B.P. = Bit of Perspective?

[Combwork]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but B.P. bashing seems to have become the new contact sport. It's maybe worth thinking of the following. On July 16th 1998, 167 people died when the offshore rig Piper Alpha, wholly owned by Occidental Petroleum (Los Angeles) exploded off the Scottish coast. The heat was so intense one of the rescue boats caught fire. The subsequent inquiry found Occidental Petroleum partly liable on the grounds of inadequate safety and maintenance procedures and guess what? No prosecutions followed.

U.S. companies were directly involved with Bhopal, Exxon Valdez and the Torry Canyon and in all cases, the first thing they did was run to their lawyers and start building walls. "It wasn't our fault, a big boy did it and ran away".

It's arguable who was actually responsible for what happened on Deepwater Horizon; The owners? The operators? The designers? The maintenance crew??? I guess that's yet to be decided on but it's worth noting that the first thing B.P. did was try to fix the problem. OK, their P.R. people are a joke, but it was their designers and engineers who tried again and again to solve the problem. Now it looks as if they might have succeeded so how about some applause instead of more ball kicking.

"Who's ass to kick". Would that be his by any chance?