BBC Newsnight report on Gulf oil disaster
BBC 2
Broadcast: 27 Jul 2010, 10:30pm
[unofficial transcript by Business and Human Rights Resource Centre]
[opening credits]
Kirsty Wark [Anchor]: Today, BP announces multibillion pound losses and a new CEO. For the first time, they have a chief executive who is not British. Robert Dudley with astonishing understatement said, “there is no question we are going to learn something from this investigation of the accident. The man he took over from, Tony Hayward, said that he had been demonized and vilified as chief executive of BP, but that the company would emerge stronger and better after the disaster. BP announced one of the biggest losses in British corporate history as they reported a quarterly loss of ￡11 billion. They have declared that the cost of the oil spill has amounted to ￡20.8 billion. The company has therefore announced plans to sell off assets of around ￡19.3 billion over the next year and a half. The current share price for BP is just over four pounds, down approximately 30% from their peak price of ￡6.30 in mid-April. All of this is cold comfort for the thousands of people whose lives have been blighted by the oil spill, and as Peter Marshall reports from Louisiana, BP may be in for one of the biggest and longest legal battles in oil industry history.
Brent Coon: People say that the refining industry and the petrochemical industries are just dangerous. And you know, there are a lot of industries that are dangerous but the jobs can still be done safely.
Peter Marshall (Narration): Meet Brent Coon, by nature, a Texan thrill seeker, by profession, one of America’s super-lawyers. He’s about to swoop on BP.
Brent Coon: BP has routinely taken more risks and has routinely acted worse than their competitors with respect to safety issues.
Peter Marshall (Narration): While BP’s value has been in free fall, on the U.S. Gulf Coast, nobody has been shedding tears for the shareholders. On the ground, the concerns are more personal.
Brent Coon: Now we have hundreds of thousands and potentially millions of people [who] are directly impacted…, economically, financially and for some of the families, from the loss of loved ones.
Billy Nungesser [President, Plaquamines Parish]: People can’t pay their bills. They can’t feed their kids, and let me tell you, the tempers…the frustration, is boiling!
Fisherman: Everyday is anxiety…You get up...You don't know what you [are] gonna do. You’ve got no plan. You’ve got to support your family. How am I gonna support my family right now?
Peter Marshall (Narration): For BP, this is the reckoning. Just how much compensation will they have to pay out? Is the 20 billion dollars they’ve set aside going to be anything like enough? And these are the calculations: how much pollution in the sea and on the land have they caused and how many livelihoods have they scuppered or sunk? And then, there’s the criminal investigation. Now the people around these parts are well aware that oil drilling is a risky business, but BP stands accused of unprecedented levels of recklessness.
July is the peak of the tourist season on Dauphin Island [Alabama, USA]. Not this year. The Alabama coastline is now decorated with floating booms, a defence against the oil. All along the Gulf States, it’s the same. James Main from Florida runs charter boats to take people diving and fishing, but with many fishing grounds closed, the tourists stopped coming.
James Main: I have nothing on my schedule. I have five letters of cancellation due to oil impact anticipation and it just happened right in the middle of everything I usually do.
Peter Marshall (Narration): With their normal work suspended, some have found employment in the cleanup. Others are reliant on the uncertainty of monthly compensation cheques from BP. Next month, an independent assessor starts dispersing BP’s special account. But with everyone from oil workers to hotel waiters lodging complaints, where does he draw the line? Brent Coon has made a fortune out of suing BP over past transgressions. Now he has 200 clients claiming compensation for the Gulf spill. He says that the $20 billion BP set aside for payouts and the cleanup won’t be nearly enough.
Brent Coon: If it was my ability to take the moneys that BP caused harm to, I would find everybody that lost a dollar and I would pay that dollar back. If they lost money, BP owes them.
Peter Marshall: You could be breaking BP, couldn’t you?
Brent Coon: No, I didn’t break BP. BP broke BP. You know, Peter, the reality is that BP has known for many years that they cut corners they shouldn’t cut.
