MrsMo

With all the money BP is losing over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and more costs rolling in daily, they actually have to discuss suspending paying a dividend. How do they have the money to pay a dividend? Are these oil companies THAT rich? I guess they are - pundits who follow these kinds of decisions say, "...the company is unlikely to scrap it altogether."

Of course, BP is also paying more for their public relations campaign than they are paying towards capping the well and the necessary clean-up.

Seems to me that this company has their priorities seriously messed up.

Here's the link to the story about their dividends: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100614...nBib2FyZGRpc2N1

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Apathy

Yes, they are. They deal with amounts of money that I couldn't even begin to imagine the size of the heap if it was all in coinage.

They're in the position that they can't afford not to pay the dividend. If they don't pay it then they keep the money, but stand to lose big time as investors drop BP like a politician drops a manifesto pledge. If they pay the divi and the cleanup fee then everyone will see just how much money oil companies can command.

The wheels of the PR machine are in full flow, search for oil spill on Google or Bing and you will see the top sponsored result is BP promoting how BP are cleaning up and how they care - they've bought the top slot.

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SpoofedEx

Okay, let's have fun with this:
http://www.marketwatch.com/investin...k/BP/financials

Operating Revenue: $239,272M

Let's make a stack of 1 cents to make the best stack. So that's a stack of 23,927,200M coins, each the thickness of 1.55 mm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coins_..._States_dollar).

Let's see...
23,927,200,000,000 * 1.55mm = 37,087,160,000 meter high stack...
The average distance to the moon is 384,403,000 meters (http://www.universetoday.com/guide-...ce-to-the-moon/)

That is... We could make nearly a hundred stacks next to each other of 1 cent coins with that amount of money that reach the moon...

That is, if I'm not making some mistake here, which is possible as I'm tired :P.

Daremo

Today the executives of 5 top oil companies appeared before our Congressional committee investigating the oil spill. The committee, before the meetings, read the emergency response plans of all 5 oil companies and here is what a committee member had to say:

"... Mr. Markey added: “In preparation for this hearing, the committee reviewed the oil spill safety response plans for all of the companies here today. What we found was that these five companies have response plans that are virtually identical. The plans cite identical response capabilities and tout identical ineffective equipment. In some cases, they use the exact same words. We found that all of these companies, not just BP, made the exact same assurances.” Like BP, Mr. Markey said, three other companies include references to protecting walruses, which have not called the Gulf of Mexico home for three million years.

“Two other plans are such dead ringers for BP’s that they list a phone number for the same long-dead expert,” he said."

So the oil companies basically plagiarized the same document. Guess just like in school -- they FAIL!! However their failure doesn't just affect them - it fucks up the entire planet big time.

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Kitz E Kat

Lucky for you lot they [BP] do sympathize with the "little people". And you thought they didn't care!

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coffee

Yeah I listened to that bunch of we care about the "little people" bullshit. That pretty much says it all and their view of the people that this is hurting, BP sucks and they need to go to the top of their empire and jump the fuck off...

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Apathy

What happens when BP spills coffee. (no offense coffee)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM

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Kitz E Kat

Very good. Thanks for posting.

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Apathy

You're welcome Kitz. Like most of us I get sent random things by mates, some of it is complete and utter carp, some is worth passing on.

Very cool pic that gives an idea of scale to the problem faced by BP (and one could possibly say Haliburton as they appear to own and were operating the rig for BP...)

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TreeFrog

One of the biggest problems that BP represents is that its partially owned by the UK government. That means that any bills to be paid out are paid out partially by the tax payers of the UK. And that mens that if those payouts go too far .. the whole country goes bely up..
I dont know how much too far is but at the very least its a serious hit to the UK tax payer and at a time when there isn't much to spare..

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pukn

Ah yes, however, they do business in the US as well as other parts of the world, so it wouldn't just be UK citizens footing the bill...

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Apathy

Nah, sold off by Maggie Thatcher between '79 and '87. If the Government still has any shares they don't represent a majority and I don't think they'll accept any bills for the cleanup.

Interestingly enough, according to the Telegraph UK shareholders such as Scottish Widows and Legal & General have unloaded a whole lot of shares and American pension fund shareholders, including Calpers, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and Ohio Public Employees Retirement System have held onto their shares even though they have halved in value. They're gambling that BP will recover and continue to make mega profits.

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