por admin » Jue Jun 10, 2010 3:35 pm
El asunto ahora es entre gobiernos
Inglaterra sale a la defensa de BP
El gobierno Ingles tomo el primer paso tentativo para intervenir entre BP y Obama. El gobierno de ese pais le recordo a Obama que BP brinda un valor economico a la gente Americana e Inglesa.
Cameron tambien dijo que esperaba discutir el asunto con BP y tiene programada una llamada telefonica este fin de semana a Obama.
U.K. Speaks Out in Defense of BP
British officials offer first public signs of support for company in face of heightened criticism from U.S.
By ALISTAIR MACDONALD And GUY CHAZAN
The British government took a first and tentative step Thursday to intervene in the row between oil giant BP PLC and President Barack Obama, asking the U.S. to "remember the economic value BP brings to people in Britain and America."
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron also said he expected to discuss BP and the fallout from the spreading Gulf of Mexico oil spill, among other issues, in a previously scheduled weekend call with U.S. President Barack Obama.
BP said it sees no justification for the collapse in its share price, even as the U.K. oil company admitted that the cost of the Gulf spill has risen to $1.43 billion.
Drilling Bits of Fiction
."The Prime Minister is…clear that we need constructive solutions and that we remember the economic value BP brings to people in Britain and America," Treasury chief George Osborne said Thursday in an e-mailed statement to the Wall Street Journal.
In Washington, President Obama Thursday appeared to edge back from his position that BP should subsidize the wages of U.S. workers idled because of the administration's moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf, suggesting that the law doesn't give him the authority to make that demand.
Congress must "update the laws to make sure that the people in the Gulf, the fishermen, the hotel owners, families who are dependent for their livelihoods in the Gulf, that they are all made whole," he said at the end of a meeting with the leadership of Congress.
Mr. Obama's increasingly aggressive attacks on BP in recent days could strain the working relationship with BP in the effort to stop the spill and minimize the damage to sensitive ecosystems threatened by the huge oil spill, which began shortly after an April 20 explosion and fire that sank a deepwater oil rig working on a BP well off the coast of Louisiana.
Journal Community
..Mr. Obama has escalated the confrontational tone of his remarks about BP steadily since Friday, when he questioned BP's $50 million public relations advertising campaign and its dividend.
The president personally told local officials in Louisiana that BP should be responsible for reparations not just for Gulf fishermen and others sidelined by the oil spill but for oil industry employees who have lost work because of the administration's moratorium on deepwater oil exploration.
Tensions escalated sharply Wednesday when Mr. Obama's interior secretary, Ken Salazar, said he would demand that BP pay the lost wages of oil workers in the Gulf region idled because of the administration's order to halt new deepwater drilling for six months.
Those comments, and reports that the U.S. Justice Department was looking into BP's plan to pay a dividend, touched off a rout of BP's shares that sent the company's stock by Thursday morning to the lowest level in 13 years. BP shares rebounded slightly, closing down 6.6% at 365.5 pence in London.
A U.S. law enforcement official clarified Thursday that the Justice Department is confident that BP has the money to pay required claims but wants to make sure the company does pay.
The BP dividend payment is a hot-button issue in the U.K., because so many large pension funds rely on the steady revenue stream it provides. Last year it made up 14% of total shareholder payouts on London's FTSE 100 index.
The U.K. government has been reluctant to spark a diplomatic incident over the blunder of a private company that has caused environmental damage for its most important ally. But as BP shares sank and the threat to its dividend appeared to grow, U.K. business groups and politicians began calling on Mr. Cameron's government to defend BP. The Institute of Directors said that aggressive U.S. political rhetoric was "inappropriate" and could prejudice other U.K. business abroad.
BP is a major contributor to the U.K. economy. The company paid £5.8 billion in taxes last year, making it one of the U.K.'s biggest taxpayers, it employs around 10,000 in the U.K., and its dividends form a large revenue stream for the country's pension funds. Since the start of the disaster on April 20, £54 billion has been wiped from BP's market value.
BP doesn't appear to have many defenders in Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said Thursday after the White House meeting that BP must "honor the responsibility you have to the small businesses" of the Gulf, before shareholders receive their dividend checks.
"We want them to clean up the spill," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) said of BP. "They said they're committed to doing that. They're going to have to do that."
Some BP shareholders said Thursday that the dividend may have to be sacrificed in the short term to turn down the political heat.
"If passing on the dividend is what it takes to get people off their backs, then they might have to do it," said Colin Morton, a fund manager at Rensburg Fund Management and BP shareholder. He said BP's share price might rally if it abolished the payout.
In a statement, BP said it was "not aware of any reason" for the movement in its share price. BP's American depositary shares dropped 16% Wednesday in New York trading but jumped 12.3% Thursday to $32.78.
Some analysts were disappointed by the statement, saying BP should show a greater sense of urgency in addressing the criticism of its spill response in the U.S.
The uproar over BP's dividend has come as the company has had increasing success in capturing oil leaking from the damaged well with a new cap installed last week. The cap collected 15,800 barrels of oil Wednesday, and the containment system will be expanded over the coming days to increase its capacity to process the captured oil to 28,000 barrels a day.
But a permanent solution to the leak will only come in August, when a relief well is completed. And the large volume of oil BP is capturing has fueled charges that the company previously understated the amount of oil flowing from the damaged well. BP could face fines based on the total amount of crude spilled.