John Dindo [Professor, Dauphin Island Sea Laboratory]: We actually take some of this, and then we take tissues…
Peter Marshall (Narration): Back at Dauphin Island in the Sea Laboratory, they’re studying the effects of the spill, all information which will help set the payout.
John Dindo [presenting reconstructed Gulf ecosystem model]: Since this is at the surface, and we know that some of the oil is at the surface. The interaction between the sargassum and the oil…how is that going to affect this ecological community that floats out there in the Gulf of Mexico?
Peter Marshall (Narration): There are gas platforms on the horizon, but scientists here say they’ve never been a problem. The oil gusher on the sea bed is a different matter, and BP’s efforts to disperse the spill may have made things worse
John Dindo: The interaction of dispersed oil and the molecules of oil floating somewhere in the water column is a question that will be answered now, today, tomorrow and probably 10 years from now as we look at how that moves through the ecosystem.
Peter Marshall: It’s the dispersants that seem to worry you more than the actual oil...
John Dindo: The science behind that is unknown. So, whether it was a good idea or a bad idea, why use the Gulf of Mexico as an experiment?
Peter Marshall (Narration): Because BP used dispersants, its critics say that the true scale of the leak can never be measured. But it could be around 200 million gallons, an exponential increase on initial estimates.
BP Advert: ...almost 6,000 vessels. These are thousands of local shrimp and fishing boats, organised into task forces and strike teams…
Peter Marshall (Narration): After howlers from their British CEO, BP is advertising to America that they do understand and are making things right.
BP Advert: ...their methods. We’ve set out more than 800 feet of boom to protect the shoreline. I grew up on the Gulf Coast and I love these waters. We can’t keep all the oil from coming ashore, but I’m gonna do everything I can to stop it.
Peter Marshall (Narration): At a local meeting in Plaquamines Parish, south of New Orleans, the locals are unconvinced. The larger than life Parish President is Billy Nungesser. He’s been dealing with BP every day and says they’re clueless.
Billy Nungesser: We’ve spent more time fighting BP than fighting the oil.
Peter Marshall: They say that they’re putting money into the whole Gulf region, they’re very keen to help, want to make things right.
Billy Nungesser: I’m going to make you a promise here today. When this is over, I’m going to guarantee you, that if had given me everything that was spent, I’ll show you where they’ve wasted more money than cleaning up the oil. They’ve wasted money on everything: consultants, on...camps, on the crews that are hiding out in the marsh, on helicopter flights to find out what we’re doing instead of cleaning up the marsh, on everything.
Peter Marshall (Narration): Before oil, Louisiana was the Cajun state, know for its fishing and especially, its oysters, but the oyster beds have been put in peril by the spill. Companies are closing; supplies at this plant are down 50% and they’ve laid off staff.
[workers in a factory clean and shuck oysters]
Oysterman 1: Some of us, that’s all we ever did, was fish.
Peter Marshall (Narration): The oystermen in Plaquamines Parish say they are struggling to get by on emergency payments they’ve had from BP.
Peter Marshall: For the Oyster fishermen, there’s nothing going on at all?
Oysterman 2: No. It’s a disaster.
Vlaho Mjehovich [Oyster fisherman]: Usually this is a busy place, lots of boatsmen around…
Peter Marshall (Narration): At the Marina, Vlaho Mjehovich’s oyster boats are laid up.
Vlaho Mjehovich : For me, summer’s the best time to work.
Peter Marshall : ...but these things are turning up dead.
Vlaho Mjehovich: But they’re dead. I can’t work. Last time I found two oysters when I went out there last time.
Peter Marshall (Narration): The irony, he says, once again, that it’s the cleanup that’s done the damage.
Peter Marshall: [to Vlaho Mjehovich] You must be pretty devastated by what’s happened.
