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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (77928)	6/10/2010 9:06:03 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

BP value sinks $17 Billion yesterday nypost.com By PAUL THARP June 10, 2010 BP is gushing money faster than its out-of-control well is spewing oil - its stock value dropped an astounding $17 billion yesterday as it faced the prospect of going under water. When BP's Gulf of Mexico drilling rig exploded in a fireball on April 20, its stock sold for $60.48 a share. It closed yesterday at $29.20. That's a mind-numbing $100 billion loss to shareholders in only six weeks. Investors stampeded away from the stock yesterday, with more than five times the usual number of shares trading. When the smoke cleared, BP was down 16 percent, or $5.48, its lowest level in 15 years. Wall Street analysts said they're beginning to fear what once was unthinkable -- that one of the biggest, most powerful and profitable companies on the planet could actually go bust. Houston oil trader Matt Simmons told Fortune magazine that BP might file for bankruptcy in a month -- even before it finishes its three-month task of drilling two relief wells in a last attempt to stop the spill. Between its own funds and insurance payouts, it would likely have the money to complete the job, but with not much left over. "One really smart thing that [President] Obama did was about three weeks ago he forced BP CEO Tony Hayward to put in writing that BP would pay for every dollar of the cleanup," Simmons said. "But there isn't enough money in the world to clean up the Gulf of Mexico. Once BP realizes the extent of this, my guess is they'll panic and go into Chapter 11." Obama said he would have fired Hayward, who infuriated millions affected by the spill when he whined that he wanted "his life back." Meanwhile, Louisiana residents fear they'll never get their lives or livelihoods back. Experts believe that Hayward's departure at this late date would not help the company survive. Another cloud on BP's horizon is a move in Congress -- with blessings from the White House -- to do away with a law capping its liability at $75 million. The change, which can be made retroactive, would raise the cap to $10 billion. That, the experts say, could be the fatal blow. BP's total liability could be as high as $177.6 billion, Goldman Sachs estimated. That includes: * Compensating workers for lost wages. * Cleaning up the oil. * Settling thousands of civil lawsuits from people who lost their livelihoods * Paying US government fines. BP is under growing political pressure to hold back paying $10 billion in dividends to stockholders. "Shares are under pressure from the fear of whether BP can survive," said industry expert Jon Najarian. "It is not just a rumor about the potential of a dividend cut. Now it's about the survivability of the company."

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (77928)	6/10/2010 10:14:42 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 149317

Ken Salazar - Big Oil's Secretary of the Interior thenation.com

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (77928)	6/10/2010 10:49:06 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 149317

Key positive number getting ignored this AM. Jobless Claims Dip to 456,000 6/10/2010 8:32 AM EDT Initial weekly jobless claims for the week ended June 3 came in at 456,000, down 3,000 from an upwardly revised 459,000 the previous week and vs. expectations of 450,000, the Department of Labor reported Thursday. The four-week moving average of initial claims rose 2,500 to 463,000. Continuing claims for the week ended May 29 came in at 4.462 million, down from an upwardly revised figure of 4.717 million the week prior and compared to expectations of 4.600 million. dol.gov

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (77928)	6/10/2010 11:11:17 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

U.S. Chemical Safety Board to Probe 'Root Causes' of BP Oil Rig Blast By Sue Reisinger Corporate Counsel June 10, 2010 The U.S. Chemical Safety Board has agreed to investigate the "root causes" of the April 20 blast on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The board is becoming an expert on probing the British oil company, BP -- it's the third BP incident the board's investigated since 2005. The request came in a letter from Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who chairs the subcommittee on oversight and investigations. And CSB Chairman John Bresland quickly issued a statement accepting the challenge. Waxman's committee is probing the largest oil spill in U.S. history. The explosion killed 11 workers and continues spilling oil into the Gulf at an unprecedented rate. The letter asked the CSB to answer five questions: • Do the circumstances and events leading up to the Deepwater Horizon explosion reflect problems in BP's corporate safety culture? • What role, if any, did cost-cutting and budgetary concerns play in BP's decisions about well design and testing? • How did BP, Transocean, and other contractors apply "management of change" programs to assess the consequences of modifications to process, technology, and equipment on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig as well as organizational changes, including changes to personnel, training, and budget? • Did BP provide adequate oversight of the contractors working on the well? • Can the CSB draw any parallels between the root causes of the April 20 oil rig explosion and the causes of the 2005 BP Texas City refinery explosion? BP did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story. Waxman's letter said the CSB has a unique perspective on BP's "safety culture and practices," because the board previously examined the cause of the explosion at BP's Texas City refinery that took 15 lives in 2005. In its refinery probe, the CSB concluded that cost-cutting, a lax safety culture and production pressures from BP executives were key factors that led to the explosion. For example, the probe found that four BP workers who were filling a vertical tank with chemicals when it exploded had all been working 12-hour shifts for more than four weeks without a day off. The study concluded that cost cuts mandated by the company's London headquarters contributed to the tragedy -- and that managers ignored warnings that an accident was imminent. "The Texas City disaster was caused by organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of BP Corporation," the board said. "Warning signs of a possible disaster were present for several years, but company officials did not intervene effectively to prevent it." BP at the time said it "strongly disagreed" with many of the board's findings. But it promised to consider all its recommendations alongside the steps it had already taken to improve safety. Even so, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration accused BP of 301 "egregious, willful violations" of safety rules at the refinery. It fined the company $21 million -- the largest penalty in the agency's 35-year history, according to news reports at the time. In 2006, the CSB compared the refinery explosion with the massive leak at a BP pipeline in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. The board found "striking similarities" between the reported causes of these two incidents, including a focus on budgetary concerns rather than sound risk analysis. On Tuesday, Bresland pointed out that in 2005 BP had hired -- at the board's urging -- a yearlong independent review of the safety culture at all of BP's North American refineries. For that study, BP chose the Houston law firm Baker Botts. Most of BP's America operations are based in Houston. Former Secretary of State James Baker III, a partner at the law firm, led the review. Baker's report, published in early 2007, concluded that BP lacked proper safety processes. "The system as a whole does not ensure adequate identification and rigorous analysis of hazards," the report said. Many employees told the panel that BP put "profits before safety." The interviews of hundreds of workers "established that a significant portion of the U.S. refining workforce believed that production goals, operational pressures, or budgetary constraints sometimes overrode process safety concerns," it said. But all the fines, reports and recommendations did not stop the Deepwater Horizon from exploding in April. Nor are they helping to stem the flow of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. And now the CSB and Congress want to know why.