NRT: What happens if anything goes wrong?

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, December 18th, 2013 - 30 comments
Categories: disaster, energy, Environment, Mining, water - Tags: , ,

no-right-turn-thumbNo Right Turn looks at some of the past history of the company that this government trusts to deepsea drill at 1500 metres off the coast of Raglan. Cowboys who avoid cleanups.

Currently Texan oil cowboys Anadarko are drilling for oil off the Raglan coast. If something goes wrong, we get oil on beaches from Kaipara to New Plymouth. So who pays for the cleanup and consequent economic damage? Not Anadarko, if their past practice is anything to go by:

Shares of Anadarko Petroleum plummeted Friday after a judge ruled that the oil company owes litigants billions due to a fraudulent reorganization designed to avoid environmental liability.

[…]

The case stems from a series of corporate restructurings at Kerr McGee Corp. in the early 2000s prior to it being acquired by Anadarko in 2006 for $18 billion.

Kerr McGee, once a leading chemicals firm, is accused of leaving waste sites around the United States, contaminated with uranium contamination, thorium and other toxins that pollute land and water.

Gropper concluded that the restructuring constituted a “fraudulent conveyance” that offloaded more than $1 billion in environmental liabilities to another entity, Tronox Worldwide.

oil breachAnd if Anadarko blows a well in New Zealand waters, we can expect these corporate sociopaths to pull exactly the same stunt here – all in the name of protecting “shareholder value”, of course. Which is why we should be demanding not just stronger safety practices, but also upfront liability bonds and insurance: so these scum can’t ruin our environment, then laugh all the way to the bank.

30 comments on “NRT: What happens if anything goes wrong? ”

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  1. Colonial Viper 1
    18 December 2013 at 9:43 am

    There’s this, and there is also the fact that all our offshore energy reserves should be 100% kept for future NZ use.

    • rich the other 1.1
      18 December 2013 at 1:11 pm

      Excellent ,
      Good to see you approve drilling , it s only the timing that’s wrong.
      I knew this topic was no more that a political stunt .
      Green/labour must be worried about a large oil find just before the next election.

      • Lanthanide 1.1.1
        18 December 2013 at 2:34 pm

        “Green/labour must be worried about a large oil find just before the next election.”

        Why? Like CV says, we can just earmark it for the energy-constrained future.

      • Draco T Bastard 1.1.2
        18 December 2013 at 5:41 pm

        Green/labour must be worried about a large oil find just before the next election.

        Why when it’ll take 10 to 20 years for it to come online and in that time we can be totally fossil fuel free while providing far more jobs and innovation.

  2. Conquestored 2
    18 December 2013 at 11:25 am

    I hope you guys are contempt with becoming impotent because that is the effect the of the chemicals used in fracking process. Damages reproductive organs, damage to the hormonal regions affecting oestrogen and testosterone levels, inability to conceive, inability to produce male infants.

    • rich the other 2.1
      18 December 2013 at 1:22 pm

      Fracking , they love it in the U S A.
      Shale gas is ONE THIRD the price of gas in Europe , that’s why the US is emerging from recession and Europe is struggling.
      Shale gas is also good for the environment.

    • Conquestored 3.1
      18 December 2013 at 2:44 pm

      If it fails, can we coat all the current members of parliament in the oil sludge and then burn them alive?!

      • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1
        18 December 2013 at 5:43 pm

        That’s going a little too far.

        • Conquestored 3.1.1.1
          18 December 2013 at 5:58 pm

          So does risking my ability to have children.

          • Lanthanide 3.1.1.1.1
            18 December 2013 at 10:21 pm

            The best thing you can do to save the environment is not have children.

            1 child will consume far more planetary resources by themselves than you can save through using solar power, biking to work, collecting rainwater etc.

            • Bill 3.1.1.1.1.1
              18 December 2013 at 10:35 pm

              Well, yes Lanth. A western child probably will use more resources than a western adult will conserve or not use….if the savings are less than 50%. But what that has to do with ‘the price of cheese’ is, quite frankly, way beyond me.

            • weka 3.1.1.1.1.2
              18 December 2013 at 11:24 pm

              Imagine what could be done by not having a child AND biking to work.

