special faith in Obama’s DOJ? I don’t.
The last thing I have to say about environmental justice is, if BP had done property damage in DEFENSE of the environment, they would be be facing extreme isolation in a Communication Management Unit dungeon with no due process to even figure out who threw them there (not a judge–then who?) or challenge their confinement. First these CMUs were secret, now they’re not and the govt wants even more stringent rules. Determinant factor for who gets sent there: Your “inspirational significance.” Hope someone qualified here does a comparison.
Unless I am reading your comment wrong, I don’t believe I ever said I had any faith in Obama’s DOJ.
No, that’s my point — you all here can build a wonderful case, and then DOJ will refuse to prosecute it, or will milk it for self-engorgement and access via corporate monitoring–a jolly feedback loop or laundry cycle among thieves (can you bring RICO charges against the DOJ?), or will deliberately sabotage it, like the Blackwater Nisour? Square murder case where the State Dept spoiled the case before it even started by illegally taking evidence. Darn that darn darn Miranda, wasn’t it? Sorry if I’m using the wrong terms, but ianal, iad (i am disgusted).
Also, I hope you look at the DOJ link I left above, it goes to Jesse Trentadue’s 34-page PDF (letter and supporting documents) to Pat Leahy requesting a chance to testify at Eric Holder’s confirmation hearings.
(I guess Pat didn’t let him.) Apparently Jesse Trentadue‘s story is known “out there” in the blogosphere, but totally unreported on in the MSM, yet he’s been FOIAing and litigating for years and the crap he’s been able to document is HUGE… involving the Oklahoma City prosecutions and congressional UNoversight, when Eric Holder was Deputy AG.
And that’s the guy Obama chose for AG, an obstruction of justice artist and congressional fixer. And that’s the guy who’s supposedly our best hope for getting cases tried in federal courts instead of Calvinball military commissions. And now BP. I looked through Jesse’s PDF and I see the name “Margolis” on p.6 — wouldn’t that be David Margolis, Obama’s hatchet man on the OLC report, letting Yoo and Bybee off the hook? And here is Pat Leahy NOT calling on Holder and Margolis when he held the Senate hearing on the OLC report. Sweet.
I love what you all are doing here, but it freaks me out that in the end it’s going to depend on Obama and Eric Holder, and Pat Leahy too I guess, and how well they… hey, I was going to say manage the information, but maybe finally they’ve hit a blowout of info that they can’t control. Well then, carry on!
True.
However, looking forward it is now much more likely that jurisdictions other than the US will be involved, so any work done here could be used by any government or non-profit or international entity.
Don’t put all your eggs in the DoJ basket; no point.
There are other baskets that almost certainly would love to keep their costs down and take advantage of publicly available info.
And not simply at EW, but at many, many sites.
This is a new phenomenon, and a quick google has me intrigued at how many ‘normal’ people, to say nothing of people with expertise, are taking time to track this mess.
Unless BP thinks that it can somehow sink the entire Internet, I’d say the crowd-sourcing genie is out of the bottle.
How sad is that. I’m still waiting for war crimes trials, but the last I heard they did away with the one Spanish judge willing to go there.
Look, Obama’s press conference at the Gulf, with photo op stage managing and all, just like Bush? With minor substitutions, Stephen Colbert could say this all over again:
Now it’s Obama saying he’s in charge and everything will be fixed. As. if. What an idiot. You can’t fix dead and he isn’t going to try.
More truthiness, less truth.
But the more they close their fist on reality, the less they hold. I guess I’m placing more faith in the court of public opinion. The govts think they have a grip on… whatever… but in fact they’re delegitimizing themselves. Didn’t Doonesbury have a cartoon theme where the Bushes were invisible, dematerialized, immaterial? So goes Obama.
Wow! That’s some info you’ve got there, thatvisionthing.
thanks fatster, that’s two of us who see it
Oh, please. Not lipstick on this pig!
BP hires ex-Energy Dept official for US media effort
LINK.
So BP’s about two steps behind Obama. Money can’t buy them love.
