They will pay and keep on going. If the ocean was privately owned they would go under. But government regulations and rules will keep them afloat.

Cool graph if true.

They could laugh at how cheap all this is going to be. Dont feel bad for them, they dont even notice.

It came from a BBC report, so it must have some element of validity behind it. Funny thing is though that that massive Kuwait shit absolutely never hit the media at the time, and even before now. Amazing how propaganda turns everyone into sheep :Oh crap

i just read that the total revenue of the gulf of mexico commercial fishing industry for the whole of 2008 was $660million, which although a big figure, when compared to BP's annual profits, its a figure they could swallow fairly easy. obviosuly there's a lot more than just paying off the fishermen though.

The bigger cost will be the fines imposed for each barrel of oil spilled, plus the overall cleanup for same...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2514399520100525

http://www.examiner.com/x-33986-Poli...r-gallon-fines

The news referenced BP and the possibility of bankruptcy a few times recently. Maybe just for shock value?

there is a lot of pressure on BP right now, the stock is tanking and they are getting sued left and right..

I'm still here sitting on a stack of cock pics. :(

obama has just banned all drilling in the gulf for 6 months, and has said that bp should pay the unemployment benefit of the oil workers of other companies laid off.

i think that's one step too far, the drilling could continue, its the US governemnt that has decided to suspend it.

Let's say that when all is said and done roughly half of the gulf (just a guess) is deemed unsafe for fishing. In that case, the number might be more like $400 million (allowing for inflation and such). Thing is, you then need to factor in how many years it'll take the fishing industry to rebound. Depending on who you listen to, we could be talking about multiplying that number by 10 or maybe even 30.

And then (as you suggested) there's more. A lot more. There will be claims for diminished tourism, diminished property values, a substantially reduced local tax base, illnesses and on and on and on.

BP will probably survive, but they'll do so by fighting the vast majority of these claims tooth and nail for the next twenty years or more.

The writing is on the wall, BP is doomed

http://www.energyboom.com/policy/oil...culation-flies

Shares ended the day on the New York Stock Exchange at $29.20 which is down almost 50% from a share price of $59.48 on April 19th, one day before the disaster began to unfold in the Gulf of Mexico.

The sell-off began earlier today when longtime energy investment banker Mathew Simmons (and author of the must-read book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy) predicted in a Fortune Magazine article that,

"they [BP] have about a month before they declare Chapter 11. They're going to run out of cash from lawsuits, cleanup and other expenses."

nice find.
i actually hope they can stay afloat longer, if not they will be able to run away from their obligation to clean up the gulf of mexico...

i think if bp are pushed too hard by the obama administration, they may just walk away from the US and a lot of the potential liabilites there, especialy considering obama may unilateraly ban bp from further US drilling. i read somewhere the US only accounts for 11% of its revenue, so its possible.

from what i read todays drop in share price was due to what obama said about paying out of work oil riggers and that investors think that bp will suspend its dividend payments.

but what about there assets?
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-107203778.html
granted this is a 2003 article, but is shows that in fact BP went ahead of MOBIL in sheer assets of 159 billion.

Now, depending on how much they have now i would think this could be sold off with a % of proceeds going to the clean up and long term restoration-