It would be unethical for an investor to condone or encourage cost-cutting practices that compromise safety, but I see nothing evil in buying shares to sustain BP’s viability as an ongoing concern. Dragging BP down benefits nobody at this point (except for whatever vultures take over its assets in the fire sale).

As a recent purchaser of a chunk of BP stock I fully accept BP’s responsibility to clean up the Deepwater fiasco, whatever the cost. The infinitesimal say I have as a minority shareholder I will use to encourage this end, as well as ongoing change to BP’s practices.

A: All of it.

The question remains, what sort of person would be likely to do such a thing. Judging from empirical observation – not the most scrupulous sort.

BP will only change in response to shareholder pressure, so we better hope that shareholders are moral, ESPECIALLY for the businesses with the trickiest ethical quandaries.

No – that’s solely the refinery business, and that’s if you take “egregious” (ie “exacerbated by the fact you’ve already been slated for a major incident”) violations, due to Texas City as above. It genuinely isn’t worse than other companies upstream.

BP is far liklier to go to zero than it is to regain it’s April 2010 levels in the forseeable future.

BP has no chance of going to zero, because BP America Inc can declare bankruptcy and then we’ll be left with a company that can’t do business in the US, but which still has significant assets in the UK, Asia and Africa.

People often forget just because the oil will one day not be visible, that the problem will be gone. Skewed bacterioplankton populations have never been discussed by the media, and its long term implications are massive.

Add to this the fact that federal stimulus money is running out and belt-tightening seems to be the order of the day everywhere, so the likeliest cause is for a bear market to continue and energy demand to soften.

BP is far liklier to go to zero than it is to regain it’s April 2010 levels in the forseeable future. The best outcome for the company at this point is that it becomes Gulf Cleanup, Incorporated.

Despite this people have already simply decided that BP acted with “reckless indifference”, that the company’s behaviour is “bad”, and that “win was commited when he owned it”.

Could it be that BP is being singled out from the group of suspects because it is perceived as foreign? Don’t the people making the comments above understand the legal process?

http://tinyurl.com/29dsbdg

Ethical? Does anyone even know what that word means? Although it has all been said before it bears repeating:

BP was given the permits to drill this well given their worse case scenario ability to clean up.

Being BP falsely promised the Minerals Management Service that its oil spill response plan “could recover 197 percent of the daily discharge from an uncontrolled blowout of 250,000 barrels per day,” they obviously cannot handle a spill of their promised capability.

BP was involved in the Exxon Valdez cleanup and although the promise at the time was, “We will make you whole.” (sound familiar) There is still oil in the sands and can be seen on the surface, still cases before the court and the fishing industry was devastated.

I think he also missed the point in the jobs lost, the mental anguish and possible repercussions from that as well as the wildlife and sea life which are being affected and will continue to be for years… decades?

Then of course there is the lack of procedure and safety equipment that was not used on this well because, it was not required in the USA. (see Bush and Cheney for that joint effort)

Although they designed a special meter for measuring oil put, they said they couldn’t measure the spill and estimated 1k barrels in May, then 5k and now it is 100k. All to mask their liability as they scrambled to hide the truth.

The past track record for spills is in the majority, but I cannot quote because I can’t find a URL. BUT they have been in business under a number of names and should be expert enough to do a job well and safely, not just quickly and with the least expense.

The extra cost for safety equipment was 500k and of course precious preparation time to make it safer. (BP admitted that in the hearings, that they didn’t use it to say time and $) I would call not using safety equipment available, which they use elsewhere in the world, negligence.

Being they were aware they were in a highly pressurized area and they knew in advance there were problems http://tinyurl.com/28ku73e the selling of stocks may also not be a coincidence either.

Having said all that, I doubt the lack of ethics in BP is that much higher on the evil greedy sleazy scale then the others, but seeing the dead wildlife and the dying dolphins and the poor cleanup response.

johnband is probably right. The evilness is likely systemic. The human and environmental costs be damned for the drill baby drill junkies.

Has BP been worse than the other majors? Globally?

If so then does it’s sleazy cost-cutting been more profitable than the others? One would think that it’s sins would manifest it’s higher profits, higher share price on PE, etc etc.

If not more profitable then has sleaze not even produced any corporate gain? Irony indeed if so.

I don’t see what’s gained by selling the stock as a demonstration of his repugnance. The sin was committed when he owned it. So as an owner, he was already responsible. Likewise, if he bought it now, the sin was committed before he owned it. And he can try to fix things with his ownership powers or not.

We don’t actually have any evidence of this, though, do we?

We know that BP’s US refining business, which is a low-margin, low-skilled, cost-centre industry, has a poor safety record. We can condemn BP legitimately for putting workers’ lives at risk in this business and not making the major changes you’d hope for after Texas City. But this has nothing to do with Deepwater.

We also know that BP’s exploration business is managed globally (ie not by the same people who manage US refining), is run as a profit centre and is on the cutting edge of technology – and we know that BP’s US exploration business does not have a notably poorer safety record than its competitors.

There’s been no credible evidence presented that any of the other majors would have managed either the rig or the cleanup any better. Indeed, we know that their Gulf of Mexico disaster plans are very similar to, and contain many of the same errors, that BP’s did.

Suggesting that Deepwater Horizon primarily reflects BP’s evilness, rather than primarily reflecting wider systemic risks associated with deep drilling in extreme conditions combined with poor industry-wide regulation, is missing the point completely and paving the way for another disaster down the line…