Oil Spills

[beej]

Well, at least you admit the US Government is "Almighty". Do I sense some amount of jealousy there :roll: (not) Almighty US Government, something to think about - I bet there are about zero percent US natives who think that :!:

Tongue in cheek.

In my limited opinion, I think this week will bring some good news on the spill front, with this new method of easing the spill being put into place.

It look more believable than just piping the hole full of mud!

[DJTX]

Well, at least you admit the US Government is "Almighty". Do I sense some amount of jealousy there :roll: (not) Almighty US Government, something to think about - I bet there are about zero percent US natives who think that :!:

Tongue in cheek.

In my limited opinion, I think this week will bring some good news on the spill front, with this new method of easing the spill being put into place.

It look more believable than just piping the hole full of mud!

Yeah, I know. Just thought your were admitting something :shock:

On the spill though. Does anyone know what the largest single spill was? How does this one (if it's not already the largest) compare?

[robbie36]

On the spill though. Does anyone know what the largest single spill was? How does this one (if it's not already the largest) compare?[/quote

Well Beej referred to it as a 'pissy little oil spill'

As I understand it, it is around 100,000 barrels a day.

Considering US consumption is 20m bbl/day or even Thailand's is 1m bbl/day it is.

However, if you consider that a barrel of oil essentially fills a bath - it is like 100,000 people taking a bath full of oil and dumping it in the sea - every day.

Nice.

Exxon Valdez spill was a total of about 250,000 barrels.

[DJTX]

On the spill though. Does anyone know what the largest single spill was? How does this one (if it's not already the largest) compare?

Well Beej referred to it as a 'pissy little oil spill'

As I understand it, it is around 100,000 barrels a day.

Considering US consumption is 20m bbl/day or even Thailand's is 1m bbl/day it is.

However, if you consider that a barrel of oil essentially fills a bath - it is like 100,000 people taking a bath full of oil and dumping it in the sea - every day.

Nice.

Exxon Valdez spill was a total of about 250,000 barrels.

Still would be interesting to know how much has been spilled, and what they project. I've heard that they won't be able to fix it until August.

[beej]

I spunked some of my coin pot on a few thousand BP. shares today at 415.... lets hope they plug it.

[DJTX]

I spunked some of my coin pot on a few thousand BP. shares today at 415.... lets hope they plug it.

Agreed, let's hope they plug it, but I'm thinking the stock will go lower still before it starts back up.

[DANNO]

I spunked some of my coin pot on a few thousand BP. shares today at 415.... lets hope they plug it.

Agreed, let's hope they plug it, but I'm thinking the stock will go lower still before it starts back up.

closed @ $36.5 over here....

spill is being estimated to cost BP ...maybe..$10-12 Billion before its all over ... but the stock has been hit for about 45 Billion since the Spill occurred.

I agree..this is an investment that is a play and should over a long haul fully rebound back within its normal position relative to the general market.

Hell their profits last year were report at roughly 14 Billion so they are wiping off one year's profits, as pissed off as we might get --- do you think there is going to be a significant backlash?? I do not

And yes let's do plug the bugger up!

...wait now what is this Beej??? It is now a good idea?

Sudden change of heart towards us poor Yanks? ...I thought we needed some kind of lesson a few pages back? Surely we need a harder lesson before profits should be raked in??

[DANNO]

On the spill though. Does anyone know what the largest single spill was? How does this one (if it's not already the largest) compare?

Well Beej referred to it as a 'pissy little oil spill'

As I understand it, it is around 100,000 barrels a day.

Considering US consumption is 20m bbl/day or even Thailand's is 1m bbl/day it is.

However, if you consider that a barrel of oil essentially fills a bath - it is like 100,000 people taking a bath full of oil and dumping it in the sea - every day.

Nice.

Exxon Valdez spill was a total of about 250,000 barrels.

Still would be interesting to know how much has been spilled, and what they project. I've heard that they won't be able to fix it until August.

The largest was off the Iraq coast, committed by Saddam's boys (man-made)

the largest accidental "spill" was also in the Gulf of Mexico in Mexican waters.

Projected estimates are that if the release can only be "stopped" by two relief wells being drilled now, but not expected to be functional until mid-August, the BP spill will exceed the Mexican spill but be only 60-70% of the Iraq spill.

(sorry I do not have the exact numbers of barrel where I am now)

[DANNO]

Why hasn't this been taken out of BPs hands and dealt with by the US Almighty Government?

