US bans pariah BP from state contracts

[pdq1]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2240128/US-bans-pariah-BP-state-contracts-following-Gulf-Mexico-spill.html

Will there or should there be a trade retaliation by the UK government?

[IggyB]

I wouldn't imagine so, this isn't really a British company anymore, it's a huge multinational with massive interests in America. 39 percent of the company is owned by American shareholders and six Americans, half the total, sit on its board of directors. It wouldn't therefore be appropriate for the UK government to involve itself in the contract dealings of a foreign power.

[pdq1]

I wish they'd stop calling it British Petroleum then....its getting us a bad name.

[factor-fiction]

It's not officially called British Petroleum

[factor-fiction]

The name is BP plc. It is sometimes said that the company is called Beyond Petroleum but I am sure this was just a slogan they adopted rather than a formally registered change of name

[pdq1]

http://en.mercopress.com/2012/11/28/bp-suspended-from-new-contracts-with-us-government

Really?

[factor-fiction]

Here is BP's own website.
Is there a reference to British Petroleum anywhere?

[factor-fiction]

http://www.bp.com/sectionbodycopy.do?categoryId=2&contentId=7065607

[pdq1]

Now we have established its an assault on Britain lets get back to the real question helped by Alex Brummer a finance journalist

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2240021/ALEX-BRUMMER-Britain-act-bring-BPs-battering-US-authorities-close.html

The question is what do we do about it.

He suggests Cameron uses his influence he has in Washington to bring the endless battering of BP to a close.

[jno]

what influence is that, again?

[youngmafbog]

It's a big company. It can fight it's own battles, or the Septic shareholders can do it. Nothing to do with our Government and they should stay out of it.

Its probably election time anyway so someone vote catching and it will all just settle.

[LazyGun]

I still do not think you have made a case that this is an attack on Britain.

Given the whole Gulf of Mexico oil leak, the loss of deaths, the pollution of coastlines, it is not entirely unexpected that the US would seek to penalise BP.

Even were it an attack on Britain there is precious little that Cameron could do about it....

[pdq1]

If you read between the lines the US attitude with BP is that it is either jealous or plain bloody-minded of its dealings with Russia. Most of BPs profits come from Russia and Putin has arranged a bilateral deal with Russian companies to explore for oil and gas after the fall out with some of its moguls..

[ludwig]

I'm expecting a Hollywood film with the BP chariman played by Jeremy Irons as a sort of Bond villain stroking a white cat.

It'll emerge that the British left the cap off the oil well because they were too busy drinking tea, hunting foxes, and horse whipping poor Irish people.
Bruce Willis will helicopter in to the rig and machine gun their limey asses before swimming down to plug the hole with a crack team of vietnam special ops veterans.

[LazyGun]

So - a documentary then Ludwig? :)

[ludwig]

^ Exactly. That's the way I remember it happening anyway ;-)

[factor-fiction]

I'm still not clear, pdq1, why we should see this as "an attack on Britain" and something we should retaliate about.

[pdq1]

I repeat Factor30 partly what is says in the above link:


///ALEX BRUMMER: Britain should act to bring BP's battering by US authorities to a close///

[factor-fiction]

You've lost me- I can't see that comment but I don't see any point in reposnding to non sequiturs

[boxtops]

why?

[pdq1]

This row about BP and the US is not new. In fact it seems almost a repeat of what happened in 2010 when Boris Johnstone accused the yanks of being anti-british because of BP. Cameron went to see Obama to settle the dust.

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/830304-cameron-obama-is-not-anti-british-over-bp-gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill