Gulf Coast Disaster - Friday, August 6

Day 109

Highlights in this issue:

- BP readies for final kill
- Suttles returns to old job
- BP replacing US media head
- Drilling companies ready to return to Gulf
- BP may drill again in reservoir under oil spill
- BP well partners see upturn in their fortunes
- James Carville praises White House oil spill response

This afternoon’s summary
Plenty of people are now looking ahead to the future of the Gulf oil site. There’s Doug Suttles who is moving back to his old job in Houston as BP’s COO and being replaced by Mike Utster, another BP top dog. There’s BP now considering whether to start drilling again in the reserve beneath the well. And there are other drilling companies ready to return to the Gulf once the drilling moratorium is lifted. Then there are BP’s partners in the oil site who are suddenly seeing an upturn in their stocks this week. There are still plenty of people left out of this equation. We cannot forget those who have lost their livelihoods and may never get them back or the severe ecological damage likely to last for generations. Sure, the government can pronounce that Gulf seafood is safe to eat, but does anyone really believe them? BP says it’s good for all the damages, but they are already slow to pay. Democratic strategist James Carville, an early Obama critic on his oil spill response, is now praising the administration’s handling of the disaster. And when the politics of opportunity comes around again, who will be standing with the Gulf?

Quotable Quote:
“There's lots of oil and gas here. We're going to have to think about what to do with that at some point.” Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said about whether BP would drill again at the site of the oil spill.

And from Incident Commander Thad Allen: “I would assume that's a policy issue related to the management of the lease," he told reporters. "Frankly, it hasn't been raised to my level at this point. I'm not sure I can comment on it."


National News

Reuters: BP readies for final kill
BP said the cement seal on its crippled oil well was holding on Friday, and the company readied a final push to permanently shut down the source of the world's worst offshore spill. The relief well is expected to intersect with the ruptured well shaft in mid-August.

Read more:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0622667220100806

Check this one out, too:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-06/bp-cements-gulf-well-undecided-on-field-production.html


Wall Street Journal: Suttles returns to old job
Doug Suttles, the BP PLC executive responsible for the petroleum giant's response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, is returning to his old job in Houston as the chief operating officer for BP Exploration and Production while crews moved closer to a final seal on the blown-out oil well. Suttles will be succeeded by Mike Utsler, who has been running BP's command post in Houma, La., since April. No reason given.

Read more:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703309704575413120790515804.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond


Bloomberg: BP replacing US media head
BP is making plenty of changes Friday in the arena surrounding the Gulf oil spill. Word is out that the company is replacing Anne Womack Kolton as head of U.S. media relations two months after she was appointed.  Kolton, a former spokeswoman for the U.S. Energy Department and for Vice President Dick Cheney, is being replaced by Scott Dean, a 12-year BP veteran who handled communications for the company’s Texas refinery blast.

Read more by Jessica Resnick and Jim Poulson
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-06/bp-s-u-s-media-head-said-to-leave-after-two-months-in-role.html


Times-Picayune: Drilling companies ready to return to Gulf
There’s still uncertainty about the oil future in the Gulf of Mexico and it’s unclear when the federal moratorium on deepwater drilling will be lifted, but drilling companies say they are readying to return to work. They are maintaining their full complement of rig workers at full pay and making improvements in their rigs to meet new federal safety standards required by the Interior Department.

Read more:
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/08/drilling_companies_say_they_ar.html


Miami Herald: BP may drill again in reservoir under oil spill
In an idea sure to get plenty of people angry, BP’s Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said Friday the company might someday drill again in the same undersea oil reservoir that gushed millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico in one of the world's worst oil spills.

Read more:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/06/1764577/bp-we-might-drill-again-in-reservoir.html#ixzz0vqVmAEAk


AP: BP well partners see upturn in their fortunes
With BP coming up from under in the Gulf oil spill, other oil companies with a role in the disaster are finding their fortunes are improving, even as they wait to see how the legal and financial costs get sorted out. Shares of Anadarko, BP's partner in the blown-out well, and Transocean, which leased BP the ill-fated rig Deepwater Horizon, rose sharply this week. Both indicated they're coping with the consequences of the spill. And they remain determined that BP bear the brunt of the total costs.

Read more by Sandy Shore:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jiAd7rDhtX2DKMx7L2x_f-kJB4NAD9HE0PE80


NPR: Children feel the stress of Gulf disaster
Mental health professionals are concerned about the toll this summer of uncertainty could be taking on kids living on the Gulf coast. They’ve seen work for their parents slow down or stop and seen family budgets cut. Temporary paychecks for cleanup work face the prospects of paychecks stopping. Parents hoping to pass down traditions of earning a living on the water face the likelihood that the option is spoiled forever.

Read more:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129022326


Politics

New York Times: James Carville praises White House oil spill response
What a difference a few weeks can make. James Carville, the outspoken Democratic political strategist and television pundit, has sent what amounts to a very public kiss-and-make-up note to his friends in the White House, praising President Obama’s recent handling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read more by Peter Baker
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/these-days-carville-praises-oil-spill-response/


New York Times: Obama brings up oil spill at fundraiser
At a political fund-raiser on Thursday for a close friend running for his old Senate seat, President Obama brought up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to make his case to voters.

Read more by Peter Baker:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/us/politics/06memo.html


Regional

New York Times: Mexican guest workers laid off, want BP’s help
While thousands have lost their jobs as a result of the oil spill, the layoffs present special hardships for guest workers, mostly hotel workers and those working in shellfish processing. They are here legally for the duration of their contract, and now they want damages from BP.

Read more by Tamar Lewin
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/us/06guest.html?_r=1&hpw


Times-Picayune: Cleanup workers find message in a bottle
Oil cleanup crews on Horn Island, Miss., have been dealing with what's been washing up on its sandy shores since May 10, but no one could have been prepared for what popped up in the surf on July 15 -- an actual message in a bottle. They were five messages in the bottle sent in January 2010 from Barbados from the family of a Welsh soldier who had died in Afghanistan in 2009.

Read more:
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/08/message_in_bottle_afghanistan.html


Miami Herald: Oil spill economic pain easing for Florida
Now that the well appears to be capped, so has the economic impact in Florida, according to Sean Snaith. He originally put the economic damage from the spill at $11 billion for Florida. Now, he puts the new worst-case financial damage closer to $2 billion for the Sunshine State.

Read more:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/05/1763771/oils-economic-fallout-easing-up.html?story_link=email_msg#ixzz0vqmXdqnd


Feature:

Wall Street Journal: Can volcanic ash clean up the oil spill? How about pet hair?
Can volcanic ash clean up the oil-slicked Gulf Coast? Ed Wieliczkiewicz is trying to find out. He's also checking out coffin-liners, perforated plastic sheets and a contraption that looks like a sand-roving shopping cart as BP’s point man on a task force evaluating tens of thousands of citizen ideas for dealing with the contamination.

Read more:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954804575381971100355504.html


Graphics:

Federal government report: What happened to the oil?
http://documents.nytimes.com/noaa-usgs-report-shows-gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-poses-little-additional-risk?ref=us

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