I don’t want to go OT, but I do want to leave a link here — maybe Jason Leopold or someone can make sense of it. Via Yves Smith’s list of links today, a Kansas City Examiner link about potential profits that Halliburton could make off this disaster as a result of a buying up a company that specializes in ‘well intervention services’ the week before the explosion:
Here’s hoping that someone around here might be able to match this information with any and all BP documents, or Transocean documents, about BP awareness that the Deepwater Horizon rig hand encountered trouble in weeks prior to the conflagration.
I think that it would be impossible to prove, but the coinkydink is creepy.
Creepy, like the reported shorting of airline stocks before a certain earlier disaster.
Here’s the report of the merger.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=93906&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1411855&highlight=
I read some on Boots and Coots for some reason or another as I was doing some research a few days ago. Boots and Coots are the nicknames of Red Adair’s two former partners who split off and formed their own company. They were getting pretty old, in their 80s, and one of them was in very poor health early this year and in fact died right around the first of April. I think they had already sold a healthy chunk of the company long ago and this was just kind of the natural progression of the company.
Okay, thx bmaz.
Red Adair musta been a helluva guy. Ballsy, for starters.
Message for you back on the Blue Oyster.
Dude was literally larger than life. To give you an idea, John Wayne played him in the movies (and that was all the way back in 1968, Adair was the man all the way well past the first Gulf War when he was called on to put out the oil fires left behind by Sadaam). Hellfighters:
Hellfighters is a 1968 American film starring John Wayne, Katharine Ross, Jim Hutton, Bruce Cabot, Jay C. Flippen and Vera Miles. The movie, directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, is about a group of oil well firefighters, based on the life of Red Adair. Adair, “Boots” Hansen, and “Coots” Matthews, served as technical advisors on the film.
And it is an excellent movie, I recommend it highly. I’ve seen it several times and next time it comes on TV I’ll watch it again. Theres something about putting out a fire with nitroglycerin that just appeals to me.
Boxturtle (First time I watched it, I thought it was going to be a monster flick with demons)
From the Guardian, in an article about a UK pension fund suing BP
Just in case anyone needed more ammo to go after BP.
14 years they couldn’t inspect a pipeline…?
Just…. wow…
Bravo for crowdsourcing the research to support criminal liability for the corporation. It worked in 2003 for Groklaw, no reason it shouldn’t work here.
I’m de-lurking to suggest a slightly different tack: instead of environmental offenses or violation of probation, why not start charging BP executives with criminal securities fraud?
We now know that there were problems with the casing on the Macondo well at least 11 months prior to the blowout. We know that there were several rounds of conflict between the drilling engineers and BP’s “company man.” We know at least one, and possibly two or more, giant underwater toxic plumes of oil and dispersant are migrating through the deep water of the Gulf, just waiting to wash up on shore somewhere. We know that in the last 30 days, Tony Hayward and various other BP suits have made emphatic public statements denying these facts. At the time they made those statements, they knew or should have known that the statements were false.
Sure, BP is listed on the London exchange instead of the NYSE. But BP or its US subsidiaries must still be subject to SEC regulation in affairs dealing with the sale of its securities, no? Public lies told by officers of companies that are required to register under the ’34 Act are grounds for punishing the the liar with restitution, fines, and 25 years in federal prison.
OT: Live updates at the Guardian re the Israeli attacks on the Gaza aid flotilla (click ON at the top); I imagine the news is everywhere now. The ships seem to be arriving in Ashdod now; reports of the dead vary from 10 to 16 to 19 thus far.
Here is the link to the Bee Pee exploration plan I mentioned on the previous thread.
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PI/PDFImages/PLANS/29/29977.pdf
DW
To be clear, this exploration plan is for Mississippi Canyon Block 252, wells A and B of the “Macondo Prospect”.
Unless I am mistaken, it is well B, that is of moment.
DW
Not that any of these links will help you bmaz. I posted them early on in the reporting on the GC Spill on this thread.
Here is one of the links.
Here’s another.
And more and more and more.
Here is just some historic info which may not be helpful. There are some names which could lead to other sources.