I'm sure they have some serious deep water equipment that could sort this out?

The again, its only in the deep south, and no one really cares much about them now do they?

Well, at least you admit the US Government is "Almighty". Do I sense some amount of jealousy there :roll: (not) Almighty US Government, something to think about - I bet there are about zero percent US natives who think that :!:

Anyway, on the subject, why don't they take control. I heard on CNN the other day that legally they can not. Not sure how true, but hey, CNN reported it :roll:

You (and CNN ) would be correct....legislation in the late 80s and after Exxon's nightmare; extended, but still capped private liability. AND somehow restricted Federal gov't intervention ( hummmm anyone smell a lobby interest here?)

[Bruce551]

When corporations rule

Posted By Bill Becker On June 1, 2010 @ 11:05 am In BP Oil Disaster

The fatal disasters at the Upper Big Branch Mine and Deepwater Horizon are fresh evidence the Bush-Cheney corporate culture continues in some federal agencies charged with overseeing industry. President Obama needs to change that culture fast. Bill Becker, a regular CP contributor and Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Project [1] (PCAP), explains what Obama needs to do.

Formal investigations are underway, but it appears that lax federal oversight and enforcement, combined with corporate corner-cutting and greed, are implicated in both of the energy industry tragedies — the worst coal mine disaster in 40 years and the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Massey Energy’s mine and British Petroleum’s drilling ship in the Gulf were subject to federal oversight. In both cases, oversight failed.

Some barriers to federal oversight are systemic. Congressional hearings [2] after the Massey disaster, for example, found that mining companies often abuse the appeals process when federal inspectors find safety violations. About 16,000 violations currently are being appealed, representing $195 million in unpaid fines. It takes more than a year to resolve an appeal these days.

Other barriers are cultural, the result of an Administration’s philosophy about overseeing powerful industries. During the eight years of the Bush Administration, corporate lobbyists for the fossil energy industry were appointed to key government policy and regulatory jobs. The most infamous was Philip Cooney, the former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute who used his position in the White House to censor and water down the conclusions of research by federal climate scientists. After a whistleblower revealed Cooney’s misdeeds to the New York Times, Cooney resigned and went to work for ExxonMobil.

To illustrate how much the Bush Administration was in bed with oil companies, however, nothing topped the scandal in the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, the same agency accused now of insufficient oversight in the Gulf oil spill. As the New York Times [3] reported in September 2008:

As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department [4] agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes. “A culture of ethical failure†pervades the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo. The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.

After he was appointed, Obama’s Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made clean-up of this scandal one of his first priorities. But the roots of the Bush legacy apparently reach deep – a legacy in which regulatory agencies serve the corporations they’re supposed to regulate rather than the public interest.

Whatever the outcome of the Gulf oil release – and it’s certain to be devastating – President Obama should take forceful action to put the federal government’s oversight functions back on track. Some suggestions:

* Obama should direct the Inspectors General of all agencies charged with overseeing environmental regulations and worker safety to investigate how those responsibilities are being performed. In cases where recent IG investigations already have found enforcement deficiencies, the White House should review whether the deficiencies have been corrected.

* The President should use the power of the purse to enforce the principle that America’s natural resources – its oceans, public lands and fresh water, to name a few – are “trust assetsâ€. In other words, they are owned by present and future generations, and public officials have a fiduciary responsibility to protect them. Obama should order agencies whose functions directly or indirectly affect the nation’s natural resources to codify that policy in job descriptions, performance standards and appraisals, and in decisions about bonuses and promotions.

* The President should direct the Attorney General to aggressively enforce this principle through the courts, seeking injunctive relief and penalties against companies who violate our environmental laws. Anything less is a failure to perform the responsibility Congress has delegated to the Executive Branch to protect America’s natural assets and environmental quality.

This is not tree-hugging. It’s about restoring balance between corporate interests with the public interest, and balancing resource exploitation with resource protection. The Gulf disaster is a tragic reminder of how important natural systems are to our economy, not to mention our physical health. Many of those systems are under profound stress. Many of the public health and safety problems prevalent today – from devastating floods to childhood asthma – are a result of environmental degradation.

I don’t mean here to impugn the integrity of federal employees generally. Most work hard every day to carry out their jobs. I was proud to be one of them for 17 years. Nor do I meant to imply that companies don’t have a moral responsibility to govern their own behavior, with or without a regulatory whip. They do.

