NO Photography Allowed Near BP Spill!

Rather disturbing to read the following development!

Seriously.... WTF!!!!

Highlighted by ZH: BP plc And The Administration Replace First Amendment With $40,000 Fine And Class D Felony

• QUOTE: "The coast guard today announced new rules keeping photographers, reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms, out on the water or on beaches. In order to get closer you need to get direct permission from the coast guard captain of the Port of New Orleans. Shots of oil on beaches with booms - stay 65 feet away. Pictures of oil soaked booms useless laying in the water because they haven't been collected like they should. You can't get close enough to see that. And believe me, that is out there. But you only know that if you get close to it, and now you can't without permission. Violators could face a fine of $40,000 and class D felony charges. The coast guard tried to make the exclusion zone 300 feet before scaling it down to 65 feet."
  
  

oO

No photography?

What don't they want everyone to see?

And this was on MSNB: Photographer detained by police, BP employee near refinery

BP gave ProPublica the following statement after the incident:

• "BP Security followed the industry practice that is required by federal law. The photographer was released with his photographs after those photos were viewed by a representative of the Joint Terrorism Task Force who determined that the photographer's actions did not pose a threat to public safety."

In response to BP, ProPublica's editor-in-chief Paul Steiger said:

• "We certainly appreciate the need to secure the nation's refineries. But we're deeply troubled by BP's conduct here, especially when they knew we were working on deadline on critical stories about this very facility. And we see no reason why, if law enforcement needed to review the unpublished photographs, that should have included sharing them with a representative of a private company."

When msnbc.com contacted BP, spokeswoman Sheila Williams said there was nothing the firm wanted to add to its earlier comment.

ps: Gulf spill 'bigger and uglier than we had hoped'

BP's Tony Howard To Get £10.8m pension If He Steps Down

Here's another news that will simply make your blood boil!

BP's Hayward to get £10.8m pension if he steps down

• Tony Hayward will receive a £10.8m pension pot if he steps down as BP chief in the wake of the oil spill.....

Utterly shambolical!

Can someone tell me what if such a compensation is just?

Yup nothing is wrong with our financial markets.

No crisis here!

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ps: do see this posting Oil Coating Seafloor and Killing Fish, Crabs … and the American Dream

Ed Markey: BP Is Either Lying Or Grossly Incompetent!

Posted last Wednesday: Will BP Go Bust Or WILL BP Recover Back To $52?

Here's another set of reasoning from the bulls, and this one comes from so-called value investor, Whitney Tilson. On Barrons: Buying Into a Pariah. If you do not have access you could read it from this blog: Why We’re Long BP

Now what was very intersting for me in the posting Will BP Go Bust Or WILL BP Recover Back To $52? Matt Simmons had contradicted the firm he founded, Simmons & Co.

Matt Simmons is calling for BP to go zero (and yes, he publicly acknowledged that he's short on the stock based on his own reasonings), while Simmons & Co gave it an outperform rating with a target price of $52. Now Simmons & Co has cuts ties to outspoken founder. Conflict of interest was the reasoning.

( Here is a great article on Matt Simmons on CNN: The Gulf Coast oil spill's Dr. Doom )

Anyway, one of the main reasoning from Matt Simmons is that BP was under stating the size of the oil leak and by logical reasoning, if the oil spill is much larger, the damages to BP would be more severe.

The following newsclip is fresh from AP newswire: US lawmaker accuses BP of underestimating oil spill

• (AFP) – 1 hour ago
  
  WASHINGTON — A key US congressman released an internal BP document Sunday showing up to 100,000 barrels of oil could be leaking into the Gulf of Mexico each day, up to 20 times more than it estimated in public.
  
  The oil giant's own worst-case scenario was based on the consequences of removing both the ruptured wellhead now lying on the bottom of the seafloor and a key set of valves known as a blowout preventer (BOP), as well as incorrectly calculating the restrictions.
  
  According to US government estimates, some 30,000 to 65,000 barrels are escaping on a daily basis, soiling once-pristine Gulf Coast shorelines, killing wildlife and putting a major dent in the region's multi-billion-dollar fishing industry.
  
  At the time the document was provided to lawmakers in May, BP was telling the public that 5,000 barrels a day were spewing into the Gulf waters and told lawmakers that up to 60,000 barrels could leak, according to Democratic Representative Ed Markey, who released two pages of the file.
  
  Markey, who chairs the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, accused the firm of lying to Congress in order to reduce its liabilities.
  