Jason, this article goes to the suggestion of smaller firms buying and BP turning around to get the lease. This article I think was posted on an earlier thread.
Hard to believe this story appeared in this year’s March issue of the Economist.
The link at the end of this article to a USGS study holds some interesting info.
Forgive me for any repeats on links.
Contact info for the Israeli Embassy nearest you. Closed today…
The international community should bombard the international waters with humanitarian aid vessels. Just keep sending peaceful missions.
It will lead to international sanctions against Israel.
Craig Murray‘s coverage:
Five posts so far at:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/index.html
Sure hope you can get copies of all these documents soon, Jason & bmaz. Interesting.
BP Prepared for Spill 10 Times Gulf Disaster, Permit Plans Say
“BP Plc said in permit applications for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico that it was prepared to handle an oil spill more than ten times larger than the one now spewing crude into the waters off the southern United States.”
What a joke!
LINK.
BP and subsidiaries, good summary.
“Who, Where, How Much?
Structure/Ownership
BP’s Board of Directors
Subsidiaries”
LINK.
More on subsidiaries:
Subsidiaries/Affiliates Covered By Hoover’s
Air BP
Apex-BP Solar sa
ARCO Aluminum, Inc.
Logan Aluminum, Inc.
BP Brasil Ltda
BP (China) Holdings Limited
BP Exploration Operating Company Limited
BP France
BP Lubricants USA, Inc.
BP Marine Limited
BP NGL
BP Shipping Limited
BP Solar International Inc.
British Pipeline Agency Ltd.
Castrol India Limited
Deutsche BP AG
Olympic Pipe Line Company
OAO TNK-BP Holding
LINK.
Independent Oil and Gas Producers sue Goldman Sach’s and BP subsidiaries for conspiracy to defraud
More than 80 independent Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas oil and gas producers have filed lawsuits alleging that Goldman Sachs subsidiary J. Aron & Co. and British Petroleum subsidiary BP Oil Supply Company conspired with SemGroup to defraud them and convert millions of dollars worth of the producers’ crude oil and gas that was delivered to SemGroup prior to the company’s 2008 bankruptcy
http://www.waketheflockup.com/content/independent-oil-and-gas-producers-sue-goldman-sachs-and-bp-subsidiaries-conspiracy-defraud
Hi faster,
Thanks for alerting me to the existence of “Corporate Watch”.
Goldman Sachs, huh? Why am I not surprised?
Up @44 I linked to a June 2008 complaint against the company…I think it was about pricefixing [?]
http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/public/@lrenforcementactions/documents/legalpleading/enfbpproductscomplaint.pdf
For some reason I keep thinking of the word ENRON.
Anyway, I won’t be able to be around too much today, but I’ll catch up later.
Ah. yes, harpie, many of the usual suspects on that list.
I don’t think many Americans know about BP’s propane price scam where they were picking something like $750 extra per year out folks’ wallets with a 50% illegal propane price hike. Hard to stay friendly with somebody who does that to your family.
Somebody’s gotta start putting these scams on America into dollar and cents figures. “I regret to inform you that so-and-so just stole $750 out of your family’s savings?”
http://seekingalpha.com/article/12870-bp-manipulated-propane-prices-lukoil-earnings
Just for everyone’s information, as you can use it…
The lead Plaintiff Attorney for the 21 year running of the Exxon Valdez case was one Brian O’Neil of Fagre and Benson of Minneapolis. He was recently interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio regarding what it was like leading a case that lasted 21 years, with so many multiple parties. He said in the interview that he had been contacted to structure the team for the BP case, and while he didn’t relish another case of these dimensions, he was participating in planning. Far too early to say what his role might be, but he had much to say about the consequences for the people who sue. He reviewed the number of his clients who died before things were finally through all the numerous courts, the clients who had committed suicide, client’s families that had foundered, essentially all the lives destroyed by just being part of the process over all these long years. He clearly didn’t want to repeat the experience, but at the same time, knew he had the experience that could vastly shorten and perhaps humanize the process.
