BP claims a lack of big spills has hurt oil spill cleanup

Just lately, Tom Costello interviewed BP Exploration and Production Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles on the “Today” show regarding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Specifically, he asked Suttles for what his response was to the rapidly circulating info that oil spill cleanup technology is woefully behind the times, making the oil spill cleanup painfully inefficient. The response was that few oil spills makes technology hard to come by. “There are so few big spills,” he told Costello, “and events haven’t driven the technology change.”

Resource for this article: BP claims a lack of big spills has hurt oil spill cleanup By Personal Money Store

It takes an oil spill to motivate BP to have proper oil spill cleanup technology?

The lack of foresight by BP on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill – or lack of enough motivation to invest in preventative oil spill cleanup technology methods – appears to be really clear. What is also clear is the financial effect the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has had on BP and also the economies of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. According to NBC New York, BP has already spent $1.6 billion on the spill response and related claims. Projections for future costs and liabilities extend into the $60 to $70 billion range, although the final figure will depend upon knowing the full extent of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill damage. BP's loss in share price isn't even considered in this. Their market capitalization, reports NBC New York, has fallen by $90 billion (about 50 percent) . It is easy to imagine BP CEO Tony Hayward barking “I need money now”, but all the local economies need it even more. The cost to local economies which were ve! ry damaged by the oil spill will also reach into the billions of dollars, experts predict.

I get to be the Gulf of Mexico walrus

Clearly, dealing with an oil spill is not high on BP’s list of priorities. Otherwise, they would have been prepared for Deepwater Horizon. According to the Associated Press, the 582-page regional oil spill cleanup plan for the Gulf of Mexico region and a shorter document addressing the specific Deepwater Horizon event are littered with “mistakes and erroneous assumptions.” Among these are incorrect contact info for consulted marine life specialists (one of whom actually died in 2005, four years before the larger document was filed). But not being able to contact sources is perhaps for the best, as BP is claiming the walrus is found there. Walruses tend to live in cold-water areas like Alaska, not within the Gulf of Mexico. In what amounted to a weak defense, Doug Suttles claimed that the document specifically labeled for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill addressed “all impacted species,” instead of ones that really inhabit the region. This is illo! gical on BP's part.

Not enough oil spills to advance technology? Try doing the math, BP

According to Wikipedia (which is hardly a super-secret source of details), there have been 49 oil spills that have been recorded worldwide since the year 2000. About 24 happened within the US. If that amounts to “too few oil spills,” then BP needs to go back to school for a healthy dose of perspective and basic reasoning skills. Take a look at the Rachel Maddow video below if you need any kind of help, BP – she points out some of the major U.S. spills on a map.

Read a lot more on this topic here

NBC New York

nbcnewyork.com/news/breaking/BP_has_plenty_of_money_to_pay_spill_damages-96366344.html

NOLA.com

nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/as_bp_promised_the_walruses_ar.html

Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills