British Petroleum, after the spill what

By Katia Monteagudo (Prensa Latina)*

Translation: Mike Roskey

The company British Petroleum (BP) is still investing millions in cleaning up its image, even
though they do not yet know how much crude remains in the deeps of the Gulf of Mexico.

According to the British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph, BP has spent one million dollars each
week in publicity in the U.S. since the beginning of the accident, which occurred last April 20.

The digital site Mashable in turn revealed the list of principle sponsors on Google in June 2010,
and what stood out was the amount of funds committed by the British company to improve its
bruised image.

According to the figures given, BP spent 3.6 million dollars in a campaign oriented toward
reinforcing the value of its brand, and it placed among the six corporations that dedicated more
money to publicity according to web searches.

Until today, costs for responding to the disaster have reached eight billion dollars, an amount that
covers containment, drilling an auxiliary well, the procedure for sealing the well (static kill),
injection of cement, money paid to States in the region of the Gulf, claims paid and federal
expenses.

It’s estimated that 4.9 million barrels of crude dispersed in the ocean environs up to the point that
the flow was stopped in the middle of July.

Even so, according to statistics of the Oil Spill Intelligence Report, reported by the British BBC,
this event, not counting its ecological, social and economic impact, “does not even register among
the 50 major accidents of this type in the oceans of the world.”

After months of battling to seal the spill, beginning the current month, the damaged under ocean
well no longer represents a danger to the area, Admiral Thad Allen, responsible for the operation,
assured.

By the same token, the British company has committed to paying 20 billion dollars to a trust fund
to cover resulting damages.

To date more than 42,000 claims have been processed by the Gulf Coast Claims Processing
Center (CGCF, the acronym in English) since last August 23. Up to now, BP has paid 399
million dollars in claims.

With all the money committed, it is still unknown how much crude is left in deep waters in the
Gulf of Mexico, after the disappearance of the black goo from the surface.
A very complex problem, investigators of the issue assure, because of how little is known today
about how petroleum and gas behave at one and half kilometers under the surface and at those
temperatures.

Despite the fact that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states that the great
majority of the escaped crude has evaporated, been burned, dispersed or left the surface, not a few
experts question the assertion.

An investigation by the Oceanographic Institute Woods Hole of Massachusetts, confirmed the

presences of toxic chemical residues one kilometer below the surface of the ocean.

The study revealed a spectrum of chemical substances, derived from petroleum, about 200 meters
in height, two kilometers wide and 35 kilometers long.

It also clarified that in the open sea there are fewer marine sea beds and less algal zones, and the
spill has ended up deposited on the sea floor.

However, in the coastal zones, where there is a sandy bottom, the hydrocarbon can seep into the
sediment and stay there more than a century.

Another group of scientists of the University of Georgia states that between 70 and 79 percent of
the petroleum that came out of the burned platform in the coasts of Louisiana is submerged.

The study, published in The Wall Street Journal, states that BP and U.S. authorities would only
address their own estimates to quantify the spilled petroleum of what was evaporated from the
surface.

Charles Hopkinson, of the University of Georgia, restated that according to his calculations,
based on a precise mathematical model, there are still more than three million barrels under
water.

“The petroleum is out there still and it will be years before it really goes away. We are very far
from really understanding what the ecological impact will be,” Hopkinson added.

For Ira Leifer, member of the Technical Group on ways to measure the flow rate, appointed by
the U.S. government and researcher from the Institute of Marine Studies of the University of
California, BP still has not authorized an intensive study of the spill and the zone around it as
proposed by this recognized expert.

His case is not unique, Leifer adds, and, as in the case of other scientists, among the best in the
world, they have not been able to undertake investigations to expand what is known in order to
manage spills in deep waters, something that has received little study.

In spite of strict security measures, the cinematographer John L. Wathen was able to film and
photograph dolphins and whales floating in contaminated waters.

“I have seen at least 100 dolphins swimming in petroleum, some of them dead,” he said on return
from a recent flight. “I also photographed a sperm whale covered with black oil all over. Who
will speak for these gentle creatures,” Whalen asked.

In the same vein, between five thousand and 15,000 dead fish were found at the end of August at
the mouth of the Mississippi, according to a report from the Times-Picayune newspaper from
New Orleans.

Doctor Giovanni Gregori, recognized Italian geophysicist and one of the scientists consulted by
the U.S. government in managing the spill, states that this type of incident has been grossly under
estimated.

In his view, hydrocarbon spills in the ocean produce four kinds of risks. The first touches the
ecology, because it generates imbalances that affect life and the food cycle of fish fauna or on the
surface.

The second is economic because a full gamut of activities on water and land are halted because of
damages, as occurred in the Gulf of Mexico or the central Mediterranean, where BP also operates.

The third, the scientist adds, could be even worse and it consists of the accumulation of crude at
various depths in the open sea and in an area where hurricanes are formed, with the submarine
warmth.

The deposits of hydrocarbons on the sea floors, he said, could be brought up by the wind storms
and dragged by the winds toward far away lands where it could damage plants, animals and
people, to a degree surpassing a volcanic eruption.

The fourth danger is related to the lighter weight part of crude, which is dispersed on the surface,
creating a fine film, as has already been verified to a substantial degree in the north Atlantic.

This veil of hydrocarbons can alter atmospheric circulation and the climate upon evaporation.

And while scientists continue with their warnings, BP has just reached its conclusions concerning
the causes that created the spill, declaring that, after an internal investigation, the responsibility
for the ecological disaster belongs to various companies.

The report underplayed the leading role of BP in the worst petroleum spill in the history of the
United States, and more than a few are saying that they looked for a way to share out the blame to
its contractors.

The text, unveiled last Wednesday on its Internet site, enumerates at least eight errors in judgment
and equipment defects that allowed the escape of natural gas 65 kilometers south of the coast of
Louisiana, where eleven operators died and crude spilled for 87 days.

The statement concluded that BP and Halliburton did not submit sworn proof that the cement
mix, when it failed, caused the explosion and the subsequent foundering of the platform, property
of Transocean, that was dedicated to drilling the well.
It specifies that the latter neglected to maintain critical parts designed to prevent a blowout
automatically. The operators reacted too slowly and committed at least one mistake that could
have caused the catastrophe.

Investors in the British company waited months for this report to find out if it would be able to
share the potential costs of the spill, an amount that analysts claim could rise above 50 billion
dollars.

In recent months BP stocks have lost value and in June they fell to the lowest level since August
1996 even though the company insists it is strong and that it can short circuit the crisis with cash
flow and banking mechanisms of assistance.

Nonetheless, in the quarter from April to June, it lost 17 billion dollars, one of the worst loses in
the history of British companies.

In the next 18 months, BP will sell shares for a value of 30 billion dollars, which it use to reduce
its field of exploration, but which will permit it to improve quality, executives stated. It is also
well known that it will continue prospecting on the coasts of the Libyan Mediterranean and in the
South China Sea.

What has happened will not cause the extraction of ocean crude to pause or slow down, even in
the same waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Four and a half months after BP’s disaster, another
platform has just blown out, owned by Mariner Energy. The spill of deep petroleum has just
begun.

(*)News reporter from the global issues desk.