  In the document, which is itself undated, BP said its minimum estimate under such a scenario was 55,000 barrels gushing out of the well each day.
  
  "If BOP and wellhead are removed and if we have incorrectly modeled the restrictions -- the rate could be as high as (approximately) 100,000 barrels per day up the casing or 55,000 barrels per day up the annulus (low probability worst cases)," it said.
  
  Markey, a vocal critic of BP and its handling of the disaster, lit out against the firm he said was "either lying or grossly incompetent."
  
  "First they said it was only 1,000 barrels, then they said it was 5,000 barrels, now we're up to 100,000 barrels," he told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Ah... Matt Simmons estimates is 120,000 barrels!

• "It was their technology, it was their spill camp, they're the ones that should have known right from the beginning; and either to limit their liability or because they were grossly incompetent, they delayed a full response to the magnitude of this disaster."
  
  BP rejected the charge, noting that the conditions it had stated for the worst-case scenario to develop were not in place then, and are not in place now.
  
  "It's completely misrepresenting what were saying," BP spokesman Robert Wine said about Markey's reaction.
  
  "We were saying that if two conditions were met simultaneously -- one that we got the modeling restrictions wrong and if the blowout preventer were removed -- then we could have 100,000 barrels of oil."
  
  He told AFP the estimate "has nothing with the amount of oil that's actually escaping at the moment."
  
  According to Wine, "there is no way the BOP is being moved" because the valve system plays a critical role in the collection effort, estimated to be retrieving or burning up to some 25,000 barrels of fresh crude each day.
  
  "The blowout preventer is being kept in place and is not being moved until we can guarantee to the authorities and the public at large that the well is being killed and poses no threat," he added.
  
  US lawmakers have assailed BP for its response to the worst oil spill in US history, which began with an April 20 explosion of its deepwater rig in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 workers

On ZH: Internal BP Document Confirms Matt Simmons' Worst Case Prediction Of Spill Rate Of 100,000+ Barrels Per Day

Also on CNBC: With $20 Billion Fund, BP Limiting Liability: Feinberg

• The man in charge of the $20 billion BP oil-spill compensation fund said Sunday that by creating the fund, the giant oil company is taking the first steps to limit its legal liability.
  
  “Investors in BP should know that there’s now an alternative to the litigation system in place,” Kenneth Feinberg said in a telephone interview with CNBC Sunday afternoon. “I think that’s a really helpful sign if you’re an investor.”
  
  Feinberg, who was appointed last week as the independent administrator fund, said that recipients of emergency relief funds, which are being paid out in real time do not sign away their right to sue BP [BP 31.76 0.05 (+0.16%)] for damages.
  
  But, he said, those people who accept final settlements from the fund, will likely be required to give up their right to sue BP. “You’ll waive your right to sue,” Feinberg said. “That’s only fair.” ...

Oh my gosh.... this Kenneth Feinberg is supposedly to be the independent administrator of the oil spill compensation fund.... so go figure... how on earth could he be speaking like this?

For whom does he serve the best interest?

The $20 Billion Good For Nothing Fund That BP Created...

Absolutely disgusted when I read Yves update in her posting: BP to Create $20 Billion Fund for Leak Damage

• ..Update: This comment came via e-mail from former oil industry employee Glenn Stehle:
  
  The outcome of Obama’s meeting with BP was an incredible disappointment. After all the tough talk, the end result is that Obama came away with what the little boy shot at.
  
  According to the NY Times, “the oil giant will create a $20 billion fund to pay claims.”
  
  But here’s the kicker: the preliminary terms of Obama’s agreement with BP “would give BP several years to deposit the full amount into the fund so it could better manage cash flow, maintain its financial viability and not scare off investors.”
  
  So BP is allowed to live while the Gulf dies.
  
  The tragedy is that the people on the front lines of this battle don’t need money and resources in a month, or six months, or in “several” years. They need the resources now.
  
  Could St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro have made it any clearer? “Just like he [Obama] referred to WWII and putting a man on the moon, those operations were successful because there were equipment and resources provided to make those missions successful,” Taffaro spelled it out for the President. “That’s what we need here in the Gulf Coast Region, enough resources and assets so that we can make this a successful fight against this oil spill.”
  
  But BP, a company who generated $27.7 billion in cash last year and paid out $10.5 billion in dividends, is allowed to diddle, given years to come up with $20 billion.
  
  “Let’s get serious about this,” Tony Kennon, Mayor of Orange Beach, Alabama pleaded. “I feel like sometimes we’re in the Land of Oz. This is a catastrophe of Biblical proportions, and we’re acting like it’s an everyday, run-of-the-mill oil spill. It is time to attack the problem and fix it offshore.”
  
