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Transocean Gives Bonuses After Gulf of Mexico BP Disaster
The offshore drilling firm responsible for running the Deepwater Horizon rig has given its top executives bonuses for its "best year" for safety.
The offshore drilling firm responsible for running the Deepwater Horizon rig has given its top executives bonuses for its "best year" for The Transocean Discoverer Enterprise drillship burns off gas collected at the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in June 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. Transocean Ltd. has given its executives pay raises, bonuses and stock options after the company's "best year" for safety. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Chris Graythen) Transocean was blamed along with BP and Halliburton after last year's massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Eleven workers, nine of whom worked for Transocean, died when the Deepwater Horizon exploded almost a year ago.
But Transocean said there had been a drop in the rate of recorded incidents and also in their potential severity.
Exemplary record
The Deepwater Horizon exploded on 20 April 2010. In the days and months that followed millions of gallons of oil poured unabated into the Gulf of Mexico, prompting President Barack Obama to call the incident America's environmental 9/11.
Before the well was capped in July, the spill fouled the coastlines of four states, scared tourists away and closed countless fishing grounds. The true environmental and economic impact may not be known for years.
A presidential commission concluded that the explosion had been caused by cost-cutting and directly blamed Transocean, BP and Halliburton for the disaster.
Despite that, Transocean handed out huge bonuses to its executives citing the company's best year for safety ever.
The company's annual report acknowledges the explosion on the rig, but goes on to say that it exceeded internal safety targets.
"Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico, we achieved an exemplary statistical safety record as measured by our total recordable incident rate and total potential severity rate," the report says.
"As measured by these standards, we recorded the best year in safety performance in our company's history, which is a reflection on our commitment to achieving an incident free environment, all the time, everywhere," it adds.
Transocean has always maintained that BP is solely responsible for the oil spill. BP contends that Transocean shares liability.
19 Comments so far
Show AllWhat Planet are these people from, anyways?
The same planet where military industrial complex shill Obama gets a Nobel Peace Prize, while he blames the victims and rewards the perpetrators of the 2008 economic meltdown.
raydelcamino (Apr 3 2011 - 11:47am) is so right.
We actually live in an inverted world, namely, a world where:
1) war mongers and war criminals such as Obama get peace prizes;
2) executives from the high finance biz get rewarded for screwing ordinary folks by sinking their pensions funds and the like and plundering the coffers of the State;
3) oil executives get large paychecks and even larger bonuses for polluting our oceans, killing millions of animals, and poisoning countless numbers of people and ruining their lives; and
4) no one has been held accountable for the nearly universal breakdown of all relevant governmental agencies (military, FAA, FBI, intelligence agencies, anti-aircraft batteries at the Pentagon, etc.) before and on the day of Sept 11, 2001, while some were even rewarded with promotions and such.
And this list is merely a sampling of what goes on.
Oikos/Ray, Excellent post! In the article it was noted that the presidential commission (for what THAT'S worth) blamed the BP explosion on cost-cutting. (what a surprise.) I believe cost-cutting was also implicated in the Fukushima meltdown. My point is: when will cost-cutting NOT be a factor? It will ALWAYS happen, there will ALWAYS be human error, greed will ALWAYS win over best practices and common sense. Humans can't be trusted.
I can. I guess, as i supposed, i am from a galaxy far, far away.......
Don't bother to protest, because no humans can be trusted. That includes the protestors, right? And you? Are you untrustworthy? Or, are you simply not human?
Humans are all are malevolent by nature? Oh, that's right. The old Garden of Eden thing. Sinners all!
One of my personally favorite theories. They are not working for human beings. In fact, it appears that the goal is to destroy the third planet from the sun.
Draw your own conclusions. (notice i don't even have a smiley emoticon here)....One might say this is not the most parsimonious of theories.......But it is looking more plausible all the time!
It just proves that safety statistics prove only what the corprations want it to prove...
1) Perfect Safety Record Achieved...
In reality: Multiple Pesonnel Killed, Biggest Natural Disaster the world oil industry has ever seen..
