Topics: Medvedev raps Sechin over BP-Rosneft deal failure, Medvedev raps Sechin over BP-Rosneft deal failure, Is BP's latest fiasco evidence of Russian law or Russian chess?, BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg skewered again, BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg skewered again, BP oil rig worker aid fund draws little interest, Oiled birds collected near Pensacola numbered in hundreds, FLORIDA TRUNCATES ECO-SAFEGUARDS ON BEACH PROJECTS — No Review of Contaminants or Wildlife Damage as BP-Funded Beach Work Starts, Senate Rejects G.O.P. Proposal for More Offshore Drilling, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar dismisses complaints on drilling permits, BP, Conoco abandon Alaska gas pipeline, Transocean Holders Vote To Keep Management Liable For BP Spill, Blair's former Iraq envoy lobbied for BP oil contracts, BP to Sell Fields to Perenco for as Much as $610 Million, PA Officials Issue Largest Fine Ever to Gas Driller
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The BP-Rosneft Russian Arctic drilling deal is dead giving the fragile Russian Arctic at least a short reprieve. One can hope that BP, its big oil cohorts and the Russian oligarchs will continue to confine their attacks of greed to one another while leaving the Arctic well enough alone.
After the BP-Rosneft deal went south Monday Medvedev seems to be attempting to make political hay out of the situation. However, the real hilarity is Medvedev
citing the law like Russian business reality isn't that law is only capriciously enforced at best.
Medvedev raps Sechin over BP-Rosneft deal failure
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev rapped Premier Vladimir Putin's top deal maker on Wednesday for lapses that contributed to the collapse of a major oil deal between Rosneft and BP.
The $16 billion share swap and Arctic exploration pact, masterminded by Putin's deputy Igor Sechin, fell apart on Monday when BP and Rosneft failed to agree on a $32 billion buyout of the partners in BP's Russian venture TNK-BP.
The four tycoons -- Mikhail Fridman, German Khan, Viktor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik -- had blocked the deal in court, arguing it violated exclusivity terms in the shareholder agreement governing their 50-50 joint venture, TNK-BP.
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"Those who prepared the deal should have paid closer attention to the nuances of the shareholder agreement," said Medvedev, a lawyer by training.
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Medvedev's comments amounted to an indirect jab at Sechin, who recently stepped down as Rosneft chairman after the president ordered ministers to give up top jobs on the boards of large state-controlled companies.
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Sources close to TNK-BP have said its Russian co-owners, who are represented by the Alfa-Access-Renova consortium, had sought and received cover from Medvedev for the robust legal defense of their interests.
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Sechin reiterated an earlier threat of unspecified legal action over the collapse of the deal. "The lawyers are working on it and will say what's possible," he told reporters.
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Sechin, however, reeled off a list of candidates that could replace BP in the Arctic: oil majors Exxon, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell, China's CNPC, Malaysia's Petronas and Brazil's Petrobras.
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Medvedev Rebukes BP, Rosneft Dealmakers on Shareholder Rights - Bloomberg
Putin's energy czar, Sechin, seems to have miscalculated how much political influence he had in going up against the Russian oligarchs. Even Putin won't risk getting on the wrong side of the Russian oil oligarchs.
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Igor Sechin, Putin’s deputy in charge of energy, was chairman of Rosneft as the deal was being prepared and flew to London on Jan. 14 for the signing. He stepped down from his post at Rosneft last month after Medvedev told eight senior officials to quit the boards of state-owned companies in industries they oversee.
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Sechin’s support couldn’t save the alliance after the AAR billionaires blocked the deal in court, arguing their shareholder agreement gave TNK-BP sole rights to pursue opportunities in Russia for BP.
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“The biggest failure was to miscalculate AAR’s relative strength against the government,” Ivan Mazalov, director of Prosperity Capital Management, said May 16, the last day of BP and Rosneft’s agreement. “The government doesn’t have the power to push AAR into this deal.”
