Friday, June 04, 2010

Obama should remember the Ocean Odyssey

The most anti-British US President in living memory is busy trying to hide regulatory and government failures behind hatred of BP.

The US would do well to remember Piper Alpha (US company Occidental ) and more importantly US company Arco's responsibility for the Ocean Odyssey. ( Especially look at the photo's which I'm not copying here due to potential copyright issues. )

Read details of the Ocean Odyssey which occurred as it was drilling a deep high temperature high pressure well in the North Sea here ( and see the pictures ).

Events in the US Gulf are unfortunate, and there will be enough blame for everyone, but I can't shake the idea that if Exxon had been responsible for the blowout the US govt would be taking a very different line right now.

They need to remember that despite the failures of US companies in the North Sea the UK govt continued to treat all companies fairly.

2 comments:

xmfclick said...

It's also worth repeating what has been said elsewhere, i.e. that the operation isn't really BP at all, it's a US corporation they took over recently; the rig is owned and operated by a US corporation and only leased by BP; and the components that failed were made by Halliburton.

Anonymous said...

Not to mention Bophal, for which the Americans were responsible. Obama's not mentioned that!

I can't help thinking that Obama, in an attempt to shore up his flagging ratings ahead of the November mid-terms, is trying to latch onto the anti-British sentiment at the heart of the Tea Party movement (which is not against the UK - just against UK control over the US, as in days of olde).

He won't want to admit it, because he wants to crucify the Tea Partiers.