From the Financial Times:
Shares in BP lost ground in London trading on Thursday on growing concern about the impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on the company’s financial health.
The potential cost of the crisis, and fresh fears over whether BP will pay its dividend, sent the shares tumbling 11 per cent at the open, The stock, which on Wednesday closed below 400p for the first time since October 2008, recovered some of those losses to stand 3.2 per cent lower at 380p by midday in London on Thursday…
The severe market reaction came as UK industry expressed alarm at the “inappropriate” and increasingly aggressive rhetoric being deployed against BP by Barrack Obama, US president, and warned that the attacks on the oil company could damage transatlantic relations…
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Editor’s note: The less value BP stock, the reduced capability of BP to meet its commitments. The Gulf disaster should not be politicized.
It took the Mexican government 10 months to cap the leaking Ixtoc I. 3 months into the Deepwater Horizon and its beginning to look as bleak.
BP is literally banking on our “gnat-sized” attention spans and our understandable crisis fatigue to let them get away virtually scot free from any responsibility, whether financial or moral, for this massive, man made disaster.
They continue to inhibit the flow of accurate information about what has and what is currently happening in the Gulf…
Media outlets want us to believe that the oil is largely gone or missing somehow. It may not be as visible now in some areas, but it is there continuing to suck oxygen from the water, causing huge “dead zones” — worse, the toxic dispersants used, largely against recommendations, are there too, making the oil even more dangerous. Please do not buy the media line and assume that soon the crisis will be past.
Don’t let BP or Congress off the hook. They could be the only creatures on the hook in large portions of the gulf right now!