Rosneft let the deal lapse, following a one-month extension, after BP and AAR put forward new proposals that fell outside the framework of the initial alliance, the state-run company said today in a statement. BP said the companies have been in contact.
To salvage the deal BP and Rosneft agreed on an offer worth about $32 billion to buy out AAR’s half of TNK-BP, said two people familiar with the plan. Half of TNK-BP was valued at $22 billion at the close of trading on May 16.
An arbitration panel ruled on May 6 that BP could swap 5 percent of its stock for about 9.5 percent of Rosneft, as long as the Russian company agreed to bring TNK-BP in its partner in the Kara Sea exploration project. Rosneft had said it didn’t want TNK-BP, which has no Arctic offshore experience.
‘Completely Unaware’
Putin pledged the government wouldn’t get involved in the dispute between BP and AAR, distancing himself from the Rosneft deal that he had blessed during talks with BP Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley on Jan. 14 hours before it was signed in London. He later said about the meeting that Dudley had left him “completely unaware” of a potential dispute with the TNK-BP partners.
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Foreign Policy's, Steve Levine, takes a crack at reading the Russian political tea leaves regarding Medvedev's attempts to persuade people that Russian law had anything to do with the BP-Rosneft deal falling to pieces. Unsurprisingly, Levine isn't buying the notion that rule of law will be playing any significant part in Russian politics.
Having failed to learn that he wasn't grownup enough to play with the the Russian oligarchs after they tossed his sorry backside out of the country in 2008, he went back for seconds only to come up the loser yet again.
Is BP's latest fiasco evidence of Russian law or Russian chess?
Are we to believe President Dmitry Medvedev, who says that the collapse of BP's blockbuster oil deal in Russia is all a simple matter of the rule of law -- that CEO Bob Dudley was violating a contract, and that isn't done in Russia? One might reply, Since when? But this is what is baffling about the latest turn in BP's long saga of suffering -- one does not know whether Russia has suddenly gone legal, or whether we are watching a dimension of the run-up to the country's 2012 presidential election.
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The details were tantalizing -- already the most active Big Oil company on the Russia patch, BP would double-down by forming a marriage-type arrangement with state-owned Rosneft. The two companies would swap a significant number of shares, and then explore the extravagantly rich oil fields of the Arctic. Tens of billions of barrels of oil were at stake, and at once BP seemed to be back in the game.
Only, BP already had a Russian spouse -- four oligarchs collectively known as AAR -- with which it had an exclusive, first-right-of refusal agreement for any dealings on Russian soil. AAR obtained European injunctions against the deal, so Dudley had to scrape and grovel in order to try to persuade AAR to be bought out, and Rosneft to help provide the funds (one reason being that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin -- superior in rank to Medvedev -- would never allow a foreigner to own 100 percent of a Russian oil company; the other reason being that, even if Putin would, BP didn't have $30 billion in cash at its disposal, apart from the $30 billion and more that it's collecting to pay off victims of the spill).
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But in the end, the deal was upended by deep-seated mistrust between the Russians -- those at Rosneft, and the four oligarchs. In terms of the sequence of events, AAR wanted its cash first, before BP and Rosneft proceeded with their tie-up; Rosneft rejected that idea, and wanted the oligarchs to be paid only after the rest of the deal went through. They failed to bridge the gap, and the deal died.
In a two-hour press conference today, Medvedev talked a lot about the difficulty modernizing Russia's economy. In that context, Medvedev has attempted to persuade the world that Russia is now a safe place to do business; sticking it to BP -- whose Rosneft deal was based on a relationship with Putin's right hand man, Igor Sechin -- may have been part of that show.
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What would indisputably demonstrate a new day in Russia -- and perhaps attract a lot of new foreign investment -- would be a release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former chairman of the Yukos oil company, who remains imprisoned because of a blood feud with Putin. Asked whether Khodorkovsky would pose any danger to the public if he were released, Medvedev said "absolutely no danger." Whatever reforms Medvedev has initiated, Khodorkovsky has been a red line with Putin. So there would have to be a significant intellectual shift in Putin himself -- the ultimate authority in Russia -- for such a release to take place.
