BP dissapointed private investors as the share price slid even though a
Massive 136 percent jump in profits were recorded for the last quarter.
This was already expected and comments from Lord Browne saying falls in oil expected have brought also helped the stock down.
He says can stand oil price even below $16 pb
The hostage situation in Nigeria getting bad maybe BP putting on some weight today?
Locals want enviroment cleaned up and profits shared.
Any chance?

Agree with you regarding Union Carbide.

BP plans to defer dividend after pressure from Obama

BP is preparing to defer payment of its next dividend to shareholders by placing the money in an escrow account until the full scale of the companys liabilities from the Gulf of Mexico disaster can be determined, The Times has learnt.

BP board members are discussing a plan that would see the expected 1.7 billion second quarter payout, due to be announced on July 27, delayed until the crisis can be brought under control, relieving some of the political pressure on the oil giant, formerly Britains biggest company.

Also worth a read - Gazprom boss joins calls for BP blowout inquiry

UPDATE ON GULF OF MEXICO OIL SPILL RESPONSE

BP today provided an update on developments in the response to the MC252 oil
well incident in the Gulf of Mexico.

Subsea Source Control and Containment

The lower marine riser package (LMRP) containment cap, installed on June 3,
continues to collect oil and gas flowing from the MC252 well and transport them
to the Discoverer Enterprise drillship on the surface.

In the first 12 hours of June 13 (midnight to noon), approximately 7,720 barrels
of oil were collected and 16.9 million cubic feet of natural gas were flared. On
June 12, a total of approximately 15,000 barrels of oil were collected and 32.9
million cubic feet of natural gas were flared. The total volume of oil collected
by the LMRP cap system since it began operation is approximately 127,000
barrels. A further approximately 22,000 barrels of oil previously had been
collected through use of the Riser Insertion Tube Tool and stored in the
Discoverer Enterprise.

Between June 9 and 11 approximately 115,000 barrels of collected oil were
transferred from storage on the Discoverer Enterprise to the barge Massachusetts
between June 9 and 11. The Massachusetts left the MC252 site on June 11 to
discharge the oil at a terminal in Mobile, Alabama. Once discharge is complete,
the barge will return to the MC252 site.

The volume of oil captured and gas flared is being updated twice daily on BP's
website, www.bp.com. The LMRP containment cap has never before been deployed at
these depths and conditions, and its efficiency and ability to contain the oil
and gas cannot be assured.

UPDATE: BP: Making Progress On Long-Term Oil Spill Solution
(Updates with news about contracted production platform, latest oil-recovery figures and additional background information.)


By Anna Raff
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- BP PLC (BP, BP.LN) said Sunday it was taking steps to implement a more permanent arrangement to capture the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, as U.S. officials continued to demand more compensation for the spill.

Equipment had been installed and put in place over the weekend as BP worked to put together a system with the flexibility to respond to adverse weather conditions, such as a hurricane, and a bigger storage capacity, the London-based oil giant said in an operational update on its website.

In addition, Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc. (HLX) said late Sunday that one of its three offshore oil and gas production facilities was contracted by BP to process and offload crude oil and associated gas. The move to lease the Helix Producer I comes after the U.S. demanded that BP act more quickly and aggressively to contain the oil flows, which estimates peg at 20,000 to 40,000 barrels a day. According to Helix Energy's website, the platform can process 30,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

BP said it recovered 15,040 barrels of oil Saturday using its current method, where liquid hydrocarbons are funneled to a vessel floating above the ruptured well. So far, 119,300 barrels have been collected this way from one of the largest oil spills and ecological disasters in U.S. history, not including 7,720 barrels gathered during the first half of Sunday.

BP bosses to hold dividend talks

BP directors will discuss later whether to suspend dividends to shareholders, following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The firm is under intense pressure from the US government, which wants BP to use the money to pay for the Gulf of Mexico clean-up.

No decision is expected to be announced immediately, with BP bosses due to meet President Barack Obama on Wednesday.

President Obama wants BP to pay money into a ring-fenced fund to compensate those with "legitimate" damages claims.

The company said on Monday that its response to the incident has so far cost $1.6bn (1.1bn).

