With the ongoing oil hemorrhaging in the gulf region, and its actions since the tragic rig explosion that started it all, BP’s management proves itself unwilling and/or incapable of leadership.
(At the same time, U.S. regulators and their counterparts world wide could immediately show greater leadership by canceling any and all licenses for deep-water wells for firms lacking immediate and effective countermeasures to address multiple system failures (i.e., what happens when the Blow-out Preventer fails), and solutions en situ to quickly and effectively contain deep water spills.)
Aside from moving heaven and earth to stop the current spill, BP can and should begin to show leadership by taking the following steps:
- Publicly take full financial and corporate responsibility for the spill, all current and future damage to human, marine, and habitat health, the economic damages to the region, and the clean up.
- Pay damages and recruit local workers and labor quickly, and set up transparent standards for recruiting, damage payment response time, and publicly report the results.
- Immediately hire / enlist the help of displaced workers in the region. Train them, give them safety gear, functional and effective equipment, resources, and support, and pay them a fair wage.
- Hire / enlist the best skilled workers across the industry and in related industries in a timely manner.
- With 12/31/2009 assets of $235 billion, BP should go ahead and deplete capital reserves, working capital, and sell off performing assets in order to fund the above, as needed, and in recognition that, given the planetary scope of the disaster they created, it should no longer be in the oil business.
- Safely shut down and exit their deep-water wells worldwide immediately.
- Place any and all remaining corporate assets over the next decades into a Trust to continue long term clean up and compensation to care for the affected regions, and the people who live there.
- Thereafter, cease to be.