              • Colonial Viper …
                18 December 2013 at 11:27 pm

                Uh, economic activity uses resources and fossil fuels…the environment would be better off again by not having children, by not using a car and by not working.

            • Conquestored 3.1.1.1.1.3
              18 December 2013 at 11:37 pm

              Hah if only it was as easy to only be about the environmental impact, (not that I was even remotely referring to me thinking of having children yet…), even though that is a flawed statement as anybody could actually become the person who would solve many of our problems and that is why nobody should be denied that privilege.
              This is about securing future generations and their futures. Without that our children will have to eventually be bred in research tubes because we’ve polluted our environment so much, the human body will have turned into an unfit breeding ground forming generations riddled with more birth diseases/defects than ever before in the end crippling the people of NZ.
              If I couldn’t tell any better I would bet that it it’s an elaborate scheme to drive up medical costs and regulation of food costs, what with them dumping the fracking waste being disposed of on farmland. But I’d be in way over my head right?!
              In other words you will stand the chance of destroying the legacies of many scores of people, destroying all reason for their existence! And that is the seed of rebellion.

  4. Tracey 4
    18 December 2013 at 2:09 pm

    Perhaps the directors will sign a personal guarantee including any trusts of which they are beneficiaries

  5. Naki Man 5
    18 December 2013 at 9:32 pm

    Rusty moron loves drilling and fracking. The steam for those geothermal power stations does not just come up out of the ground on it’s own.

    • Paul 5.1
      18 December 2013 at 9:36 pm

      Have you anything constructive to say ever?
      Reading your entries always seems like I’m hearing the political views of a child. Insults, name calling, no reasoning, no evidence.
      Either you are very young or no one taught you the art of debate.

      • Naki Man 5.1.1
        18 December 2013 at 9:57 pm

        Yes i was just pointing out that Rusty is a moron and a hypocrite.
        That must have gone over your head, How much more evidence do you need
        Would you like me to type SLOWLY Paul

        • Naturesong 5.1.1.1
          19 December 2013 at 12:57 am

          I think he’s just asking for a cogent argument from you.

          But if a false equivalence prefaced by an ad hominem is the best you can manage, we understand.
          There will always be those who fall through the cracks in the education system despite best efforts of the teachers.

          • Paul 5.1.1.1.1
            19 December 2013 at 5:50 am

            Think the word cogent might be too complex for him.
            Not the sharpest in the tool shed, given the comments that keep cropping up.

        • Paul 5.1.1.2
          19 December 2013 at 5:48 am

          Is not the term moron name calling, naki?

        • framu 5.1.1.3
          19 December 2013 at 7:54 am

          “Yes i was just pointing out that Rusty is a moron and a hypocrite.”

          yeah – but you didnt. You made some semi literate attempt at an accusation but the only thing you pointed out was that you arent that smart

          please explain how geothermal activity is linked to fracking and drilling then explain how that proves russel norman is a moron and a hypocrite. Do that and, HEY PRESTO! – youve got something to discuss

          But you cant – because each of those things has no relation to the other in any way.

          But lets start with something easy – steam does come out of the ground on its own – thats what steam generally does if is underground. The bit your looking for is – how does the water turn into steam?

  6. Flip 6
    18 December 2013 at 10:15 pm

    Our government and NZ has got into bed with these diseased creatures. It just is not worth it no matter how good looking they are on the outside or how desperate we are or how many sweet nothings they have whispered in the governments ear. We are so screwed if something goes wrong.

    http://werewolf.co.nz/2013/12/dark-days-at-anadarko/

  7. tricledrown 7
    18 December 2013 at 11:58 pm

    Naki Man getting hot under the red neck collar.
    Steaming mad ayr.
    What’s the difference between water and oil.
    Theirs a big difference between a few hundred meters underground to create steam water.
    1500meters under sea with oil which pollutes when leaked or used by burning.
    Mind you we could just line up all the rednecks have heat transfer collars that would make heaps of non pollutant energy.

  8. Murray Olsen 8
    19 December 2013 at 5:41 am

    The next government should pass a law making the directors and shareholders of companies fraudulently offloading obligations liable to mandatory periods of imprisonment. If the company were honest, they’d have nothing to fear, right? Or does that only apply to Tuhoe not wanting jackboots stomping through their houses?