If the oil industry is about one thing and one thing only it is not really about oil, it is about risk. How a company manages the geological, technical, safety and financial risk of its daily decisions determines whether the...
Obama’s presidential Commission into the oil spill starts today and already the focus seems to be about how to improve safety offshore for future drilling in light of the BP disaster. That means the focus is how to drill offshore...
Well we always knew that the oil spill disaster would have severe repercussions for the industry, a fact now conceded by the International Energy Agency (IEA). The IEA has warned that the spill from BP’s Macondo's well "places the ability...
If a tobacco company gave the World Health Organisation a $10 million grant to examine the health effects of smoking, health campaigners would be outraged. They would also treat the results with great suspicion. And the fact that Shell gave...
When the Deepwater disaster occurred in the Gulf of Mexico four months ago, many commentators argued that this was a “game changer” that would change the energy debate forever. Politicians and the public would realise that the ecological and social...
“What the hell did we do to deserve this?” is the question, baby-faced BP CEO Tony Hayward apparently asked his stunned fellow BP executives as they saw billions wiped off the company’s share price due to the Gulf of Mexico...
First it was a question, said more like a whisper. Surely BP will survive the spill? The concept that such a corporate giant could be felled by one outrageous irresponsible act would have been unthinkable even a few weeks ago....
So the most iconic oilman of his generation, Lord Browne, has finally published his memoirs of his time at BP in a book called "beyond business". Whilst most of the reviews so far concentrate on him being gay and his...
So seven years later it will come down to this weekend. Whether President Obama can withdraw all American combat troops from Iraq by August will be decided by the Iraqi elections this weekend. If the election passes off peacefully, American...
They are two moments in history, intricately linked, although poles apart. Today Peter Voser, the chief executive of Shell, outlines the company’s financial and production strategy for the coming year. Once again Nigeria was mentioned as a key country where...