Safety Statistics run by scum for scum
Nota Bene
"Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico, we achieved an exemplary ""statistical "" safety record as measured by our total recordable incident rate and total potential severity rate," the report says.
Note 'statistical"
Now I really understand the comment about "lies, damn lies and statistics !"
A favorite comment of mine also... http://www.twainquotes.com/Statistics.html
whocares;)
And to think they were able to do it without a Troubled Assets Relief Program or its environmental disaster corollary.
"our commitment to achieving an incident free environment"
one where nothing happens.
nothing.
lifeless.
I seem to remember Goldman Sachs telling Oilybomber that if they were not bailed out the world economy would go down. After they got their trillion$, they gave out huge bonuses and declared it the most profitable quarter in their history. The world economy continues its slide into hell.
This is so routine nowadays that I'm surprised it gets any press at all.
And Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize and Cheney, Kissinger, Rumsfeld and Milton Friedman got the Medal of Freedom. Evil wins. Is this a great country or what?
Seems real clear to me that the corporate sector needs a lot of regulatory measures to keep them from killing everything.
This reminds me of Zero Defects practices at a company I once worked for. A defense contractor named Ratheon. If we had 90% defects free for the quarter it was celebrated as a huge successs and lots of bonuses where handed out to the management while production got a recognition speech. Why the fuss? Because the quarter before the defects rate was 89% defect free. ?? Yeah no kidding. I don't remember them once having 100% Zero Defects ever, yet repeatedly they reward themselves.
Zero Defects is a manufacturing term used to describe a style of manufacturing that tracks and corrects defects with Zero being the goal. Created and introduced by the Japanese we have a harder time with actually implementing it. Another reason so many jobs where lost to oversees workers. Here mistakes are so tolerated its built in. There, say Asia, your fired, embarressed, let go or criminally convicted of putting something in the milk.
Sad, very sad.
Inlander,
Zero defects has had many names including total quality. But it wasn't created by the Japanese, it is a philosophy developed by Edwards Deming, an American statistician who helped increase the quality of war supplies in the U.S. during WWII.
After the war, Japanese industrial leaders invited him to Japan to help them get rid of the perception of cheap (as in low quality) Japanese products. Anyone old enough can remember when "Made in Japan" was synonymous with cheaply made. While our own industry turned its back on him, the Japanese followed his advice and within a few short years had not only dramatically increased quality on goods designed elsewhere, but were now designing some truly innovative products.
Deming became so revered in Japan that he was awarded the Second Order of the Sacred Treasure by the former Emperor Hirohito and Japanese scientists and engineers named the Deming Prize after him. This prize is like the Nobel prize of quality in Japan. Its awarded to companies that achieve the highest achievements in quality performance.
To get an idea why the U.S. companies turned away, here's his 1st of 14 principles.
"Constancy of purpose.
Create constancy of purpose for continual improvement of products and service to society, allocating resources to provide for long range needs rather than only short term profitability, with a plan to become competitive, to stay in business, and to provide jobs."
Notice the emphasis on serving society, long range needs instead of short term profits, and on providing jobs.
All this flew in the face of U.S. business practices which focuses on short term profits above all else. U.S. businesses besides focusing on short term profits weren't all that concerned about zero defects. As long as quality was "good enough", in other words as long as things worked or lasted well enough not to totally alienate customers, then it was good enough.
It wasn't until the early 1980's that many businesses in the U.S. looked to Japan and Deming's methods in an effort to boost quality since we were then so far behind such companies as Sony, Toshiba, and Honda. Of course, like you point out, we mostly fail at implementing this because we refuse to focus on the long term or to hand authority to the actual workers.
lie, cheat, steal, kill, repeat.
Deepwater Horizon exploded while BP execs were aboard
celebrating their 'safety' record. Oh, how the Gods abhor hubrus.
Why wouldn't they give out bonuses? It's not as if they had to pay for the clean up or anything. Besides, it's not as if they gave out bonuses to the workers. Heavens forbid! They gave them only to their fairest and bestest execs, the ones that deserve them to least.