But it seems clear that remnants remain of the Bush Administration’s corporate culture, perhaps including some political appointees who “burrowed in†to the civil service before Bush left office. Whatever the reasons – and President Obama needs to dig deep within his Administration to find them out – the federal government appears to be complicit in the deaths of 40 energy industry workers lately and in ruining the economy and ecosystem of an entire region.

Article printed from Climate Progress: http://climateprogress.org

URL to article: http://climateprogress.org/2010/06/01/when-corporations-rule/

[eagle]

Why hasn't this been taken out of BPs hands and dealt with by the US Almighty Government?

I'm sure they have some serious deep water equipment that could sort this out?

The again, its only in the deep south, and no one really cares much about them now do they?

Well, at least you admit the US Government is "Almighty". Do I sense some amount of jealousy there :roll: (not) Almighty US Government, something to think about - I bet there are about zero percent US natives who think that :!:

Anyway, on the subject, why don't they take control. I heard on CNN the other day that legally they can not. Not sure how true, but hey, CNN reported it :roll:

You (and CNN ) would be correct....legislation in the late 80s and after Exxon's nightmare; extended, but still capped private liability. AND somehow restricted Federal gov't intervention ( hummmm anyone smell a lobby interest here?)

I heard in 76 the lobbyist got the EPA to drop crude oil from it hazardous waste list. I vote to remove lobbyists from the planet. All the democracy talk in the world is BS with lobbyists buying compliance.

[eagle]

Excert from Bruce551

To illustrate how much the Bush Administration was in bed with oil companies, however, nothing topped the scandal in the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, the same agency accused now of insufficient oversight in the Gulf oil spill. As the New York Times [3] reported in September 2008:

As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department [4] agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

It keeps getting sleazier. So the people responsible for safety at the spewing well were partying their asses off with the money that was used to pay them to look the other way. Thats what I get out of it. Sounds like a college caper flick.

The amazing thing to me is lobbyist are the known bag men for the evil ,and yes I mean evil in the worst comic- book, hollywood way, corporate pigs. If congress wasn't bought out by them then they would remove them from the system yet they watch the cancer grow. Dam it so obviously crooked it smells just thinking about it.

[DJTX]

The amazing thing to me is lobbyist are the known bag men for the evil ,and yes I mean evil in the worst comic- book, hollywood way, corporate pigs. If congress wasn't bought out by them then they would remove them from the system yet they watch the cancer grow. Dam it so obviously crooked it smells just thinking about it.

Americans amaze me. Just about everyone in the US has some complaint about the way the government works. Yet, those same people keep reelecting the same people to Congress. Nothing changes...

[eagle]

The amazing thing to me is lobbyist are the known bag men for the evil ,and yes I mean evil in the worst comic- book, hollywood way, corporate pigs. If congress wasn't bought out by them then they would remove them from the system yet they watch the cancer grow. Dam it so obviously crooked it smells just thinking about it.

Americans amaze me. Just about everyone in the US has some complaint about the way the government works. Yet, those same people keep reelecting the same people to Congress. Nothing changes...

ooooh you mean this doesn't happen in other countries

[DJTX]

The amazing thing to me is lobbyist are the known bag men for the evil ,and yes I mean evil in the worst comic- book, hollywood way, corporate pigs. If congress wasn't bought out by them then they would remove them from the system yet they watch the cancer grow. Dam it so obviously crooked it smells just thinking about it.

Americans amaze me. Just about everyone in the US has some complaint about the way the government works. Yet, those same people keep reelecting the same people to Congress. Nothing changes...

DJ...the House of Representatives should turn over substantially this cycle in November...there is a real -"kick the bums out"-- mentality ...but real incompetence may be voted in (from both parties)...nothing changes much because the same self-serving, get re-elected at any cost mentality is the common denominator in politics --and moneys' influence of course! --- well we will muddle on I guess! :roll:

Hopefully you're right about the turnover, but history says you're not. Maybe 'some' will be gone, but the general attitude of most won't change.

Interesting that people in the US seems to believe Congress is doing a terrible job. That is everyone in Congress but their own representative. "Mine is doing great, but yours sure sucks" :evil:

[DJTX]

ooooh you mean this doesn't happen in other countries

Maybe. Probably. Well, yeah it does. But then, we are talking about the US here right :evil:

[DANNO]

I missed on some of the numbers I mentioned ( from memory ) in a couple of earlier posts;

but the basic info was solid, I think

here is a broadcast I heard this AM.... (lasts about 5 minutes)...if you want the true numbers

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=127303842&m=127303804

she has a nice British accent to my ear....so she must know what she is talking about! :wink:

[eagle]

The amazing thing to me is lobbyist are the known bag men for the evil ,and yes I mean evil in the worst comic- book, hollywood way, corporate pigs. If congress wasn't bought out by them then they would remove them from the system yet they watch the cancer grow. Dam it so obviously crooked it smells just thinking about it.

