BP - off the hook ? ...and a BUY ?

1echidna

We will have the usual argument as to whether it was design or operator error. I'm hoping they will both beef up the design and ensure that operators are required to take account of signs of faults or dangerous conditions.

97trophy

BP are going to have to pay a lot of money for a long time.

I am astounded that some of you are considering buying this stock!

1echidna

97trophy wrote: »

BP are going to have to pay a lot of money for a long time.

I am astounded that some of you are considering buying this stock!

BP is an incredibly strong company with very deep pockets. I don't think it is even in its competitors interests to see it go under.

BathingApe

I'd want to see BP around the £5 level before I would be tempted to buy.

1echidna

BathingApe wrote: »

I'd want to see BP around the £5 level before I would be tempted to buy.

You may never get the chance.

1echidna

“This catastrophe appears to have been caused by a calamitous series of equipment and operational failures,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. “If the largest oil and oil service companies in the world had been more careful, 11 lives might have been saved and our coastlines protected.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/us/13spill.html?hp

97trophy

1echidna wrote: »

BP is an incredibly strong company with very deep pockets.

I think you are grossly underestimating the power of the US legal system.

The bill for this will be many times greater then the Exxon Valdez because of the bigger population around the Gulf of Mexico then Alaska.

The bill is not just the cost of the clean-up. The bill will include loss of earnings for hundreds of thousands of people. Such claims will stretch from a few years loss of earnings to total loss of earnings for the rest of live and the value of business some of which have been around for a long time.

97trophy

1echidna wrote: »

I don't think it is even in its competitors interests to see it go under.

It is nothing to do with their competitors this is US law at its best/worst depending on what side you are on.

1echidna

97trophy wrote: »

It is nothing to do with their competitors this is US law at its best/worst depending on what side you are on.

If you think that US energy firms don't have an influence on US lawmakers you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

97trophy

1echidna wrote: »

If you think that US energy firms don't have an influence on US lawmakers you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

I am not concerned about the US Govt, it is the civil lawsuits that are going to do the damage.