Bret Stephens: A (Better) Reason to Hate BP
[Mr. Stephens writes the Journal's "Global View" column on foreign affairs.]
What Barack Obama taketh away, Moammar Gadhafi giveth. That must be the fond hope these days at BP, as it seeks to recoup in Libya's Gulf of Sidra what it is losing in the Gulf of Mexico. And if it takes a wretched lobbying effort to make that happen, so be it.
Yesterday, the chairman of Libya's National Oil Co. told Zawya Dow Jones that he would urge Libya's sovereign wealth fund to buy a strategic stake in the troubled oil giant. That follows news that Libya will allow BP to begin deepwater drilling next month off Libya's coast as part of a $900 million exploration deal initially agreed upon in 2007.
BP is no less enthusiastic, noting in a 2007 press release that the deal represented "BP's single biggest exploration commitment," equivalent to "2000 Gulf of Mexico deepwater blocks." Long term, some predict BP could reap $20 billion from the deal, perhaps enough to cover its Gulf of Mexico claims fund.
This rare patch of sunshine for BP arrives almost simultaneously with reports of another sort. Over the weekend, London's Sunday Times reported that a doctor who last year diagnosed Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi with metastatic prostate cancer and gave him three months to live now thinks the former Libyan intelligence agent "could survive for 10 years or more."
Karol Sikora, the dean of medicine at Buckingham University who was paid by the Libyan government for his prognosis, says he finds it "embarrassing" that Megrahi is very much alive and kicking in Libya after he was released last August from a Scottish prison on grounds that he only had a few weeks to live. "It was clear that three months was what they [the Libyans] were aiming for," he said. "I felt I could sort of justify [that]."
Megrahi's not-so-surprising longevity is the latest sordid twist in a tale in which BP is no bystander...
Read entire article at WSJ
What Barack Obama taketh away, Moammar Gadhafi giveth. That must be the fond hope these days at BP, as it seeks to recoup in Libya's Gulf of Sidra what it is losing in the Gulf of Mexico. And if it takes a wretched lobbying effort to make that happen, so be it.
Yesterday, the chairman of Libya's National Oil Co. told Zawya Dow Jones that he would urge Libya's sovereign wealth fund to buy a strategic stake in the troubled oil giant. That follows news that Libya will allow BP to begin deepwater drilling next month off Libya's coast as part of a $900 million exploration deal initially agreed upon in 2007.
BP is no less enthusiastic, noting in a 2007 press release that the deal represented "BP's single biggest exploration commitment," equivalent to "2000 Gulf of Mexico deepwater blocks." Long term, some predict BP could reap $20 billion from the deal, perhaps enough to cover its Gulf of Mexico claims fund.
This rare patch of sunshine for BP arrives almost simultaneously with reports of another sort. Over the weekend, London's Sunday Times reported that a doctor who last year diagnosed Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi with metastatic prostate cancer and gave him three months to live now thinks the former Libyan intelligence agent "could survive for 10 years or more."
Karol Sikora, the dean of medicine at Buckingham University who was paid by the Libyan government for his prognosis, says he finds it "embarrassing" that Megrahi is very much alive and kicking in Libya after he was released last August from a Scottish prison on grounds that he only had a few weeks to live. "It was clear that three months was what they [the Libyans] were aiming for," he said. "I felt I could sort of justify [that]."
Megrahi's not-so-surprising longevity is the latest sordid twist in a tale in which BP is no bystander...