  But apparently Obama learned nothing during his well-publicized tour of the Gulf Coast region yesterday. At least he didn’t listen to anything the guys in the trenches had to say. BP should “not be in a position where they can have power to veto anything,” Taffaro counseled. The government “should be able to force the issue here, and that’s where the breakdown has come in.”

Yes, I am disgusted at how Obama is managing this disaster. TOTALLY DISGUSTED!

yeah... capitalism... lives on... yet again!

What about these wildlife?

Do read the opening passages of this posting: We Must Remove BP from the Crime Scene and Let an International Team of Experts Fix This on BP's Dime

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

BP was criminally negligent in drilling the well which blew out. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

It has bungled everything it has done since. Indeed - as discussed below - it has made things worse.

And BP has tried to cover up its blunders by lowballing the spill estimates, keeping reporters out of areas hardest hit by the oil (and see this, this and this) and threatening to arrest them if they try to take pictures, hiding dead birds and other sealife, telling cleanup workers they'll be fired if they use respirators, and using dispersants to hide the amount of spilled oil (the dispersants are only worsening the damage caused by the spill).....

do read rest of the posting here

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Selected pictures from msnbc slideshow: here

Oil slicks move toward the beach in Gulf Shores, Ala., Saturday, June 5. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster has started washing ashore on Alabama and Florida beaches.



Plaquemines Parish coastal zone director P.J. Hahn lifts his boot out of thick beached oil at Queen Bess Island in Barataria Bay, just off the Gulf of Mexico in Plaquemines Parish, La., on June 5.



A worker cleans up oil in Plaquemines Parish, La., June 4.



A bird flies above oil in the Gulf of Mexico off of East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast on June 3.

60 Minutes: The Blowout

WIll BP Go Bust Or WILL BP Recover Back To $52?

On Barrons: BP: Simmons Still Sees Bankruptcy; Massive Hole at the Well Bore?

• ...Simmons in the piece predicted BP would be filing for Chapter 11 in a month. I caught up with Simmons this morning by phone to review his thoughts on the matter. He still thinks BP is headed for Chapter 11.
  
  In response to calls for a $20 billion escrow to be set aside by BP, Simmons concludes the company’s as good as insolvent.
  
  “They have $5 billion in cash, a $5 billion line of credit, and a $10B emergency line of credit,” says Simmons, “and they boast about how their operating cash flow is $17 billion per quarter. But that’s all consumed in capital expenditures. This outlay [the $20 billion] is going to consumer everything they have.”
  
  (Simmons is not working actively with the firm he founded, and the firm recently upgraded BP to “Outperform.” Simmons & Co. does not have a position in BP shares, long or short.)
  
  Simmons has a 4,000-share short sale on BP that he picked up when the stock hit $37. That’s in addition to a prior 4,000-share short sale he made at $48 a couple weeks prior. “It’s going to zero,” he says of BP stock.
  
  Mind you, Simmons has an interest and a deep investment in moving beyond fossil fuels...

Also in another article on BP on Barrons: Simmons & Co. International raised its rating on BP on Friday to “Overweight” from “Neutral,” with a $52 price target.

:D

Simmons VS Simmons!

One Simmons says $52.00. The other says BP will go BUST!

On ZH: Matt Simmons Revises Leak Estimate To 120,000 Barrels Per Day, Believes Oil Covers 40% Of Gulf Beneath The Surface

• Matt Simmons was on Bloomberg earlier, adding some additional perspective to his original appearance on the station, in which he initially endorsed the nuclear option as the only viable way to resolve the oil spill. Simmons refutes even the latest oil spill estimate of 45,000-60,000 barrels per day, and in quoting research by the Thomas Jefferson research vessel which was compiled late on Sunday, quantifies the leak at 120,000 bpd. What is scarier is that according to the Jefferson the oil lake underneath the surface of the water could be covering up to 40% of the entire Gulf of Mexico. Simmons also says that as the leak has no casing, a relief well will not work, and the only possible resolution is, as he said previously, to use a small nuclear explosion to convert the rock to glass. Simmons concludes that as punishment for BP's arrogance and stupidity the government "will take all their cash." Now if only our own administration could tell us the truth about what is really happening in the gulf...
  
  
  

See also this posting: BP Official Admits to Damage BENEATH THE SEA FLOOR

The BP Spill Revelead!

This is way too damn funny but sadly it really does reflect what a pathetic company BP is!