The interview was a slightly different approach, I think the perspective would be worth spotlighting.
Maybe one of the differences between the ExxValdz incident and Bp*s current DWHrzn plight, could be Osha interest; I think some publicly reported Congres scrutiny as well as some of the documentDump, already show labor regs are a salient aspect drawing concern re the **April 20 accident**. If labor voices hint of stridency, resource extraction firms tend toward **proactive**, early strategies. The constituting of each extraction enterprise as a standalone shell for purposes of business accountability attests to the foreknowledge that safety liability issues are diffcult in risk-taking industries. Gingrich probably has a neoPlank on the topic set for by-election time2010, which might have the title *Dissolving osha*.
This may have already been reported and the document released by Congress, but in the course of trying to track down the actual lease for Macondo I came across this: “Application for Bypass” sent to MMS dated April 15, 2010. I haven’t seen this before.
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/fastfacts/apdform/apd.asp?-9515
This may actually be a proposal for a new well. Not sure exactly what this document is yet.
“Definitions
Bypass means a remedial drilling effort in which you re-drill portions of a hole around junk (i.e., lost tools, pipe, or other material blocking the hole), re-drill “lost holes,” are re-drilled, or make directional corrections (straighten “key seats” or “crooked holes). In general, the proposed bottom-hole location of the new borehole is within 500 feet of the proposed bottom-hole location of the previous borehole. This is also called a mechanical sidetrack (see Exhibit 3).”
LINK.
Good little PDF for definitions of their tech terms. Damned handy little document!
Excellent resource! Thank you!
De nada. So happy to be of help.
It tells you to look for an EPA Discharge Permit at least? Or it tells you that BP says a lot of things are N/A, in which case I don’t understand the Application for Bypass — bypass what?
I think Faster covered that question, which was one I had too, in the comment after yours
Also, here’s a copy of BP’s Claims Process related to MC 252
It’s dated May 26. Just going through it now
There’s an old saying of the Sanfoil people that applies: “White man, you are so low that you crawl on your belly like a snake.”
BP CEO Attributes Oil Spill Cleanup Workers’ Illness To Food Poisoning
LINK.
“The key to unlocking where we stand on this is understanding the exact relationship, and how clearly defined it is, between the parent company “BP Plc.”, the Texas City criminal defendant entity “BP Products North America Inc.” and the Alaska criminal defendant entity “BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. Also, what exact names are on the permits and leases for the Macondo well project?”
This is the difference between a real person and a corporate person. When a human commits a crime and uses an alias fingerprints can connect the person to the crime. Corporate perps use all these legal fictions to get away with murder, literally, with murder.
Santa Clara needs to be addressed.
With deferred prosecution and all on the BP Texas case, doesn’t that mean there’s a corporate monitor? Who is the corporate monitor in this case, and what are the payment arrangements? Does anyone know?
Well, yes, Santa Clara should be revisited. But the real problem here is that the DOJ colludes with big business in allowing them to plead under bullshit subsidiaries. There are instances where the affiliate/subsidiary was literally created for the express purpose of being the guilty criminal defendant. The DOJ can absolutely require corporate entities plead under their parent name, but DOJ specifically and intentionally does not do so. It is a scam and a dereliction of prosecutorial duty, but there you have it.
See my question @ 145 — regardless of what level or sublevel, is there a corporate monitor for the BP Texas case (or BP Alaska, or…), who is it and what are the payment arrangements, is that known, or CAN that be known?
Please write a post about this topic, specifically.
I’ve seen this in land use (with developers creating LLCs for parts of different projects, each LLC a different ownership group, etc, etc).
But I think that most of us, most of the time, don’t think about this.
And because we don’t think about it, we don’t press our electeds about whether they think this is acceptable.
I’d sure like to see a few candidates’ feet get put to the fire this November on specifically this issue. Because the winkie-winkie-nudge-nudge insidery bullshit has simply become too toxic.
I also have seen this in a land use case I researched-and the entities were involved in obtaining COE and EPA permits,if my memory serves me correctly.
