Dites BP, pas British Petroleum

Dites BP, pas British Petroleum

Les Anglais n’apprécient pas vraiment l’insistance avec laquelle les commentaires US sur la catastrophe du Golfe du Mexique parlent de British Petroleum alors qu’il est si facile de dire BP. Comme s’ils voulaient rappeler que BP est anglais et que, comme le sacro-saint président Obama l’a dit, c’est British Petroleum, quasiment seul, qui est responsable de la catastrophe.

Bronden Maddox, du Times, a pris sa plume, le 5 mai, et nous a fait un petit billet qui exhale toute la rancœur britannique. (Lien : http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article7116127.ece)

«It is true that there are aspects of the Gulf of Mexico disaster that BP might have handled better, as many have charged. But critics exaggerate a point that is not central to the crisis: BP has done many things that could reasonably be asked of it fairly well.

»The gigantic spill has exposed the lack of practical precautions the United States had made for the 700-odd manned rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, despite the frequency with which hurricanes batter those waters and federally commissioned studies of the risk. […]

»BP — or “British Petroleum”, as some US radio stations persisted in calling the oil giant to reveal its national roots — did the right thing in accepting “absolute responsibility” for damage. One could forgive BP (although many passionately do not) the time it took to state the rate of flow. It took days to establish that there were three leaks, not one.

»Those who say that BP should, before starting operation, have prepared concrete domes suitable for sealing such a leak ignore how much disasters vary in their detail.

»Two points of BP’s behaviour seem less forgiveable… […]

»But the hardest lessons come back to Obama and Congress. Their own studies warned that booms to contain or ignite oil spills were needed. These should have been rapidly available; they were not.

»If more precautions are needed, that will add to costs. And if companies face, as BP does, an unquantifiable cost from such risks, that, too, will add to the bills. To pretend otherwise is deception.»

“Ulysse”