The main event is the 2012 election. We do not know who Putin will anoint as the next president -- Medvedev, or himself. The actions of both men are often seen by analysts as electioneering... If the loss of the Rosneft deal is part of the election campaign, BP yet again finds itself a pawn in Russian games.
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Overwhelming arrogance born of ignorance seems to a must-have job skill requirement at BP. Oddly enough, the UK's Daily Mail notes the foolishness of the BP-Rosneft deal without asking why Dudley and Carl-Henric Svanberg are still collecting paychecks from BP.
BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg skewered again
Something in the command and control at BP has gone horribly wrong.
In much the same way as Tony Hayward was hopelessly overoptimistic about the prospects for sorting the Macondo oil disaster last year, so his successor Bob Dudley looks to have swallowed the same happy pill.
Dudley’s rush to get before the cameras and announce his Arctic coup on January 14 this year without clearing the matter with his partners at TNK-BP, was the first mistake.
It has been downhill ever since with every decision going against Britain’s oil major and in favour of TNK-BP and the oligarchs.
Even now with another deadline missed and the smell of failure in its nostrils BP is insisting that the doors are still open.
It believes it can pip potential rivals to the finish line with Rosneft in the Arctic because it is the only player prepared to engage in an equity swap.
That again has more than a whiff of over-optimism. One might have hoped that BP chairman Carl Henric Svanberg, a remarkable survivor of the Gulf of Mexico debacle, might have learned something from the last crisis and perhaps restrained the enthusiasm of the impressive but over-energetic Dudley for a deal clearly built on shifting sands.
But as was the case with Hayward he seems willing to leave his chief executive to hang out to dry.
Hopefully, he hasn’t decided this time to spend an afternoon on his yacht or to use his charm to sway the Kremlin and the Russian people in the same way as he ingratiated himself with the White House and the ‘little people’ during the Gulf disaster.
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The media was only too happy to provide big oil and their lapdog politicians with a huge megaphone when they were screaming about oil rig job losses in the Gulf. Now that this has proved to be a big fat lie they deafen us with their silence. Unsurprisingly, the deadline for rig workers and supply companies to file has passed with pitifully few takers.
BP oil rig worker aid fund draws little interest
Barely more than 1,100 people applied by Friday's deadline to take advantage of BP grants intended for an estimated 27,000 people who worked in support of deepwater oil and gas rigs when the federal government imposed its drilling moratorium last year in the wake of the Gulf oil spill.
That marks little increase over the 900 applications that had been started going into the final week of the application period.
BP set up the $100 million rig worker fund, but there were far fewer applications than expected for a first round of grants last year for people who worked on the shuttered rigs.
More than $88 million was still left in the fund, even accounting for a $6.5 million administrative fee. So, BP decided to expand the fund to support the supply vessel crews, transportation workers, ancillary tool makers and others with direct connection to the 33 rigs affected by the moratorium.
Even if all 1,121 applications that were started by Friday's deadline are approved, and even if all get the maximum hardship grant of $30,000 from the fund administrator, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, there would still be about $55 million left in the fund.
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More proof that the Department of the Interior is a captive agency of big oil. There is absolutely no justification for it being necessary to have to file a FOIA request to get this information. The oiled bird numbers and deaths should have been reported as they occurred.
The question this information raises is what are the numbers in the hardest hit areas in Louisiana?
Oiled birds collected near Pensacola numbered in hundreds
An oil spill response database obtained by the News Journal shows more than 1,200 dead and live birds were collected near Pensacola during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The data, which were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, provide new insights to where oiled birds were found, and what species were hit hardest by the oil spill.
A few numbers from the data, which span from April to November, 2010:
» 1,202 birds were collected near Pensacola.
» 799 were dead when collected.
