Boycott BP (Page 3)

I was in Louisiana this weekend and happened to read a newspaper article about a BP station owner.  He said he's in a 7 year contract to buy his gas from BP, so he doesn't have a choice in the matter currently.  He also didn't seem to dismiss the boycott of his gas as a minor thing as some have suggested.  

But what would he know? 

Sooooo - Bernie Madoff shouldn't have been jailed.  If we let him remain free, he might have been able to find a way to repay the victims of his misdeeds, right?

If the issue is financial, and you want to take a logical approach that also punishes people, then you would want to jail those who decided NOT to install safety cutoffs at the time the well was being drilled (I understand that there was a half million dollar piece of equipment that could have cut off the pipe as soon as there was a problem, but it was felt to be too expensive for the perceived risk/benefit ratio), going however high up the chain that goes.  Then you would break the company up into its assets and sell them off to the highest bidders (you don't think BP's competitors aren't already licking their chops at the prospect of taking them over?), with the resititution claims getting first dibs on the proceeds. 

And isn't that essentially how the free market is supposed to work?  The company that does the best job of delivering its goods and services without p!ssing people off and being the most cost effective gets the largest market share?  If people don't like the way BP does business, shouldn't they be voting with their dollars?

Maybe when the MMS hands out contracts, they should be requiring companies to put into escrow a suitable amount to cover this sort of problem, until the well is capped.  Then, even if the company goes under, for any reason, the coverage is in place.

A few things...

BP has over $8 billion (B) in cash in the bank.  It's estimated they have another $10-30 billion in oil reserves.  Even trading as low as they are they are worth $91 billion.

This is not going to bankrupt BP.  They will be a changed company but any boycott is not going to destroy them.

FL station owners have said they saw a 20% decrease in gas sales at BP station last month.  BP makes money selling oil and gas.  To say this does not affect their bottom line is incorrect.  It does.

However if you truly want to boycott BP you have to look beyond gas and into natural gas, propane, heating oil, kerosene etc..  They make a LOT of products.

Personally I have not bought BP gas in a while (before the spill) for the same reason some else posted here (their cash vs credit prices).  I refuse to buy gas from any station that tries this trickery (yes it says it on the sign but that sign is often VERY small)

I'm not sure where you heard this but there was a BOP (blow out preventer) installed, however it malfunctioned.  And they cost about $1/2 million.

I'm not saying there was not an issue with the installation or maybe shortcuts were taken but it is standard procedure to install a BOP when drilling a well to prevent this very problem.

So someone screwed up (BP, TransOcean, the BOP manufacturer?) but the device was in place.  The oil is shooting out of the top of the BOP currently.

Yes, that's exactly what I said.



I have no doubt, especially with this Administration and its commitment to "finding somebody's azz to kick" (heh), that investigations will be carried out, blame assigned (rightly or wrongly), people will be jailed and fines levied. So that takes care of the legal aspect. Ol' Bernie will be jailed.

But when it comes to restitution, the fact remains. You need a viable company to remain in business for years to have any hope of recovering the costs involved in this disaster. On the other hand, if you do bankrupt them, yes, you take down the what-- dozens, perhaps hundreds, of culpable execs involved-- oh yeah, PLUS 80,000 other innocent employees, thousands of independent station owners, the retirement investments of millions of British and American citizens and, oh yeah, no one gets paid back.

So what do you think is the more desirable outcome?



Edited by scoobysdad 2010-06-14 8:15 AM

My comment is no more exaggerated than yours - do you honestly think that a few hundred people no longer buying their gas at BP stations is going to bankrupt them?  Seriously - if they have enough money in profits to pay out dividends now, they are not really hurting all that bad. 

Like I said at the beginning of this thread, I am not changing my gas buying habits in response to this.  But I will say that I almost never buy Exxon gas, ever since the Valdez.  I haven't seen Exxon go bankrupt, and there are still plenty of Exxon dealers in my area. If people want to slow down the gush of profits that BP has until they correct the mess they made, why do you accuse them of trying to bankrupt the company? Maybe you think they are operating on the razor thin margins that a locally owned boutique is operating on?

Looking at the people who would get hurt, those investors are technically part owners, and therefore bear some of the burden of the problem.  If they disagreed with the policies of the company, they could invest elsewhere.  If their primary concerns are how much money they can get, well, then they pulled the handle and came up with lemons. You can't really divorce the profits you get (as an investor) from the way in which those profits are earned, without some sort of karmic balance taking place at some point in time. Investing is NOT just putting your money into some magic piggy bank that increases the amount you stick inside.  Real people are doing real things and are really affected. Again, look at the early history of the industrial and gilded ages - people making money had little to no regard for the people working in inhumane conditions.  This nearly led to the US becoming socialist, or at least splitting apart along class lines.

Same, whatever their name is they are a penny cheaper than the Exxon across the street and they are on the correct side of the road.

Then why aren't we all driving Chevrolets?

Seriously, I'll not buy BP gas again. When possible, I go to my station who still does minor auto service as I hate to lose that to a station who sells cigs and soda.

