BP Oil spill

[ThePlasmatizer]

Something still plays on my mind about this whole situation.

Just out of curiosity why do Americans hate BP? they neither owned, operated or maintained the rig as this was done by Transocean.

After they even started a clean up operation at their own cost probably because they had been made the scapegoat in this affair, so what is the reasoning behind them being at fault, is this just xenophobia?

 

[bdcjacko]

I'm American, and I tend to get my gas from a BP station because it is nicer than that Vavloline station up the street.

 

[Canid117]

Because it ruined thousands of miles of American coastline and destroyed the livelihood of thousands of Americans.

 

[Jonluw]

I don't really know, but weren't BP responsible for Transocean or something?
As in, Transocean worked under BP, so it was BP's responsibility to see to it that they not fuck up.

 

[ThePlasmatizer]

Because it ruined thousands of miles of American coastline and destroyed the livelihood of thousands of Americans.

Then why are Transocean an American company who would have been at the forefront of this catastrophe not taking any heat from this?

Possibly because they are an American company?

 

[tomtom94]

Because blaming a name that people recognise is easier and more likely to get people riled up.

Riled up people buy your newspapers so that they can feel justified.

 

[Canid117]

Because it ruined thousands of miles of American coastline and destroyed the livelihood of thousands of Americans.

Then why are Transocean an American company who would have been at the forefront of this catastrophe not taking any heat from this?

Possibly because they are an American company?

A)People haven't been really been taking heat from this for months and B) They did take heat but they were not the ones maintaining the rig when it failed. BP then proceeded to cover up and decieve the public on the seriousness of the spill for some time after the spill which made people PISSED.

 

[MisterGobbles]

Seriously, why?


They said they were sorry. Jeez.

 

[ThePlasmatizer]

Because it ruined thousands of miles of American coastline and destroyed the livelihood of thousands of Americans.

Then why are Transocean an American company who would have been at the forefront of this catastrophe not taking any heat from this?

Possibly because they are an American company?

A)People haven't been really been taking heat from this for months and B) They did take heat but they were not the ones maintaining the rig when it failed.

The rig was leased to BP, if Transocean weren't operating it who was then? it certainly wasn't BP because they had minimal staff on site.

Also yes they have continually been taking heat, BP was a great scapegoat for this mess because it was a foreign mega corp and what do people hate worse than big faceless corporations? foreign ones of course.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

What's more confusing is why Americans seem to be pissy with brits over it. BP is only half British these days. Besides, Transocean really should have taken the flak for it, but the American government seemed to think it was BP's fault, perplexingly. Perhaps it may have something to do with BP being a much larger, wealthier, higher profile, less American company.

 

[Canid117]

Because it ruined thousands of miles of American coastline and destroyed the livelihood of thousands of Americans.

Then why are Transocean an American company who would have been at the forefront of this catastrophe not taking any heat from this?

Possibly because they are an American company?

A)People haven't been really been taking heat from this for months and B) They did take heat but they were not the ones maintaining the rig when it failed.

The rig was leased to BP, if Transocean weren't operating it who was then? it certainly wasn't BP because they had minimal staff on site.

Also yes they have continually been taking heat, BP was a great scapegoat for this mess because it was a foreign mega corp and what do people hate worse than big faceless corporations? foreign ones of course.

It was their responsibility while leased to them, operated by them and working on their oil claim.

 

[spacewalker]

from what i can remember, they used banned cemicals to clean up the spill, they were saying it was less dangerous than it was. Some feel they did a bad job of cleaning up.
They hired locals who could not work because of the spill to help clean it up.
One newsreport i saw said that employees were not allowed to wear safety eqipment, possibly because it would look bad on TV.
i think most of it is for not proerly warning people to the dangers, people with sick friends will probably be very vocal in their displeasure with BP.
Also, tons of safety violations.

 

[PureChaos]

for years we've been told oily fish is good for us. chow down

 

[Verlander]

Basically, we live in scapegoat culture. People aren't at fault, something else is, be it parents, video games, or a multinational corporation.

