Summary
THE demonisation of BP in America over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has now attained extravagant and potentially very damaging proportions. The future of BP, which only six weeks ago was the world's second biggest oil major, is now seriously in doubt. Its market value has almost halved, with nearly GBP 50 billion sliced off its share price. Market pessimists are beginning to call BP "the new Greece".
Yet there is no financial justification for so apocalyptic a reaction. What is driving this decline is the wave of hysterical anti-BP sentiment sweeping America, given potency by the distasteful fact that the lynch mob is being incited by the president of the United States. Barack Obama is playing politics with BP and, ultimately, with the Special Relationship between his country and Britain. His motives are transparent: his party is facing meltdown in the November mid-term elections. The oil-spill crisis has aggravated his political woes. He is haunted by the memory of George Bush and Hurricane Katrina and he urgently needs a scapegoat: last week he said he was looking for "some ass to kick over the disaster".See the full content of this document
Extract
Leader: Obama Risks Relationship
Obama always refers to the company as "British Petroleum", its former name, as an alienating device to impress its "foreign" character on Americans. The fact is that 40 per cent of BP's shares are owned by Britons - and 40 per cent by Americans. US institutions ar...
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