BP says oil spill costs $US2.65 billion

New York Fed probes Wall Street exposure to BP say sources
New York (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has been probing major Financial firms' exposure to BP Plc to ensure that if the Oil giant buckles under the costs of the Gulf Oil Spill, it won't put Wall Street or the global Financial System at risk, according to two sources familiar with the matter. After pouring over documents and asking banks about their exposure to BP over the past two weeks, the Fed found no systemic risk, and hasn't asked firms to alter their Credit...

Storm to hurt Gulf cleanup as NY Fed checks on BP risk
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A gathering Storm was set to delay efforts to capture more Oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, even as BP Plc said on Monday a Relief Well being drilled to end the leak for good was within 20 feet of the blown-out Well. U.S.   |   Green Business   |   Gulf Oil Spill Separately, the New York Federal Reserve has been checking firms' exposure to the London-based Energy giant to ensure the crisis, now into its 70th day, won't create...

Tropical storm could disrupt oil spill cleanup; BP races to develop better containment system
New Orleans — Tropical Storm Alex steamed across the Gulf of Mexico on Monday on a path that could keep it away from BP's busted Well but could still stir up heavy winds, rain and choppy seas that drive the Oil deeper inland and bring much of the cleanup to a standstill. By midweek, boats skimming the sludge from the water may have to return to port for their own safety, and the floating Oil-containment booms could be rendered useless by waves slopping over them and may have to be pulled...

Storm could slow oil spill cleanup from far away
New Orleans—The Tropical Storm plowing across the Gulf of Mexico could send Oil skimmers back to port and make containment booms useless, even from far away. But the rough weather also might give nature a hand in breaking down crude from the massive Oil Spill. Waves churned up by Tropical Storm Alex could help Break up the patches of Oil scattered across the sea, and the higher-than-normal winds that radiate far from the Storm could help the crude evaporate faster. Forecasters said Monday...

Storm could slow oil spill cleanup from far away
New Orleans—The Tropical Storm plowing across the Gulf of Mexico could send Oil skimmers back to port and make containment booms useless, even from far away. But the rough weather also might give nature a hand in breaking down crude from the massive Oil Spill. Waves churned up by Tropical Storm Alex could help Break up the patches of Oil scattered across the sea, and the higher-than-normal winds that radiate far from the Storm could help the crude evaporate faster. Forecasters said Monday...

Former half-term governor Palin lectures President Obama on leadership
Oh, the irony. It burns : Sarah Palin fired up an enthusiastic Texas crowd late Saturday by criticizing President Barack Obama's handling of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, saying he's falling short on leadership. The former Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican vice Presidential Candidate told about 5,000 people at the Oil Palace in Tyler that the president should have been more aggressive in going after BP executives after the Spill. The British company was leasing a rig that exploded...

Bad-call blues: FIFA urged to allow video replay
Johannesburg (AP) - Tennis does it. Baseball does it. Even American Football and hockey do it. So why not Soccer, too? After two blown calls at vital moments of vital Games in the World Cup, the guardians of international Soccer are being pressed harder than ever to explain their resistance to video replay and their embrace of Human Error. The clamor for change spread around the World Monday, after many millions of TV viewers over the weekend saw England deprived of a clearly valid goal in...

In wake of blown calls, pressure mounts on FIFA to give referees some high-tech help
FILE - This Sunday, June 27, 2010 file combination of six photos shows Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer looking at the ball that hit the bar, bounce over the line during the World Cup round of 16 Soccer match between Germany and England at Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The goal was disallowed by the Game's referee. After blown calls at vital moments of vital Games, before a worldwide audience at the World Cup, the guardians of international Soccer are being pressed harder...

37% Say Oil Leak Will Have Devastating Long-Term Impact
Voters strongly believe that the ongoing Oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico will have a significant long-term impact on the environment, and they want the companies involved to pay for it.  A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 37% of voters think the leak will have a devastating long-term impact on the environment. Additionally, 36% more predict a major impact over time. While three-fourths of voters see a devastating or major impact, only 22% characterize the long-term...

Giant clean-up ship met with puny response from bureaucrats
After our government claimed that we did not need or could not obtain larger ships to skim the Gulf Oil Spill, a giant-capacity skimming ship has arrived in U.S. waters.

David Cameron's agony and ecstasy | Simon Hoggart's sketch
David Cameron came back from the G20 and G8 summits in Canada, and like all Prime Ministers before him explained how world leaders had agreed with everything he said. "Why, the scales have fallen from our eyes, Prime Minister!" " that was the gist of what Messrs Obama, Sarkozy, etc told him. But it wasn't all fun. "I suffered the exquisite agony of watching England lose 4-1 to Germany in the company of my good friend Angela Merkel and the German summit team." Well, it's his own silly fault....

BP Spill Costs at $2.65 Billion as Relief Well Work Continues
Source: Bloomberg Businessweek June 28 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc said the cost of battling the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill has reached $2.65 Billion as work continues to drill two Relief Wells to plug the biggest Oil Spill in U.S. history. The first of two Relief Wells aiming to intercept and plug the leak has reached a depth of 16,546 feet (5,043 meters) and detected the metal casing of the Macondo wellbore, London-based BP said today in a statement. The company made a second ranging run to help...