As a Brit, I hate the flak as we as a country receive from Americans (especially considering the whole thing was manned by Americans, and they didn't exactly do much to stop the spill either) BUT I would like to restate the fact that BP are a MULTINATIONAL corporation. They are a public limited company floated on both the London and New York stock exchange. As a company, they were liable, and responsible for the rig. End of story really. BP do deserve some contempt (although I don't think any other company would have fared any better in the circumstances), but not the British, ok? BP doesn't even stand for British Petroleum anymore...

 

[ThePlasmatizer]

from what i can remember, they used banned cemicals to clean up the spill, they were saying it was less dangerous than it was. Some feel they did a bad job of cleaning up.
They hired locals who could not work because of the spill to help clean it up.
One newsreport i saw said that employees were not allowed to wear safety eqipment, possibly because it would look bad on TV.
i think most of it is for not proerly warning people to the dangers, people with sick friends will probably be very vocal in their displeasure with BP.
Also, tons of safety violations.

I'm not privy to the clean up details but don't you think it was rather nice of them to clean up a mess they weren't accountable for?

The only safety problem I heard that could be linked to the catastrophe was a valve cap fitted by another company.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Then why are Transocean an American company who would have been at the forefront of this catastrophe not taking any heat from this?

Transocean are Swiss.

BP was the nominal owner of the rig, they paid for it, they were in charge of the operation and they were the ones who pressed for everything to be done faster (as opposed to properly).

Ultimately the buck stops with them, although the treatment of Tony Hayward reaked of nationalism over logic, not least because it suddenly got a lot quieter once he was replaced by an American. BP's opinion of how much was Hayward's fault can be judged by their immediatte re-hiring of him as a consultant after he 'retired'.

 

[KeyMaster45]

Please please please stop now and take this thread over to the religion and politics forum. It's there to house the inevitable flame war that threads like this attract.

OT: I'm a US citizen and I don't hate BP. The media blows everything out of proportion. They like people on forums who say "Everybody hates 'X' game and here's why". They act as if they speak for everyone but they don't.

Funny enough though most people I've talked to about it don't realize BP is a company based in the UK. It's why the media is able to make it such a shocking thing that BP didn't go bankrupt from the spill. The public thinks they're a US company and therefore don't realize that one PR shitstorm like the rig explosion isn't going to bring their company down when they've got drilling contracts all over the world.

So long story short, don't assume everyone over here hates BP just because the vocal minority is calling for blood. Some of us understand shit happens because humans make mistakes and vilifying a company while they're trying to make amends for their mistake isn't going to do anything productive.

 

[ThePlasmatizer]

Then why are Transocean an American company who would have been at the forefront of this catastrophe not taking any heat from this?

Transocean are Swiss.

BP was the nominal owner of the rig, they paid for it, they were in charge of the operation and they were the ones who pressed for everything to be done faster (as opposed to properly).

Ultimately the buck stops with them, although the treatment of Tony Hayward reaked of nationalism over logic, not least because it suddenly got a lot quieter once he was replaced by an American. BP's opinion of how much was Hayward's fault can be judged by their immediatte re-hiring of him as a consultant after he 'retired'.

Fair enough, but they were originally based in America. That's incorrect Transocean operated it even if they pressing for everything to be done faster wasn't the cause of the rise in pressure and Transocean were the ones drilling the well that failed.

Like you said it was suddenly a lot less of a media s***storm when he was repalced with an American.

 

[Lord Doomhammer]

Because it ruined thousands of miles of American coastline and destroyed the livelihood of thousands of Americans.

Then why are Transocean an American company who would have been at the forefront of this catastrophe not taking any heat from this?

Possibly because they are an American company?

I suspect it's because people don't buy their gas from transocean stations at 4 dollars a gallon. Nobody knows who transocean is (well, 'the public' doesn't), so it's hard to blame/hate them when theres a nice big juicy oil company involved who you can hate.