Obanana wants BP to ring fence cash so that he and his cronies can talk BP down even further. If I was Hayward I would tell Obanana to get stuffed, and pay the dividend. They the septics, are still going to do everything negative they can to BP
so why agree anything.

BP should concentrate on getting the well capped and stuff Obanana.

And remind him about Union Carbine and what happen in India and how much is each victim getting/got plus what punishment did they get.

AT A GLANCE: BP Makes Plan To Capture 50,000 Bbl/Day Of Leak
LONDON (Dow Jones)

Oil continues to flow into the Gulf of Mexico from BP PLC's (BP) Macondo well, affecting hundreds of miles of coastal beaches and marshes in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The spill was triggered by an explosion on April 20 that destroyed the Transocean Ltd. (RIG) drilling platform Deepwater Horizon, killing 11 crew members. BP has been scrambling to cap the well and contain the spill since.

CONTAINMENT: BP outlined new plans to the U.S. Coast Guard Sunday that will allow it to capture 40,000 to 50,000 barrels of oil a day in the Gulf of Mexico--the entire leak by current official estimates--by the end of June. The company said it will achieve this by deploying up to three additional vessels and connecting them to valves on the blowout preventer, which sits atop the well head.

However, it acknowledged numerous challenges to its plan and offered no guarantee of success. In the even of a hurricane, containment operations would have to be completely suspended.

COST AND CONSEQUENCES: BP remains under intense political pressure, especially over whether it will pay its full second-quarter dividend to shareholders.

BP's board will meet Monday, although a spokeswoman said it is not expected to announce a decision on the dividend. BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg will meet with U.S. President Barack Obama Wednesday to discuss the issue. White House officials on Sunday said they wanted BP to put "substantial" funds into an escrow account to cover claims by Gulf Coast businesses and residents affected by the spill.

Containment, cleanup and compensation related to the spill has cost $1.6 billion so far, BP said Monday.

In a sign that BP's woes in the Gulf of Mexico may also affect their international operations, the head of Libya's National Oil Co., Shokri Ghanem, said Monday that he wants further assurances of the safety of deep water drilling the company is planning for his country.

CLEANUP: Almost 475,000 barrels of oily liquid has been skimmed from the water's surface in the Gulf of Mexico, BP said Monday. The total length of containment boom deployed as part of efforts to prevent oil from reaching the coast is now around 470 miles and almost 600 miles of sorbent boom also has been deployed.

WHAT'S NEXT: A second vessel, the Q4000, is expected to arrive at the site of the leak Monday, connect to the blowout preventer and begin capturing and burning off up to 10,000 barrels a day of oil starting Tuesday.

BP America chief Lamar McKay will join four executives from other oil companies at a hearing on Tuesday before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee. BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward will appear Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations, in his first testimony since the April 20 explosion of the Gulf drilling rig.

-By James Herron, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0)20 7842 9317; james.herron@dowjones.com

Get out of BP now! The American government are determined to hang BP out to dry. They will not survive this. When a company confronts the American government they invariably lose, Big Time!

Sen. Reid, Democrats Ask BP To Set Aside $20 Billion For Spill
By Siobhan Hughes

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) and members of the Democratic caucus on Monday asked BP Plc (BP) to set aside $20 billion in a special account to be used to pay for economic damages and clean-up costs of an ongoing oil spill in the Gulf Coast.

The lawmakers made the request in a letter to BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward and asked for a response by no later than Friday. The letter comes as U.S. President Barack Obama is preparing to ask BP to set up an independently administered fund for reimbursing victims.

In a call with reporters, Sen. Patty Murray (D, Wash.) and Sen. Bob Menendez (D, N.J.) said that the letter was not intended to set a limit on the payouts BP would make in connection with the spill, which followed an April 20 explosion of a drilling rig that BP was leasing in the Gulf of Mexico.

The money "is an attempt" to make sure that commercial fishermen, tourism-related businesses and others in the gulf who have "immediate claims" will be "held whole," Menendez said.

Asked whether providing the $20 billion would cause Menendez to adjust legislation that currently would eliminate a cap on damage claims that BP and other companies would have to pay for spills and make the policy retroactive, Menendez said that "while I think the $20 billion is incredibly important as a very significant down payment towards the claims of individuals," he said that "I just don't want to limit that liability to that."

