Obama fires warning over BP share dividend

Gulf spill BP's 'accident', White House's 'disaster'
Washington (AFP) June 4, 2010 - What's in a name? When it comes to the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, what it's called depends on the message a particular group is trying to get across, Boston University professor of geography and the environment Cutler Cleveland told AFP. "Spill? It's not really a spill in the sense of the Exxon Valdez where a tanker ruptured and oil spilled," said Cleveland who put together "word clouds" to analyze which expressions were used most frequently by BP, the White House and environmental groups when talking about the Gulf of Mexico oil leak. "BP uses things like 'accident' and 'incident' and 'event' which don't carry a lot of emotion," he said.

The words "catastrophe" and "disaster" figure prominently in White House and Greenpeace texts to describe what has been unfolding in the Gulf since late April, when an explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11 workers and sent the platform sinking to the bottom of the sea. Since then, an estimated 20 million gallons of oil have spewed into the Gulf from a ruptured riser pipe that connected a well on the sea floor to a drilling platform on the surface. The oil spewing into the sea has shut down Louisiana's fishing and shrimping industries, and tarballs from the huge slick it has created have washed into the fragile marshlands on the Louisiana shoreline.

"The White House needs to appear to understand and be sympathetic to the magnitude of this to people in Louisiana, because it really is a disaster to them," Cleveland said. "It also wants to show that it's on top of things, that it is acting tough. So words like 'responsible' and 'liability' come up a lot," he said. BP uses words like "respond" and "effort" and "contain" over and over in its statements, said Cleveland. "That reflects their desire to show that 'we're really working hard to get this thing contained,'" he said. BP was hoping Friday that its latest attempt to stem the flow was managing to capture some oil via a cap placed over the sawn-off riser pipe.

by Staff Writers
Kenner, Louisiana (AFP) June 4, 2010
President Barack Obama fired a seething warning to BP Friday, warning the oil giant must not go cheap on Gulf of Mexico disaster victims if it pays billions of dollars in share dividends.

Obama, who has been criticized for not showing enough emotion over the worst environmental disaster in US history, showed flashes of obvious anger as he hammered BP, which operated the Deepwater Horizon rig which exploded in April.

The president was making his third visit to the disaster zone, as he comes under increasing pressure over the oil spill -- a factor that caused him to postpone a trip to Indonesia and Australia later this month.

He said he had no problem with BP meeting legal obligations to pay dividends to shareholders but said the firm must not shortchange fisherman and other victims of the disaster in Louisiana.

"I don't want them nickel and diming people down here," Obama said after getting a briefing from local political leaders and state and federal disaster relief officials.

Obama's comments referred to reports that BP may be considering maintaining its dividend to shareholders despite the scale of the disaster which looks set to cost billions of dollars.

The president also said it was "too early" to say whether BPs latest attempt to plug the gushing undersea oil well that has contaminated a vast swathe of the Gulf of Mexico would be successful.

Obama got a briefing from officials including Admiral Thad Allen who is overseeing the federal disaster mitigation effort, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Florida Governor Charlie Crist, as oil begins to come ashore in his state.

He then traveled to Grand Isle, a peninsula in the southern Mississippi delta to meet residents affected by the disaster.

The president said it was his understanding that BP had paid 50 million dollars in advertising to help it manage its image through the Gulf drama, and mentioned other reports of a possible 10.5 billion dollar dividend payment.

"I want BP to be clear they've got moral and legal obligations here in the Gulf," Obama said, referencing a law requiring oil firms to pay clean-up costs of spills and some compensation to people whose livelihoods are hit.

He said that fishermen in the area were facing huge financial hits, after vast tracts of sea became contaminated by oil, adding that he did not want BP "lawyering up" to slow the claims process.

"I want them to hear from me and I want to public to hear from mem" he said.

"They need to make sure they are following through on these claims in a fair way and if they are not, we are going to stay on them about it."

Obama spoke after the US government on Thursday submitted a 69 million dollar bill to BP, payable by July 1, for initial costs from the cleanup operation.

"The fact BP can pay a 10.5 billion dollar dividend payment is indicative of how much money these folks have been making," he said Friday.

BP has yet to say whether it will pay its normal dividend to share holders but is coming under increasing political pressure in the United States -- not just from Obama, to skip the payment.

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