Gulf Oil Production Moving to Africa

[KalamMekhar]

Given the cost of lost income during a move is $30M, why do you believe the redeployed rigs would ever come back?

New administration, new incentives to come back. 30$ mill is a drop in the pond.

 

[Char. Limit]

New administration, new incentives to come back. 30$ mill is a drop in the pond.

I have to agree with this new sentence here. $30 million dollars may seem like a lot to you and me, but you have to remember that the net income of BP in one year is http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/STAGING/global_assets/downloads/B/bp_fourth_quarter_and_full_year_2009_results.pdf". What does $30 million matter to them?

 

[CRGreathouse]

I have to agree with this new sentence here. $30 million dollars may seem like a lot to you and me, but you have to remember that the net income of BP in one year is http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/STAGING/global_assets/downloads/B/bp_fourth_quarter_and_full_year_2009_results.pdf". What does $30 million matter to them?

Hmm. I suspect there are managers at BP below the CEO who are responsible for only a portion of BP. I imagine that the least-powerful manager who is still in charge of a given rig will find $30 million dollars to be very significant.

 

[Office_Shredder]

Hmm. I suspect there are managers at BP below the CEO who are responsible for only a portion of BP. I imagine that the least-powerful manager who is still in charge of a given rig will find $30 million dollars to be very significant.

I confess to being ignorant of BP's organizational chart, but I would be very surprised if there was someone that was in charge of only one or two rigs who also had the power to choose where in the world they set up shop. These decisions probably come from higher up the food chain

 

[billiards]

Tone of the article seems a bit sensationalist if you ask me, and misleading.

As far as I could tell two rigs have headed to Africa in the midst of this ban and five more might follow (out of 33 from one company). Not a huge deal, really. They probably need more rigs in Africa right now anyway, as new deep water plays have been opening up following a recent surge in exploration. I wonder how many rigs have made this journey before the disaster? We can't necessarily assume that they have gone there because of the ban -- they might've made the journey anyway in pursuit of a good business opportunity. Afterall, those rigs were idle before the disaster, or merely drilling exploratory holes, and so better use might be made of them offshore Africa. As far as I understand, the ban is only on any new activity; rigs that are currently producing are still allowed to produce. It's not as though that all activity in the Gulf has completely ground to a halt (as some people seem to be assuming).