-By Siobhan Hughes; Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6654; siobhan.hughes@dowjones.com

Theres half their War-chest gone, the other half will go to OilSpill-Lawyers4U, and hey presto, bye bye BP. And it was supposedly in my Dreams ! More-like in YOUR nightmares.

US oil spill: Mapping the oil slick

Millions of gallons of oil have been leaking into the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster on 20 April 2010.

Despite efforts to stem the leak and contain the oil on the surface, the slick has spread, threatening wildlife and closing down 78,000 sq miles of the gulf to fishing.

Experts from several US federal agencies are tracking the spread of the slick and predicting its path using remote sensing equipment, reconnaissance flights and satellite imagery.

Whilst this is a disaster for those in/near the Gulf, it is but part of the rough and tumble of Oil exploration. Sure there have been smaller disasters before and no-doubt BP would have chosen "none" rather than "any" - but as US OilCo's have found in the past oil spills.
In morwe recent times some say the War in Iraq was an attempt to secure weastern-friendly Oil well that was a disaster of monumental proportions and I don't read that anyone is taking US government aside and insisting the land is brought back to its original state.
Obama spoke yesterday about a multi-pronged plan and this involved BP paying for loss of livihood in the region and lost tourism, etc.
-But wasn't that lack of tourism already present? If you are booking yr holiday you do this in advance...I suspect the reason tourism is down is more-likely a recent trend from the US-led credit crunch when they let theoiir Bankers gamble with World Economy - is there any chance the Banks will be forced to pay for that clean-up..?
Why BP?
It is odd that it is always referred to as BP's problem, when theere were other companies (US-Gulf-based I recall), that were involved. -And don'yt tell me the US Oil Regulators didn't have something to do with planning...just as we see artist-impressions of a new town-centre plan in the Library, there will ahve been years of discussion and planning before the steel was ordered.
IF
If this is the start of a new "the polluter pays" policy and Obama can swing that Worldwide I'm sure he will have many supporters round the World, setting himself up as a World Policy maker. However, I suspect this is closer to home and he's worried the Gulf won't be fixed by the time he's up for re-election. This would be a distortion of the reality past and future (I'll bet) - and if he continues to bash BP as the best source of money he may discover he's milked it to the point where the old cow runs dry, cannot feed and dies. Should that happen he won't fix the Gulf and the long-standing memory will be of failure.

Does anyone (here) think this depth of hate-BP (my thought) would be attached to a US-OilCo that was at the centre of a disaster in Niger Delta, or (forgive me) the industrial regions of India...?

The fact is that OIL is risky. Risky in exploration, extraction, processing, storage (Buntsfield!), and use (traffic kills). BP is a hugely successful Co that manages most of these risks day-in day-out......well, not this time and maybe the US should become a better International Player, so they don't need riskier deep-drilling operations in the Gulf....they have used up nearly everything that's "easy" - now they are moving into the risky-waters.
I just fear this hatred will never end, comming as it does from the top.

I hold very few shares in BP. and it wouldn't be the end of me if they went to zero.

CORRECT (6/15): AT A GLANCE: Oil ExecutivesTestify

UPDATE: BP's 2nd System To Collect Gulf Oil Spill Operating
BP (LSE:BP.)
Intraday Stock Chart
Today : Wednesday 16 June 2010
BP PLC (Bp) Wednesday said it was collecting oil and gas from a second containment system attached to the Macondo well's failed blowout preventer, potentially allowing it to gather more of the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico.

The vessel, called the Q4000, attached to the new oil collection system will enable BP to capture between 20,000 and 28,000 barrels of oil a day in total from the leaking well.

BP collected and stored about 10,440 barrels of oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill on June 15 using the lower marine riser package containment cap attached to the Discoverer Enterprise vessel.

Between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels a day are estimated to be leaking from the well, according to the U.S. authorities.

BP said oil and gas from the second system reached the Q4000 early Wednesday. "Operations continue to stabilize and optimize the performance of the second containment system," BP said. The additional oil collected by the Q4000 will be burned off rather than stored, BP said.