Rep Bart Stupak (in an interview on CNN) actually does a very clear job of summarizing the timeline of key problems leading up to the blowout. He really synthesizes the problems with the gutting of regulatory agencies during BushCheney, as well as problems hiring people in the Fed government (with Senators putting ‘holds’ on nominees as ‘payback’ for political antagonisms going back years).
Recommended.
Sorry if this redundant in re:
CorporateWatch says:
Boomberg says “BP Products North America, Inc. operated as a subsidiary of BP America, Inc. but now operates as a subsidiary of BP plc.”.
As of April 1 2009 BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. (BPXA) looks to have been a wholly owned subsidiary of BP America.
That would seem to make BP Products North America, Inc. and BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. siblings under BP America, Inc.
I guess the full chain would be: BP Plc (UK) owns BP International Ltd (UK) owns BP America holdings Ltd (UK) owns BP America Inc (US) owns both BP Products North America, Inc. (US) and BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. (US).
..Or at least before the moving of BP Products North America, Inc. to BP Plc., which makes it now:
BP Plc (UK) owns BP Products North America, Inc. (US)
and
BP Plc (UK) owns BP International Ltd (UK) owns BP America holdings Ltd (UK) owns BP America Inc (US) owns BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. (US).
Does that sound about right?
Close. I think legally BP Products NA and BP Exploration (Alaska) are fourth tier entities.
Meaning BP International Ltd is not in the chain?
Also note that “BP Products North America, Inc. operated as a subsidiary of BP America, Inc. but now operates as a subsidiary of BP plc.” That would make it a 2nd tier entity now. If that Bloomberg info is good.
Another interesting doc: http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/policies/criminal/
In 1994, EPA came out with a guidance document called “exercise of investigative discretion.” It is still the controlling document within the EPA criminal program and suggests there should have been an immediate criminal probe. FWIW
The Application for Bypass that you posted a link to @124 was dated 4/15/10, just a few days before the blowout. It required an EPA Discharge Permit, number not yet assigned, and apparently (per fatster @130) anticipated drilling other holes in the immediate vicinity around junk. Maybe if you’re doing an EPA doc dump dive, something will be in there. Curious timing.
Ummmm. It is.
If you look at that CNN clip of Bart Stupak summarizing what his committee discovered about the events leading up to the accident, it’s somewhat…. creepy.
weeding through a bunch of documents now and will definitely let you know if I come up with anything. The timing is curious.
I am totally in awe of what you’re doing. I can’t imagine being able to make heads or tails of it. Sincere gratitude and applause.
The bypass permit request indicates that they ran into trouble on the hole. Directional drilling as they were doing often has issues. They could have gotten junk down the hole somehow, which may have required them to cement it and drill in a little different direction. I think this is basically a confirmation that yes — they were having some difficulties with this particular well.
Whether or not this was part of the well control issue is hard to say. Formations in that area are fraught with erratic or abnormal pressures due to the amount of faulting that can occur.
Continuing on with bmaz’s post that I started quoting @103 above:
And Margolis who bmaz mentioned? Probably the same Margolis in 136 above, in the “Trentadue Mission” coverup e-mail loop.
Anybody familiar with the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST)?Also known as UNCLOS.
According to Wiki, the EU has ratified it,but the US has yet to ratify it.
I am curious if any of the terms of this treaty have been violated by BP.
Calling “Cap’n” Jack Goldsmith…
Craig Murray (UK) is — he’s been talking about it on his blog in re Israel and Turkey today and I also remember him making some quite heated comments earlier re Law of the Sea when Iran captured the British sailors. You can post a question on his blog and he may answer it. I don’t think he’s blogged about BP and the Gulf disaster.
(from second link)
THANK YOU for this link. I have never come across Murray, but it IS bookmarked for future and frequent reference.
I have been watching this LOST issue for some time, and it is disheartening how little coverage it has received considering its enormous implications.
that was exactly his point when talking about the British sailors captured…
He also had something to say about the nebulousness of the maps that I didn’t hear elsewhere. I love this guy.
