BU Now » oil spill

Shake-up at BP

Jo Breiner — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:10:51 +0000

Just days before he will become BP’s new CEO, Bob Dudley has already begun to shake-up senior management. BP announced that upstream chief Andy Inglis will leave the company. In a statement, BP also announced that the company will create a safety division to “oversee and audit the company’s operations around the world.” Kenneth Freeman, Dean of the School of Management, gives his view on the shake-up and its impact on BP.

“As in personal relations, trust is more readily lost than regained in business. BP’s moves are vital first first steps.

“Incentives and rewards throughout the company will need to be closely aligned to drive the desired culture change. In particular, maintaining and asserting a consistent and emphatic message and tone at the top will spell the difference between success and failure in transforming and sustaining the desired culture.”

Contact Kenneth Freeman, 671-358-6170, kfreeman@bu.edu

Americans and oil

Dick Taffe — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:00:58 +0000

A new poll reports reports that Americans are “deeply concerned” about energy but “unwilling to pay higher gasoline prices to help develop new fuel sources.” Professor Cutler Cleveland, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, says this attitude defies our experience since 1970 as we’ve gone to war over oil, experienced major oil spills, suffered recessions triggered by oil price hikes, and watched the global political landscape be reshaped by energy issues. From his blog, The Energy Watch, he poses and asks a question — then offers a conclusion:

“How have American habits changed in light of these events? Here is what has happened from 1970 to 2007 in regards to our most oil-intensive activity: Percentage of people who commute alone in car, 25% increase; Number of miles driven per car, 23% increase; Percentage of households with three or more cars, 65% increase; Miles driven per household, 50% increase; Average size of household, 17% decrease.

“BP and government regulators must be held accountable for the Deepwater Horizon disaster. But make no mistake about it: the ultimate driving force behind our predicament is the American appetite for oil and our apparent unwillingness to change our behavior in the face of enormous human and environmental costs.”

Contact Cutler Cleveland, 617-353-3083, cutler@bu.edu

BP CEO hit at Congressional hearing

Dick Taffe — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 22:04:07 +0000

Members of Congress came down hard on BP CEO Tony Hayward (r.) as he testified about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. But political science Professor Graham Wilson, author of “Business and Politics,” wondered why the spotlight over American’s worst-ever spill hasn’t shone on Transocean, BP’s partner in the Gulf of Mexico oil rig that exploded in April.

“How did Transocean get off the hook so easily? Aren’t they people who were drilling the well with MMS approval and weren’t they ones saying the rig was needed to quickly to drill another well?”

Contact Graham Wilson, 617-353-2540, gkwilson@bu.edu

BP tries “top kill” to stop Gulf leak

Dick Taffe — Wed, 26 May 2010 21:10:42 +0000

Though it’s never been tried before in such deep waters, BP started its “top kill” operation in an effort to plug the mile-deep leak that has been spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico in U.S. waters for five weeks since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded. Professor Cutler Cleveland, director of the BU Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, says the whole incident points a damning finger at Washington.

“The magnitude of failure of the federal government to protect the nation and the people of Louisiana grows with each passing day. From patronage between government regulators and the oil industry to shoddy environmental impact assessment, we have been supremely let down.”

For more on the oil spill, see the entry in the Encyclopedia of Earth, developed by BU researchers as a peer-reviewed Wikipedia-like source for authoritative environmental content.

Contact Cutler Cleveland, 617-353-3083, cutler@bu.edu