How BP made friends with Mu’ammar Gaddafi

On Monday, BP CEO Bob Dudley declared that “we remain committed to doing business” in Libya and stressed that offshore operations in the region were still open and continuing. That morning, stories of tanks crushing unarmed protestors in Benghazi and massacres by (British-built) sniper rifles had been front page news. As Dudley spoke, reports emerged of airstrikes targeting demonstrations...

BP & Shell offshore failures in North Sea endanger workers

As crude continues to pour into the Gulf of Mexico and Tony Hayward can’t work out what he did “to deserve this”, it turns out the company is having problems with offshore operations in the North Sea as well. The British Health & Safety Executive has warned both both BP & Shell that they are failing to...

Outsourcing explosions – a BP speciality?

The explosion on a BP rig off Louisiana on Wednesday will remind Americans of BP’s atrocious safety record. Eleven workers are missing and almost certainly dead, with seventeen injured after the “Deepwater Horizon” drilling rig blew up while drilling a deep well in the Gulf of Mexico. BP CEO Tony Hayward promised change when he took...

Iraq: New contracts will undermine Iraqi independence

The mega-oil deals signed and pledged in Iraq in last week have been major news, marking another step by the oil majors back into a country that liberated itself from the “robbery and exhaustion practiced by the monopolistic oil companies” in 1972. But the full consequences of the agreements have been hard to untangle. BP and Chinese...

No place for Indian wind as BP “turns the clock back”

BP reveal their true colours and move even further from “Beyond Petroleum” as they sell off wind in India, as reported in today’s FT: “BP has sold its Indian wind business for about $95m (£57.6m), confirming its decision to focus its wind power operations on the US .[…] BP has long made it clear that it...

BP piggybacks on London Olympics to generate social acceptance

BP brand hypocrisy continues, with Marketing Magazine reporting on the company’s plans for the London Olympics in 2012. Energy company BP has appointed agencies Landor and Ogilvy to handle its sponsorship of London 2012. Tony Hayward, executive director of BP, said that […] as BP is the UK’s biggest company with headquarters in London, the 2012 Olympics...