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea – Wikipedia, the …The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea treaty, is the international …
en.wikipedia.org/…/United_Nations_Convention_on_the_Law_of_the_Sea – Cached – Similar
Oceans and Law of the SeaHome Page – Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, OLA, United Nations.
http://www.un.org/Depts/los/ – Cached – Similar
Oil slick crisis sets stage for UN’s LOST treaty « Victory InstituteMay 28, 2010 … The Law of the Sea Treaty is supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, environmental, energy, and business interests. …
victoryinstitute.net/…/oil-slick-crisis-sets-stage-for-uns-lost-treaty/ – Cached
Just for the record, regarding the nation’s oil reserves….Strategic Pteroleum Reserves (SPR).
The SPR management office is located in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The reserve is stored at four sites on the Gulf of Mexico, each located near a major center of petrochemical refining and processing. Each site contains a number of artificial caverns created in salt domes below the surface.
Individual caverns within a site can be up to 1000 m below the surface, average dimensions are 60 m wide and 600 m deep, and capacity ranges from 6 to 37 million barrels (1 to 4.3 million m³). Almost $4 billion was spent on the facilities. The decision to store in caverns was taken to reduce costs; the Department of Energy claims it is roughly 10 times cheaper to store oil below surface with the added advantages of no leaks and a constant natural churn of the oil due to a temperature gradient in the caverns. The caverns were created by drilling down and then dissolving the salt with water.
Existing:
Bryan Mound – Freeport, Texas.
Big Hill – Winnie, Texas.
West Hackberry – Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Bayou Choctaw – Baton Rouge, Louisiana.——–Wikipedia
Note: The Strategic Petroleum reserves hold CRUDE oil only and are ALL on the Gulf of Mexico coastline.
IIRC,as per Jason Leopold’s article ,the DOD purchased 80% of BP product for the miltary.
Has it ever been established the quantity of crude that BP calculated was actually available at this particular well?
Sure could have provided a dandy source of crude to replenish the SPR,had it not blown out…and would have explained MMS and EPA indifference.imho.
DOE – Fossil Energy: Filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve – the …Mar 25, 2010 … The average price per barrel for crude oil in the SPR reflects the value of … Sunoco Logistics, and BP North America for exchange of 12.3 …
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/spr/spr-fill.html – Cached – Similar
Mentions were made above about Elgin AFB and how the BP tract was within its test boundaries. Maybe the connection though is that the military is the biggest single user of oil in our country, I know I read that recently (here?). With such a gluttonous customer also being your regulator… no conflict of interest there, no?
Well, if you get a chance,check out the ENTIRE Wiki on SPR-especially the RIK contracts dissolution,as of December 2009.
also,@#172,I just read elsewhere,that Holder will visit the Gulf this week.Think it was at Silobreaker-great site.
(buries head in hands)
I have a bunch of new documents on the military contracts going back a decade. I will scan them and upload them in the next couple of days.
FYI here’s a ship tracker (tanker) inventory
http://seaagent.com/ships/crude_oil_tanker/index.html
http://www.digital-seas.com/vessel_search/vessel_details/on/d6fu2_m_s_mavi_marmara_q2052726.html
one more, h/t mr posaune
http://www.marinetraffic.com — can sort by ship type
Posasune, these are exceptional resource links.
TY so much!
The Elgin angle’s weird. What if a really big bomb got dropped over water and went off underwater some time in the past, and that explosion softened the seafloor or fractured some substrate level, providing a latent escape path through which oil and gas are now escaping?
Sounds like KB Home building a 587-home housing development over an abandoned bombing range… which they did, in Southridge Hills, Arlington, Texas. Maybe the govt will protect BP because the govt has fault.
Is this why the government and BP isn’t disclosing what the targets were for the well?
http://www.neworleans.com/news/local-news/405230-.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
I’d be more willing to buy that if they hadn’t been planning to cap this one, all along. It wasn’t intended to be a production well, AFAIK.
Not hard to imagine bombs exploded down there long before anyone realized them wuz oil fields.