» 403 were collected alive, but many later died.
» The Northern gannet was the hardest hit species. About 246 were collected dead and alive near Pensacola.
» The laughing gull was the next hardest hit, with 280 total collected.
» Other species with large numbers of deaths included the common loon, greater shearwater, brown pelican, pied-bill grebe and great blue heron.
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More information from the database and a map showing the locations of collected birds will follow.
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This is a press release from an organization of environmental government whistle blowers. They have published a document indicating that lax standards will be used in Florida regarding beach clean up. I hope PEER takes a hard look at which contractors end up getting the work and where their political donations have gone.
FLORIDA TRUNCATES ECO-SAFEGUARDS ON BEACH PROJECTS — No Review of Contaminants or Wildlife Damage as BP-Funded Beach Work Starts | Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: News Releases
Tallahassee — Florida has suspended key protections to reduce or prevent environmental harm and public health risks in rebuilding eroded beaches with dredged materials, according to agency documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). This major relaxation occurs just as millions of dollars from British Petroleum is released to finance a large number of beach projects in compensation for damage from last year’s Gulf oil blowout.
In an April 15, 2011 directive, a top official in the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a reinterpretation for how the agency would apply rules governing beach projects. The memo by Jeff Littlejohn, DEP Deputy Secretary for Regulatory programs, makes clear that beach work should be presumptively approved regardless of consequences, stating –
“While we must consider the potential for adverse impacts to fish and wildlife and their habitats, we must keep the following fact clear in our minds: The restoration of critically eroded beaches increases habitat and has been determined by the legislature to be in the public interest.” (Emphasis in original)
Besides shunting aside wildlife impacts, the memo directs DEP permit staff to –
- Not consider listed “contaminants” used in borrow material when deciding whether or not to allow the project to go forward, unless they would cause “cementation” of the beach;
- Avoid requesting additional information about projects or imposing conditions. Under the memo, it is uncertain how DEP will prevent prohibited toxic material, construction debris or other foreign matter from being deposited onto artificially reinforced beaches; and
- Suspend reviews on planting plans which determine “a project’s potential to impact the beach and dune system.” This order was entitled “Stay out of the Weeds” (Emphases in original).
- “The new marching orders in Florida are damn the beaches, full speed ahead,” stated Florida PEER Director Jerry Phillips, a former DEP enforcement attorney. “Under this directive, state permit writers cannot do their jobs of making sure that the beach work is beneficial and done responsibly.”
Last month, BP said it will give Florida $100 million for environmental and natural resource restoration and recovery from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. The funds are for beach re-nourishment projects, as well as restoration of oyster reefs, sea grass beds and bird habitat. This initial BP payment will be followed by a much bigger sum BP will owe Gulf states once damage assessments are completed.
“Given the huge magnitude of the beach work that is about to commence in Florida, we should make sure it is done right rather than in a fly-by-night frenzy,” added Phillips. “Florida’s beaches are too important to cover with crap and call it restoration.”
DEP directive
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The Senate has provided a small bit of good news in rejecting the insane legislation passed by the Republican controlled-house to turn offshore drilling into a free-for-all with even fewer meaningful safeguards than the pathetic ones currently in place.
Senate Rejects G.O.P. Proposal for More Offshore Drilling
With Democrats citing last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as a cautionary tale, the Senate on Wednesday decisively rejected a Republican plan to allow more coastal oil and gas exploration and to speed the issuance of drilling permits to oil companies.
The 57-to-42 vote against the measure came a day after Republicans rejected a Democratic plan to end tax breaks for oil companies as both parties sought to gain political advantage with frustrated consumers contending with high prices at the pump.
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Democrats dismissed the Republican plan as a risky effort to accelerate drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and along the East Coast without the necessary safeguards in place. They accused Republicans of not learning from the BP spill.
“This reckless bill would allow drilling in sensitive coastal areas even though current safety and oversight laws have been deemed to be inadequate to prevent a repeat of the gulf disaster,” said Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey.
Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said, “You would think that the BP spill never happened if you consider this bill.”
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Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and BOEMRE director Michael Bromwich have been busy talking up how quickly they are issuing offshore drilling permits and spewing fairy tales about doing their jobs of ensuring safety and the health of the environment.
Senator Mary Landrieu is busy, as usual, grubbing for money for Louisiana politicians to waste on lining their own pockets and that of their political buddies.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar dismisses complaints on drilling permits
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday defended the pace of permitting of deep- and shallow-water drilling before the Senate Energy Committee and said that continued complaints amounted to nothing but Washington "noise."
Management, Regulation and Enforcement Director Michael Bromwich, center, and Noble Energy Vice President Bob Bemis as they tour the ENSCO 8501 drilling rig about 70 miles offshore of Venice on April 13.
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The confrontation over permitting numbers came on a day in which the full Senate turned its attention to gas prices, oil company profits and energy policy, closing with Senate Democrats, on a 52-48 vote, falling short of winning the 60 votes needed to proceed with a bill to remove $21 billion in tax incentives and deductions for the five largest oil companies over the next 10 years.
Landrieu, one of three Democrats to vote with all but two Republicans to block consideration of the bill, said she won't vote for any drilling legislation if it doesn't include accelerated sharing of the revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling with Louisiana and other coastal states. That includes the drilling bill sponsored by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the GOP leader, to be taken up today, that both Landrieu and Sen. David Vitter, in an unusual joint statement, said would slow permitting and do nothing to accelerate revenue sharing.
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Salazar testified that the administration is determined to get back to drilling "in a way that's safe and protects the environment" and that "we are just not about talking the talk, we are about walking the walk in terms of drilling in our country."
Bromwich said the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has approved permits for 14 new deepwater wells since two groups unveiled emergency containment systems that operators could use in their permit applications.
"Do the math," Bromwich said. "We've permitted unique deepwater wells on the average of about one every four to five business days since containment capabilities were available. That's not a significantly slower pace than has historically been the case. So the notion that it's taken us a very long time to permit deepwater applications is really not true."
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The good news is that BP will be losing money on their Alaska gas pipeline and people in its path won't have to worry about being blown to bits due to BPs atrocious safety and maintenance practices. The bad news is that the pipeline isn't getting as many takers as expected because they are fracking the beejeebers out of shale in the lower 48.
BP, Conoco abandon Alaska gas pipeline
An Alaskan natural gas pipeline coalition between BP and ConocoPhillips said it was scrapping a $35 billion project in part because of North American shale.
BP-Conoco venture Denali said it was giving up on plans to build a natural gas pipeline, saying development of shale gas resources in North America "created a very difficult environment" to get financial commitments from potential customers.
Denali President Bud Fackrell said his company was walking away from the project because it didn't have enough customer support.
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Fackrell said the company spent more than $165 million on the project since 2008.
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Transocean shareholders rejected a board proposal that would have preventing them from suing the socks off the company directors and top management for their negligence in the Deepwater Horizon disaster. This is only the second time in Swiss history where shareholders have rejected a board proposal.
Transocean Holders Vote To Keep Management Liable For BP Spill
HOUSTON -(Dow Jones)- Transocean Ltd. (RIG) shareholders quashed a proposal that would have absolved the company's directors and top management from liability for the contract driller's 2010 activities, including the deadly Deepwater Horizon disaster.
The vote marks only the second time in Swiss corporate history that shareholders have rejected a board proposal.
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Owners of 120.9 million shares voted against discharge while those holding 97.7 million shares voted for it, Transocean said in a Wednesday securities filing.
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Two shareholder lawsuits have surfaced in Texas in response to the spill. One alleges, among other things, that Transocean's management failed to monitor and made misleading statements about the company's safety risks as well as its financial condition.
