Wow, 60 billion. For perspective,what was their profit as a percentage of revenue? How does that percentage compare to the average corporate profit?
If the life expectancy was 20 years, there's no excuse for not having a new system in place ready to switch over...Oh, except for greed...
Greed? Being shut down for months at a loss of $28 million dollars per day in revenue doesn't sound like greed. It's more likely that their monitoring of corrosion was inadequate or corrosion conditions in the pipe may have suddenly changed, e.g. the new occurence of sulfate reducing bacteria resulting in higher concentrations of hyrdogen sulfide gas, which especially in the presence of CO2, can rapidly accelerate corrosion.
First off, BP is not the average corporation...The country is not dependent on the Keebler or the Chef Pierre Pie corporations to keep afloat...We don't have to eat pies and cookies...
AND, my complaint was not on the amount of their profit...My complaint was that since this company has such a massive top line, it certainly could have spent some of the massive profits on maintenance and replacement of bad parts especially since the system was well beyond it's life expectancy...
With the massive profits, I wouldn't be surprised that BP will actually save money thru tax loopholes with the dowtime to repair the system...
"Being shut down for months at a loss of $28 million dollars per day in revenue doesn't sound like greed"
Hmmm. Let's check that math, shall we? BP pumps 120,000 barels a day out of that pipe (the rest is Exxon). at $75 a barel they stand to loose a mere $9m per day.
But don't sell your BP shares just yet: BP sells 4 million barrels of oil a day; after their announcement the prices jumps $2.22 a barrel, so that makes an additional $8.9m a day. Then add to that the gains that ARCO (a BP subsidiary) will make in California - where most of the oil from Purdoe ends up - selling gas to Joe public + the refining margins and you have something like break even.
Long term it adds yet another reason for oil prices, refinery margins and gas prices to stay high, which maintains the share price nicely!
Is it a conspiracy or just amazing incompetency at a company that has blown up to of its own refineries and poured 2 days worth of oil into the Arctic?
You decide!
cheap for a company that sells