German submarine U-166 (1941) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaFor other ships of the same name, see German submarine U-166. … the only German submarine sunk in the Gulf of Mexico during World War II. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-166_(1941) – Cached – Similar
U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico… ever watchful for German U-boats that terrorized Gulf shipping lanes. … the 10th U-boat flotilla to begin war time operations in the Gulf of Mexico. …
http://www.wintertexansonline.com/uboats.htm – Cached – Similar
German U-Boats in the Gulf of Mexico during WWII9 posts – 4 authors – Last post: Aug 11, 2006
Read about German U-Boats in the Gulf of Mexico during WWII – Has anyone ever read.. Melanie Wiggins. 1995. Torpedoes in the Gulf: Galveston …
http://www.military-quotes.com/…/german-u-boats-gulf-mexico-t23758.html – Cached – Similar
UNCOVERING THE GULF OF MEXICO’S SEA OF LOST SHIPS | Sea Classics …The work conducted by the MMS and other scientists in the Gulf of Mexico … Another German submarine, the U-1 71, which was operating in the Gulf at the …
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4442/is…/ai_n21099488/ – Cached – Similar
Some may recall that Barksdale was the AFB involved in the nuclear warheads being mistakenblt transported a couple of years back. Here’s just one link:
B-52 mistakenly flies with nukes aboard – Army News, news from …Sep 10, 2007 … But the nuclear warheads should have been removed at Minot before being transported to Barksdale, the officers said. … http://www.armytimes.com/news/…/marine_nuclear_B52_070904w/ – Cached – Similar
BP Was Drilling In A Mine Field! Gulf of Mexico Is Major Dumping …20 posts – 4 authors – Last post: May 11
You learn the darnedest things on the internets. For example, I just found out that the Gulf of Mexico is the primary disposal site for …
crooksandliars.com/susie…/bp-was-drilling-mine-field-gulf-mexic – Cached
Get more discussion results
Suburban Guerrilla » Blog Archive » Drilling In A Mine FieldMay 7, 2010 … So we’re leasing offshore drilling rights to oil companies IN A FRICKIN’ MINE FIELD. (You’ll notice this NY Times piece on the problems of …
susiemadrak.com/?p=2287 – Cached
Do they normally set mines in 5000-foot deep water? My understanding is they’re usually in shallower water, preferably with more defined traffic patterns. (And you wouldn’t want to plant an offshore rig anywhere where there’s likely to be shipping traffic, anyway, so not anywhere that’s likely to be currently mined.)
PJ. you are getting into deep waters…”G”…far above my pay grade.
However, my initial recollection of the info provided by MMS-in the linked Correntire/Madrak piece, mentioned 1000 feet,IIRC.
However, it IS conceivable that materiel that was not a mine,specifically set, can wend its way down to the nethermost regions of Davy Jones, locker….waiting to be josteled about and …well, who knows?
Uhm, the GoM’s pretty big. Do we have any concrete fix on what part(s) have been used as dumping, practice, and/or minefields?
Concrete fix??
How’d that work out for BP? *G*
Could this be why Transocean insured the Deepwater Horizon rig for …May 10, 2010 … Could this be why Transocean insured the Deepwater Horizon rig for more than it was worth? Department of Now It All Makes Sense …
http://www.correntewire.com/could_be_why_transocean_insured_deepwater_horizon_rig_more_it_was_worth – Cached
NOTE: This Correntwire link will direct you to the Madrak article.
There is some MMS info there that may be of interest to you.
The President and BP are not on the same page. BP has abandoned “stopping” the leak, and is now focusing on “capturing” the leak. There is some miscommunication going on here between the President and Adm. Thad Allen.
Bob in AZ
So… is the initial accident on the DWH consistent with an explosion on the sea floor, or at old-UXB-mine depth?
Could the well bore have been drilled through an old, unmapped UXB dump?
The talk about mines and ordnance is nonsense from what I can tell. There is no evidence whatsoever to support any of it.
Right. Previously I attacked it from the vanishingly-small-likelihood-of-spatial-coincidence side, here I go at it from the consistent-with-observations side. I think it likely fails both tests.