Americans amaze me. Just about everyone in the US has some complaint about the way the government works. Yet, those same people keep reelecting the same people to Congress. Nothing changes...

DJ...the House of Representatives should turn over substantially this cycle in November...there is a real -"kick the bums out"-- mentality ...but real incompetence may be voted in (from both parties)...nothing changes much because the same self-serving, get re-elected at any cost mentality is the common denominator in politics --and moneys' influence of course! --- well we will muddle on I guess! :roll:

Hopefully you're right about the turnover, but history says you're not. Maybe 'some' will be gone, but the general attitude of most won't change.

Interesting that people in the US seems to believe Congress is doing a terrible job. That is everyone in Congress but their own representative. "Mine is doing great, but yours sure sucks" :evil:

Congress is corrupted by lobbying interests and those interests make sure there buddys get elected. The system is corrupt which makes the voting seem useless.

[DANNO]

The amazing thing to me is lobbyist are the known bag men for the evil ,and yes I mean evil in the worst comic- book, hollywood way, corporate pigs. If congress wasn't bought out by them then they would remove them from the system yet they watch the cancer grow. Dam it so obviously crooked it smells just thinking about it.

Americans amaze me. Just about everyone in the US has some complaint about the way the government works. Yet, those same people keep reelecting the same people to Congress. Nothing changes...

DJ...the House of Representatives should turn over substantially this cycle in November...there is a real -"kick the bums out"-- mentality ...but real incompetence may be voted in (from both parties)...nothing changes much because the same self-serving, get re-elected at any cost mentality is the common denominator in politics --and moneys' influence of course! --- well we will muddle on I guess! :roll:

Hopefully you're right about the turnover, but history says you're not. Maybe 'some' will be gone, but the general attitude of most won't change.

Interesting that people in the US seems to believe Congress is doing a terrible job. That is everyone in Congress but their own representative. "Mine is doing great, but yours sure sucks" :evil:

Congress is corrupted by lobbying interests and those interests make sure there buddys get elected. The system is corrupt which makes the voting seem useless.

well it should be fun to see how many candidates are spouting the Sarah Palin: "drill baby Drill!"

[eagle]

The amazing thing to me is lobbyist are the known bag men for the evil ,and yes I mean evil in the worst comic- book, hollywood way, corporate pigs. If congress wasn't bought out by them then they would remove them from the system yet they watch the cancer grow. Dam it so obviously crooked it smells just thinking about it.

Americans amaze me. Just about everyone in the US has some complaint about the way the government works. Yet, those same people keep reelecting the same people to Congress. Nothing changes...

DJ...the House of Representatives should turn over substantially this cycle in November...there is a real -"kick the bums out"-- mentality ...but real incompetence may be voted in (from both parties)...nothing changes much because the same self-serving, get re-elected at any cost mentality is the common denominator in politics --and moneys' influence of course! --- well we will muddle on I guess! :roll:

Hopefully you're right about the turnover, but history says you're not. Maybe 'some' will be gone, but the general attitude of most won't change.

Interesting that people in the US seems to believe Congress is doing a terrible job. That is everyone in Congress but their own representative. "Mine is doing great, but yours sure sucks" :evil:

Congress is corrupted by lobbying interests and those interests make sure there buddys get elected. The system is corrupt which makes the voting seem useless.

well it should be fun to see how many candidates are spouting the Sarah Palin: "drill baby Drill!"

What sucks is they will come crying change and I will make it right and then they will sell out and cash in. One dam election after another. I like the new Spill baby Spill !

[beej]

Come on isn't it HUGLY ironic that BP are being labeled by the biggest gas guzzling nation on our planet as being the evil polluters, when in actual fact, all that **** they are taking out of the earth is going to be used to pollute by the very people that are pointing fingers!

[eagle]

Come on isn't it HUGLY ironic that BP are being labeled by the biggest gas guzzling nation on our planet as being the evil polluters, when in actual fact, all that sh*t they are taking out of the earth is going to be used to pollute by the very people that are pointing fingers!

sheeezus Beej BP f**ked up. US being the biggest consumer doesn't make it ok. The earth doesn't care who fucks it we all get it in the end.

