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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (11427)	11/11/2006 2:16:03 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 218118

Wyatt, BP has had a refinery explosion and a minor leak in a major pipeline. Don't you think are being a bit melodramatic? What pattern do you see? In my time in BP, they were very attentive to Health, Safety and Environment matters though I argued that they should solicit regulations to enforce environmental protection rather than wait for laws to be made by bumbling politicians and ignorant electorates. My argument was more than just an ethical position, it was financial too. A community that is crappy is not going to be a long term success. A clean environment is not a problem for an oil company because investing for clean operations legally required is as profitable as investing for energy to burn. It is better to have clean-burning fuel than to have cars banned from cities [for example]. As you might be noticing, it is blunders that cause the accidents and high costs. BP's management does NOT want to be sued for $billions because they bungled safety, health and environmental matters. There was a cultural shift needed when BP became and American company too, because American legal systems can result in huge lawsuits with no apparent upper limit. BP was used to more of a rational valuation than umpty $million for serving hot coffee to customers [which the customer spills in their lap]. When operating in the USA, one needs to be very careful as they put people in prison for life for allocating costs to capital rather than revenue, or maybe it's the reverse and they sue for all the money in the world for some minor mistake. I don't think BP's management is saving on repairs, hoping that they won't get problems. The HSE effort was huge and I thought obsessive - though as usual with humans, honoured more on paper, and in person, than in reality. Saddam for example, probably did think his army was fully tuned up, and ready to rumble. I wouldn't want to be the general telling him that the troops would run for it in their undies at the first sign of a USA tank. Nor that the WMD programmes were not ready to blow up the world. BP's management knows that any blunders can sink $billions and they will NOT be wanting any accidents or false cost-savings. But they still have to manage risk and manage costs. An open cheque book for any fanciful safety shroud-waving would cost all the money there is. Stupid "safety" costs money and lives, just as lack of safety does. $1million spent on ridiculous airport crash fire services saves nobody, but $1million would do something useful in buying a magnetic resonance imaging machine, or vaccination programme for children. Mqurice