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But the results of Friday's vote were not unprecedented. Last year UBS AG ( UBS, UBSN.VX) shareholders voted against absolving management for activities in 2007 when the investment bank saw heavy losses.
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Sleaze and lack of ethics seem to be another BP employee job skill requirement.
Blair's former Iraq envoy lobbied for BP oil contracts
Tony Blair's special envoy to Iraq lobbied the country's Prime Minister on oil contracts for BP just three months after leaving government service, newly released official documents have revealed.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who as Britain's ambassador to the United Nations had made the case for invading Iraq, served as UK special representative to Iraq from September 2003 to June 2004. Soon after, he met Iyad Allawi despite having been warned against developing business links with Iraq by the watchdog responsible for ethical oversight on the activities of former civil servants.
The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments had specifically asked Sir Jeremy not to visit Iraq on business, nor have commercial dealings with companies there, for six months after taking up the post of special adviser with BP in June 2004. However, three months later Sir Jeremy and the then BP chief executive Lord Browne, met Mr Allawi during his visit to London. An internal email by an official in the Department of Trade and Industry said: "BP Meeting: in the end, BP decided they wanted a "private" meeting (Allawi, Lord Brown [sic], Sir Jeremy Greenstock and Mike Daly, President BP Middle East) so I dropped out."
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Lord Browne had denied that the company was too close to Tony Blair. He told shareholders it was "neither fair nor reasonable" for critics to label BP "Blair Petroleum" because of its links with the Prime Minister.
In 2009 BP won a 20-year deal to manage the Rumaila field and is set to receive returns, along with its partner CNPC, worth $660m a year after tax.
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Having trashed the Gulf, BP is doubling down on high risk drilling in the North Sea. Regrettably, the UK government will deal the cards to give BP the opportunity to go for another deep sea gusher or two.
BP to Sell Fields to Perenco for as Much as $610 Million
BP Plc said it agreed to sell its interests in the Wytch Farm, Wareham, Beacon, and Kimmeridge U.K. oil and gas fields to Perenco U.K. Ltd. for as much as $610 million as part of a plan to divest assets.
BP is selling assets to focus more on the North Sea and shore up its balance sheet after last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Today’s deal follows sales totaling around $25 billion.
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It's not directly on-topic but I thought a small bit of good news would be welcome even though it seems it took a critical Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story and pressure from the EPA to motivate Republican governor Tom Corbett's administration into pretending they give a rat's patootie about the environment. h/t rubyr
PA Officials Issue Largest Fine Ever to Gas Driller - ProPublica
Pennsylvania officials fined Chesapeake Energy more than $1 million on Tuesday, the state’s largest fine ever to an oil and gas company. In a statement, the Department of Environmental Protection said Chesapeake’s drilling operations had contaminated water supplies for 16 families in Bradford County.
The announcement came just days after the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the administration of Gov. Tom Corbett, who took office in January, has issued far fewer environmental fines than its predecessor.
“It is important to me and to this administration that natural gas drillers are stewards of the environment, take very seriously their responsibilities to comply with our regulations, and that their actions do not risk public health and safety or the environment,” DEP Secretary Mike Krancer said in the statement on Tuesday.
The fine also cited Chesapeake for a fire at a well site that injured three workers in February. The announcement didn’t mention the blowout at a Chesapeake well in Bradford County last month. That accident leaked a still-undisclosed amount of brine and hydraulic fracturing fluid onto nearby fields and into a creek. The department issued Chesapeake a notice of violation for that incident and is continuing to investigate.
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The DEP has been under increasing pressure from critics and the federal government to tighten its oversight of the gas industry. Last month, the department asked drilling companies to voluntarily stop sending their wastewater to treatment facilities that discharge the waste into rivers after only partial treatment. But that move only prompted further federal involvement. Last week the EPA ordered the largest drilling companies in the state to disclose where they plan to put the wastewater, indicating that agency officials saw the state’s voluntary request as inadequate.
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blockquote>PLEASE visit Pam LaPier's diary to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier for working on this!
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