[PiAnt]

I know Beej has mentioned Nigeria already - it's about time someone started doing something about this.

The US and Europe ignore it

The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta have had to live with environmental catastrophes for decades.

We reached the edge of the oil spill near the Nigerian village of Otuegwe after a long hike through cassava plantations. Ahead of us lay swamp. We waded into the warm tropical water and began swimming, cameras and notebooks held above our heads. We could smell the oil long before we saw it – the stench of garage forecourts and rotting vegetation hanging thickly in the air.

The farther we travelled, the more nauseous it became. Soon we were swimming in pools of light Nigerian crude, the best-quality oil in the world. One of the many hundreds of 40-year-old pipelines that crisscross the Niger delta had corroded and spewed oil for several months.

Forest and farmland were now covered in a sheen of greasy oil. Drinking wells were polluted and people were distraught. No one knew how much oil had leaked. "We lost our nets, huts and fishing pots," said Chief Promise, village leader of Otuegwe and our guide. "This is where we fished and farmed. We have lost our forest. We told Shell of the spill within days, but they did nothing for six months."

That was the Niger delta a few years ago, where, according to Nigerian academics, writers and environment groups, oil companies have acted with such impunity and recklessness that much of the region has been devastated by leaks.

In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP's Deepwater Horizon rig last month.

That disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 rig workers, has made headlines round the world. By contrast, little information has emerged about the damage inflicted on the Niger delta. Yet the destruction there provides us with a far more accurate picture of the price we have to pay for drilling oil today.

On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are now demanding $1bn in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along the coast.

Within days of the Ibeno spill, thousands of barrels of oil were spilled when the nearby Shell Trans Niger pipeline was attacked by rebels. A few days after that, a large oil slick was found floating on Lake Adibawa in Bayelsa state and another in Ogoniland. "We are faced with incessant oil spills from rusty pipes, some of which are 40 years old," said Bonny Otavie, a Bayelsa MP.

This point was backed by Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno: "Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable."

With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past two generations. Locals blame the oil that pollutes their land and can scarcely believe the contrast with the steps taken by BP and the US government to try to stop the Gulf oil leak and to protect the Louisiana shoreline from pollution.

"If this Gulf accident had happened in Nigeria, neither the government nor the company would have paid much attention," said the writer Ben Ikari, a member of the Ogoni people. "This kind of spill happens all the time in the delta."

"The oil companies just ignore it. The lawmakers do not care and people must live with pollution daily. The situation is now worse than it was 30 years ago. Nothing is changing. When I see the efforts that are being made in the US I feel a great sense of sadness at the double standards. What they do in the US or in Europe is very different."

"We see frantic efforts being made to stop the spill in the US," said Nnimo Bassey, Nigerian head of Friends of the Earth International. "But in Nigeria, oil companies largely ignore their spills, cover them up and destroy people's livelihood and environments. The Gulf spill can be seen as a metaphor for what is happening daily in the oilfields of Nigeria and other parts of Africa.

"This has gone on for 50 years in Nigeria. People depend completely on the environment for their drinking water and farming and fishing. They are amazed that the president of the US can be making speeches daily, because in Nigeria people there would not hear a whimper," he said.

It is impossible to know how much oil is spilled in the Niger delta each year because the companies and the government keep that secret. However, two major independent investigations over the past four years suggest that as much is spilled at sea, in the swamps and on land every year as has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico so far.

One report, compiled by WWF UK, the World Conservation Union and representatives from the Nigerian federal government and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, calculated in 2006 that up to 1.5m tons of oil – 50 times the pollution unleashed in the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster in Alaska – has been spilled in the delta over the past half century. Last year Amnesty calculated that the equivalent of at least 9m barrels of oil was spilled and accused the oil companies of a human rights outrage.

According to Nigerian federal government figures, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000 official major spillages sites, many going back decades, with thousands of smaller ones still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1,000 spill cases have been filed against Shell alone.

Last month Shell admitted to spilling 14,000 tonnes of oil in 2009. The majority, said the company, was lost through two incidents – one in which the company claims that thieves damaged a wellhead at its Odidi field and another where militants bombed the Trans Escravos pipeline.