If you re-read my original response in this thread, you'll see that my view and yours are not so far apart on this point.  But I did not indicate that people boycotting BP was going to bankrupt the company, as you seemed to, in the part of the thread that I quoted above. I agree, boycotting will hurt the small local guy.  But I don't think it will affect BP as you indicated above when you said it would bankrupt them.

You started boycotting BP in the '70's? Wow, that's a long time for that.

Dont boycott BP. It hurts the average british person. 
A large portion of pensions etc in the UK have been hit by this crisis as they are heavily invested into BP shares, which are a pretty safe bet you would think. 


I have several qualms with the way the US seems to be treating bp. For a start, notice obama constantly calling it British Petroleum. It hasn't been that for several years, It IS officially Called BP.
Secondly, BP didn't build the rig, or parts that failed, and weren't running operations on the rig at the time of the explosions. They were leasing it out. They could have theoretically just wiped hands on all of it but they didn't, they're doing something.
 
Yes i've gone off on a slighyt rant, and it could be better, andd also its kinda gone awry, but i apologise.   

Alot of you think bp is going to pay alot in damages to the business but a law was passed after the exxon valdez that states they only have to pay up to 75mil in damages to businesses. Yes they do have to foot the bill for clean up though.

No, BP calls the shots. Doesn't matter if they contract work out. BP will have someone on the rig, the Company Man, who calls the shots and approves decisions. 

yep, just like all those folks that had their pensions heavily heavily invested with Enron. 

Common accounting trick. If you lease property, plant and equipment, it doesn't show as a liability on your balance sheet thereby inflating your cash flow. See any large capital item (airplanes, all CVS stores, etc) for equivalent accounting. All corporations use this in some form.

And BP indeed sought relief from inspection of the platform at it's inception saying that they already had similar designs in place and this one didn't need inspection before being allowed to operate. "We've done this before and we know how". Riight.

I work for a British company and my wealth is directly tied to BP (can't elaborate on how due to confidentiallity). I frankly don't care if BP is financially harmed by this either.

BP needs to step up on this and I will asume all green and white sunshine logos are equally culpable.

Call me crazy, but I wouldn't think this call is theirs to make. I guess I would have hoped the appropriate U.S. government agency charged with oversight of these matters would have taken a "trust but verify" position on this inspection before allowing drilling to proceed. But I'm sure they were probably up to more important matters, like watching porn on their laptops during work hours.

BP the gas station has nothing to do with BP the oil company. It's like GM selling off Saab to another company - yet you still refuse to look at Saabs cause you hate GM.

Worst part is you could very well be buying BP gas at your local Exxon. You can't tell, so all you're doing is hurting a local business owner.

The best thing you can do is take a look in the mirror and reduce your energy ?consumption as a whole. That's the only good thing? ?that's going to come of this - people are going to see some concequences to their insatiable energy thirst? and ?maybe really get serious about energy alternatives.?
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?All those horrible thought you have looking at the BP logo - have those thoughts every time you fill up your car, or turn the ignition to drive somewhere!?
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This user's post has been ignored.

well, what about using the little guy for services (oil change, if they still do it, minor repairs, etc) or the store (drinks, snacks, etc), since that's often where the better part of the profits come from.  In that way, you help the little guy without putting as much money into BP's pocket.

From NPR this morning, sales at BP stations are down 20% in Maryland.  To quote a local BP owner who is locked into his contracts (and I'm paraphrasing here because I don't remember exactly) "You're not hurting BP, you're hurting my family".  While this is a good sound bite and plays well to the media, its not my reason for not boycotting BP.

All I still see are emotional, and in my opinion misguided, responses to the disaster.  No one is claiming it isn't horrible or that you shouldn't be outraged that this happened.  I just think you should be mad with offshore drilling in general and not BP, cause it doesn't seem like they did anything so egregious.  Nothing worse than standard, legal, industry practice, so how can you really blame them for that?  If this bothers you so much, stop all offshore drilling, don't just stop BP.  I just haven't seen a good logical argument for a boycott of BP.

That being said, I'm cool with boycotts, what better way to influence a market absent sufficient government regulations than to force change through consumer demand?  However, I live because I can drive my car to work, is there a "good" oil company that meets my requirements of not drilling offshore (anywhere) and is making a significant effort towards alternative energy sources?  I don't think so, so what can I do?  (If there is, let me know - I have changed my consumer habits to support companies who take REAL green initiatives, and would change gas buying too).  I hope for government mandates to drive this since consumers aren't able to demand it.  By the time we're willing/able to demand it, I think it will be too late.

The station owner makes a strategic decision about whether he flies the BP or Citgo, Sunoco, Exxon or whatever flag out front. That decision is likely based on how much money he stands to make from the contract.

If the station owner decides to align himself with BP, then they didn't perform due diligence vetting the business practices of his parent company. When you make these decisions, you have to look at all strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of every strategic decision and look at the entire picture.

True that no one predicts this type of catastrophe and which oil company falls victim to it, but at least look at cash reserves to see if they can absorb it it did happen.