Vlaho Mjehovich: Yes and the thing is, they’re trying to keep the oil out with the fresh water and it’s killing everything. When the oil comes in there, it’s gonna kill everything too, so it’s like a double edged sword.
Peter Marshall: Vlaho said the attempts to flush the oil are threatening his livelihood.
Vlaho Mjehovich: There’s no light at the end of this tunnel in my line of work, where I am right now, I’m realizing.
Peter Marshall (Narration): Since the spill, the very existence of the oil industry here is being challenged. These dry docked rigs normally operate in shallow water. But tougher regulations have almost brought drilling here to a halt. President Obama’s temporary moratorium on deepwater rigs has put thousands out of work.
The legacy of decades of oil production has created a wave of remorse here in Louisiana and in parts of neighbouring states. Now, America’s presidents may bemoan America’s addiction to oil, but it’s the people living here who have the real oil dependency. Daily, they’re living with the consequences.
[video of oil rig explosion]
The Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 oil workers, was no isolated incident for BP. In the past 5 years, their operations have accounted for 95% of all the industry’s safety violations in America. From broken platforms in the Gulf to ruptured pipelines in Alaska, BP has been the offender. Worst of all was the explosion at Texas City in 2005, where 15 died. After that, BP was fined a record $50,000,000 for criminal conduct. A further $87,000,000 fine followed last year, because BP still hadn’t met safety conditions.
[video of Brent Coon speaking to Peter Marshall inaudibly]
Brent Coon beat BP over Texas City. Now, he’s going into battle again.
Brent Coon : They have a bad criminal record. They have criminal indictments and convictions all over the place. That’s unfathomable that companies like BP would continue to operate like this when they have criminal convictions.
Peter Marshall (Narration): In response to Brent Coon’s comments, BP told us their offshore record had been better than average until Deepwater Horizon and on land and sea, they’re improving safety.
[video of Billy Nungesser speak ing with local residents]
Even former friends are abandoning BP. Billy Nungesser is a Republican politician and lifetime advocate of the oil industry. He defends the other big companies, but his faith in BP has run out.
Peter Marshall [to Billy Nungesser]: You don’t trust BP?
Billy Nungesser: Why, do you? I mean, guess what: take a poll: I bet you 90% of the people don’t trust them.
Peter Marshall (Narration): While BP’s CEO is taking the high jump with his golden parachute, the skydiving superlawyer predicts for some at BP, there could be worse to come. He believes that the Department of Justice investigation will see executives end up in jail.
Peter Marshall [to Brent Coon]: You think that’s a lesson for this time? People should go to jail this time?
Brent Coon : Sure. I think people will this time. We’ve already had people taking the 5th amendment and they know that the [Department of Justice] is coming this time.
Kirsty Wark: Peter Marshall, Well I’m joined now from Washington by Louisiana congressman Bill Cassidy and here in London by Dr. Richard Pike, a former BP executive and now chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry. First of all, Congressman Cassidy, do you think that viewing that film and hearing what people said that BP actually underestimates the reputational damage and also the legal involvement they are going to face for the next, perhaps, decade?
Bill Cassidy: I cannot speak for BP’s perception of the issue. Clearly, the Gulf Coast has been terribly impacted by this and hopefully BP will be proactive by making both the Gulf and the people of the Gulf whole.
Kirsty Wark: In the last few minutes, we’ve heard U.S. Senator Robert Menendez on a different issue what was the Senate hearings that were going to take place on the whole question of Al-Megrahi and Lockerbie were postponed partly because of stonewalling, particularly by BP, who said they weren’t going to come. You don’t speak for BP, but what is your view of BP?
Bill Cassidy: My view of BP is a corporate citizen who has made a series of decisions that have cost life and cost environment and cost treasure of others. I say that because the other four majors in the Gulf of Mexico say that they had drilling practices which were substantially better than BP’s. It sounds like BP has been identified as an outlier in terms of the practices they’ve used.
Kirsty Wark: Do you think that the idea of putting an American at the top will somehow give people more confidence in the United States?