BP 'staked future on expanding offshore drilling'
Source: The Guardian BP staked its future on expanding Offshore Drilling a month before the catastrophic explosion on the Deepwater Horizon triggered the United States' worst Environmental Disaster, according to company documents revealed yesterday. The investigative web site ProPublica published a March 2010 strategy document in which BP named "expanding Deepwater" as its number one area for long-term growth. But even as the document was drawn up, engineers were struggling to control the...

Harper on the G20: Toronto’s pain, the world’s gain
P rime Minister Stephen Harper acknowledges that the G20 summit was an inconvenience to Torontonians, but says meetings like the one that took place in Canada’s largest city this past weekend are the only way world issues move forward. “Somebody told me when I first became Prime Minister – somebody who knew a little bit about the job – told me that even though the government of Canada is large and complex and there’s hundreds and even thousands of people working on...

President Alfred E. Obama:Our worry-free chief exec
Observing President Obama's relentlessly reckless approach to our nation's fiscal integrity is reminiscent of the signature phrase of Mad magazine's Alfred E. Neuman, "What, me worry?" Obama struck again last week at the G-20 conference in Toronto, urging other nations to follow his Pied Piper lead into Deficit-spending hell. Unlike recent U.S. presidents who recognized and touted this nation as the world's exemplar for Economic Growth and prosperity, Obama is turning us into a poster nation...

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained
In the past three years, British Petroleum netted — netted — $58.5 Billion. That’s not gross income, that’s NET income — aka profit . In that same three-year period, BP spent $29 million on safer drilling techniques. Twenty-nine million on safer drilling, $58.5 Billion in profits, in the same period. Now, that still does not account for money spent on clean-up — on actually responding to Oil Spills, Explosions, or other Oil-related accidents when they...

Louisiana Voters Strongly Support Offshore Drilling, Deepwater Drilling
Even as Oil washes up on their shores from the still-spewing Oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, 79% of Louisiana Voters believe Offshore Oil Drilling should be allowed, and nearly as many support deepwater Drilling. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Louisiana finds that just 15% do not believe Offshore Oil Drilling should be allowed. These findings are basically unchanged from early April prior to the eruption of the Oil leak. Nationally, 60% of Voters support ...

BP — Is your pension safe?
The Financial impact of BP’s Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill is set to hit millions of Pension Fund investors in the UK. Almost every Pension investor has a stake in BP’s fortunes, as the Oil giant accounts for £1 of every £7 of Dividend income paid out by the companies in the FTSE 100 index of leading shares. There is a real threat that the BP Dividend will be cut or even passed. On top of that, the fall of about 40 per cent in BP’s share price since Oil started...

G20 Plans One Foot On The Brake, The Other On The Gas Pedal. Will They Blow Up The Global Economy?
You really can't blame them for not listening . After all, the U.S. is caught up in Deficit fever, too - a cyclical illness that occurs only when we have a Democratic president or Democratic control of the House. The only thing that worries the Villagers is when the Government spends money on the people who gave it to them: Toronto -- President Obama warned Sunday that the world Economic Recovery remains "fragile" and urged continued Spending to support growth, an expansionist call at the end...

Let them play golf!
The recent Father's day weekend proved to be a revealing weekend indeed. While oil continued to gush from the hole that was the Deepwater Horizon, Tony Heyward, the perhaps/perhaps not CEO of BP was watching sailboat racing in England. While he was vilified by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emannuel for having an out of tune PR antenna, the former Freddie Mac board member failed to mention his boss's PR antenna was broken as well. While figures were revealed that perhaps 100,000...

Britain's Labor Party plots a return to power
Reporting from Peasedown St. John, England — The last time Britain's Labor Party was banished to the political wilderness, it wandered there, chastened and weak, for 18 years. This time, Party stalwart Frances Butt doesn't expect such a long exile. Get dispatches from Times correspondents around the globe delivered to your inbox with our daily World newsletter. Sign up » "I don't feel quite as depressed about this, because in my mind, it's only temporary," Butt, 66, said of the...

Plan hatched to move turtle eggs from oil spill
Source: Reuters Plan hatched to move Turtle eggs from Oil Spill By Steve Gorman Los Angeles, June 28 (Reuters) - U.S. wildlife experts are preparing to collect tens of thousands of endangered Sea Turtle eggs and move them hundreds of miles away in an unprecedented bid to protect them from the BP Plc (BP.N) (BP.L) Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Plans call for relocating 700 to 800 clutches of eggs left newly buried on the sandy beaches of Alabama and northwestern Florida -- Accounting for...

Haley Barbour finally discovers BP's oil spill is real
Six weeks ago, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said encouraged people to come visit his state because the Oil wasn't a threat. “The Mississippi Gulf Coast is open for business,” Barbour said. “Enjoy the beach and pay a little Sales Tax right here.” Three weeks ago, Barbour said the Oil was "no big deal" and that the real damage was being caused by media coverage of the Spill. "The truth is," he said, "we have had virtually no Oil. If you were on the Mississippi...

Mark Pryor Promised To Take On BP-Now Hold Him Accountable
I cornered Senator Mark Pryor immediately after and asked him what he was going to do as our representative to see that the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico never happened again. I would not let him go even though he looked a might uncomfortable with my questions. I figured it was cheaper than flying to Washington to see him so I might as well take advantage of the situation. I explained that I had many years experience from the early ’80s through the 90’s with the Oil Industry...

'Hurricane' Alex to slow BP's oil spill containment plans
High winds and large waves expected in the Gulf of Mexico as the first named Storm of the Hurricane Season passes to the west are likely to hamper efforts to contain the BP Oil Spill.