BP hopes to have two additional ships in place by the end of June that will bring the total volume of oil it can capture from the leaking well to between 40,000 and 53,000 barrels a day.

The operation to capture the oil leaking from the well is complex and has its own risks. Containment was suspended briefly Tuesday after the Discoverer Enterprise was struck by lightning, causing a small fire. The whole containment operation would have to be suspended if a hurricane was to strike the area.

-By Jeffrey Sparshott and James Herron, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0)207 842 9347; jeffrey.sparshott@dowjones.com

June 16, 2010 3:06 PM EDT

Following a meeting with the President of the United States, the BP (NYSE: BP) Board announces an agreed package of measures to meet its obligations as a responsible party arising from the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Agreement was reached to create a $20bn claims fund over the next three and a half years on the following basis:



* BP will initially make payments of $3bn in Q3 of 2010 and $2bn in Q4 of 2010. These will be followed by a payment of $1.25bn per quarter until a total of $20bn has been paid in.

* While the fund is building, BP's commitments will be assured by the setting aside of U.S. assets with a value of $20bn. The intention is that this level of assets will decline as cash contributions are made to the fund.

* The fund will be available to satisfy legitimate claims including natural resource damages and state and local response costs. Fines and penalties will be excluded from the fund and paid separately. Payments from the fund will be made as they are adjudicated, whether by the Independent Claims Facility (ICF) referred to below, or by a court, or as agreed by BP.

* The ICF will be administered by Ken Feinberg. The ICF will adjudicate on all Oil Pollution Act and tort claims excluding all federal and state claims.

* Any money left in the fund once all legitimate claims have been resolved and paid will revert to BP.

see my post on the other thread!

BP Shares Up 7% In Early London Trade After Spill-Fund Deal
BP (LSE:BP.)
Intraday Stock Chart
Today : Thursday 17 June 2010
Shares in oil major Bp PLC (BP.LN) traded up 7% in London early Thursday after the company said Wednesday it was suspending dividends and setting aside GBP20 billion to cover claims relating to its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

At 0737 GMT, BP shares were up 6.5%, or 22 pence, at 359 pence.

On Wednesday, BP said it would cancel at least $7.8 billion in dividends, sell off $10 billion in assets and reduce capital expenditure by at least $4 billion as it looks to build up the $20 billion fund over the next 3 1/2 years.

BP struck the agreement with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House amid intense political pressure spurred by a steady stream of oil spewing into the Gulf and washing up on beaches and marshes.

"BP's package agreed with President Obama should cool the politic heat and provide some degree of comfort to equity and bond markets, shareholders and businesses/residents in (the Gulf of Mexico) affected by the Deepwater Horizon accident," Evolution Securities said Thursday in a research note. "The $20 billion claims fund draws a line in the sand (of sorts). It doesn't cap BP's liabilities nor cover fines and penalties but does clarify how BP will settle legitimate claims and cleanup costs."

BP will pay $3 billion into an escrow account in the third quarter of this year and another $2 billion in the fourth quarter. This will be followed by payments of $1.25 billion per quarter until the $20 billion has been paid in, BP said in a statement.

The $10 billion of divestments now planned this year will focus on non-strategic assets in BP's exploration and production division, BP Chief Financial Office Byron Grote said Wednesday.

BP still expects to close its $7 billion purchase of assets in the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, Canada and Azerbaijan from Devon Energy Corp. (DVN) by the end of this year, Grote said.

BP's shares have almost halved since the April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers and lead to the oil spill.

Sonatrach Sends Pollution Barriers To Help Counter BP Spill
BP (LSE:BP.)
Intraday Stock Chart
Today : Thursday 17 June 2010
Sonatrach Wednesday sent floating anti-pollution barriers to protect the U.S. Gulf coast at the request of Bp PLC (BP), the Algerian state oil company said in a statement.

Sonatrach is one of several companies helping the U.K. oil giant to contain the impact of a massive spill that started after an explosion at the Deepwater Horizon platform Apr. 20.

The Algerian oil company has had problems of its own with a corruption probe that led to a management change earlier this year, but it hasn't had a major exploration accident in a long time.

-By Benoit Faucon, Dow Jones Newswires; +44-20-7842-9266; benoit.faucon@dowjones.com