Shell, which works in partnership with the Nigerian government in the delta, says that 98% of all its oil spills are caused by vandalism, theft or sabotage by militants and only a minimal amount by deteriorating infrastructure. "We had 132 spills last year, as against 175 on average. Safety valves were vandalised; one pipe had 300 illegal taps. We found five explosive devices on one. Sometimes communities do not give us access to clean up the pollution because they can make more money from compensation," said a spokesman.

"We have a full-time oil spill response team. Last year we replaced 197 miles of pipeline and are using every known way to clean up pollution, including microbes. We are committed to cleaning up any spill as fast as possible as soon as and for whatever reason they occur."

These claims are hotly disputed by communities and environmental watchdog groups. They mostly blame the companies' vast network of rusting pipes and storage tanks, corroding pipelines, semi-derelict pumping stations and old wellheads, as well as tankers and vessels cleaning out tanks.

The scale of the pollution is mind-boggling. The government's national oil spill detection and response agency (Nosdra) says that between 1976 and 1996 alone, more than 2.4m barrels contaminated the environment. "Oil spills and the dumping of oil into waterways has been extensive, often poisoning drinking water and destroying vegetation. These incidents have become common due to the lack of laws and enforcement measures within the existing political regime," said a spokesman for Nosdra.

The sense of outrage is widespread. "There are more than 300 spills, major and minor, a year," said Bassey. "It happens all the year round. The whole environment is devastated. The latest revelations highlight the massive difference in the response to oil spills. In Nigeria, both companies and government have come to treat an extraordinary level of oil spills as the norm."

A spokesman for the Stakeholder Democracy Network in Lagos, which works to empower those in communities affected by the oil companies' activities, said: "The response to the spill in the United States should serve as a stiff reminder as to how far spill management in Nigeria has drifted from standards across the world."

Other voices of protest point out that the world has overlooked the scale of the environmental impact. Activist Ben Amunwa, of the London-based oil watch group Platform, said: "Deepwater Horizon may have exceed Exxon Valdez, but within a few years in Nigeria offshore spills from four locations dwarfed the scale of the Exxon Valdez disaster many times over. Estimates put spill volumes in the Niger delta among the worst on the planet, but they do not include the crude oil from waste water and gas flares. Companies such as Shell continue to avoid independent monitoring and keep key data secret."

Worse may be to come. One industry insider, who asked not to be named, said: "Major spills are likely to increase in the coming years as the industry strives to extract oil from increasingly remote and difficult terrains. Future supplies will be offshore, deeper and harder to work. When things go wrong, it will be harder to respond."

Judith Kimerling, a professor of law and policy at the City University of New York and author of Amazon Crude, a book about oil development in Ecuador, said: "Spills, leaks and deliberate discharges are happening in oilfields all over the world and very few people seem to care."

There is an overwhelming sense that the big oil companies act as if they are beyond the law. Bassey said: "What we conclude from the Gulf of Mexico pollution incident is that the oil companies are out of control.

"It is clear that BP has been blocking progressive legislation, both in the US and here. In Nigeria, they have been living above the law. They are now clearly a danger to the planet. The dangers of this happening again and again are high. They must be taken to the international court of justice."

A ruptured pipeline burns in a Lagos suburb after an explosion in 2008 which killed at least 100 people. Photograph: George Esiri/Reuters

[beej]

Any African group that stands against RDS or the Gov in Nigeria either ends up in jail or dead.

Plain and simple.

Millions of barrels have been spilt for over 25 years onto the land/wetlands/sea no one cares, its Africa! Who cares if these people have lost their land, their livelihoods, or their family?

Glad America are sending troops over there to ''protect'' their oil assets, maybe this is just some Karma!

[DJTX]

Come on isn't it HUGLY ironic that BP are being labeled by the biggest gas guzzling nation on our planet as being the evil polluters, when in actual fact, all that sh*t they are taking out of the earth is going to be used to pollute by the very people that are pointing fingers!

So they've shut down all BP stations in the UK?

Interesting information from wikipedia (from 2008). When you measure oil use per capita the US is not the biggest user. The top 10 (using barrels of oil per year per capita):

Saudia Arabia 33.7 bbls per year

Canada 24.7 bbls per year

US 22.6 bbls per year

S. Korea 16.4 bbls per year

Japan 13.7 bbls per year

France 11.6 bbls per year

Germany 11.4 bbls per year

UK 10.1 bbls per year

Italy 10 bbls per year

Iran 8.6 bbls per year

Conclusion: it's the Canadians fault :evil: