"Terrible and Disappointing"

CNN American Morning Anchor John Roberts interviews Managing Director of BP Bob Dudley about the recovery efforts along the Gulf Coast. Dudley's dispassionate spin is absolutely infuriating.


[Transcript below.]
Shaker Anitanola sent me the link to this video this morning, which underlines the patent fuckery of Dudley's claim that BP staff and volunteers are all through the marshlands organizing prevention of further environmental damage and coordinating clean-up efforts.

The BP gusher "has already spilled more oil than the Exxon Valdez disaster—possibly more than twice as much, making it the largest oil spill in U.S. history."

Bob Dudley, Managing Director of BP: What you have is this titanic arm wrestling match between the well and the heavy muds that we're driving into the well—two flows essentially going at each other with a stream that comes out of the well. And while you can't draw conclusions from the plume other than it is drilling mud, sometimes it will be stopped for awhile. Sometimes you may see some oil and gas. So you can't draw conclusions from what you see. Right now, what you see is a water-based, nontoxic mud—

John Roberts, CNN Anchor: Right.

Dudley: —that is coming out of the top.

Roberts: So you'll keep pumping that in until there is sufficient weight—I guess the theory goes that there's sufficient weight to that mud holding down the oil—you can stop pumping it and it should stabilize?

Dudley: That's right. That's the objective here is that the flow rate is high. We can't pump in with too high a pressure as it will create other damage. So it is truly an arm wrestling match, a very closely balanced forces. Assuming we can wrestle the well to the ground, after that we would pump in cement to be able to really kill it.

Roberts: Is there a chance that if this doesn't work this well could be gushing until you get that kill well drilled, and that won't be until August?

Dudley: Well, those options are not way down the line. We've set out on the seabed all around where the activity is today. So that we determine we just can't overcome it in the "top kill" operation, we will immediately go into the phase of putting out, cutting off the top and putting a containment device in it. That might take two to three days before we would have that in place. If we did that, we think we would then be able to float the oil to the surface and measure it at that point.

Roberts: Yes.

Dudley: But what we really need to do is try to kill this thing.

Roberts: Yes.

Dudley: And so far that operation is proceeding like we expected.

Roberts: According to Jindal and other officials, nobody's been back there to even try to clear that out. Why isn't BP back there trying to mop up this mess?

Dudley: Well, I know, John, from the operation center there that they have—there really are thousands of people. The Coast Guard, and the BP people as well as local volunteers they're all around through that area—

Roberts: Well, with respect, Mr. Dudley, there were none in this particular area and there haven't been for days.

Dudley: Well, there are pockets in there where they are prioritizing where they are focused. There are pockets where people haven't been yet, but I assure you there are people all around through those regions working hard, and cleaning it up, putting it away for hazardous material disposal. The marshes are sensitive and difficult. And once it's in there, that is what we really want to keep out and not allow that area to increase.

Roberts: And as you look at these pictures you can see that the grasses are dying already, which kind of brings to mind a statement that your CEO Tony Hayward made in recent days that he thought that overall the environmental impact of this would be, quote, "very, very modest." Are you still sticking with that assessment?

Dudley: Well, he made those statement some time ago. And at that point we had been able to keep all of the oil off the beaches everywhere. And we were disappointed to see them break through some of those defenses. And so there is no question that he is devastated to see that. We're redoubling our efforts. The Coast Guard and BP are mobilizing people from the other sides of the gulf now in Louisiana.

Roberts: So, if I were to ask you now what you thought the environmental impact of this would be, what would you say?

Dudley: Well, I mean, for the people of southeast Louisiana, this is clearly, clearly a terrible thing. It's terrible for the wildlife in that area. It's disappointing for all the teams who are working so hard and they have been working for a long time down there in that hot weather.

Roberts: Sure. Sure.

[crosstalk]

Dudley: I'm just energized to try to minimize it, to make sure that more doesn't get through, but we do have damage, there's no question.

Roberts: Yes. I'm sorry, Mr. Dudley. I mean, terrible and disappointed. Those are interesting words to use to describe what people are feeling, but in terms of the actual environmental impact, is this minimal? Is it moderate? Is it going to be a disaster? How would you put it?

Dudley: Well, there are 30 acres there right now of marshland. It's clearly a disaster for that area. The beaches, the tide brings in the oil, we have the teams to clean up the oil and then the tide brings it back in. It's a continuous cycle. I think that we'll be able to clean and get those beaches clean. The marshes will take more time to recover. This has happened before in areas of Louisiana. They take time to recover. And then we've got to understand the impacts of the dispersant and the oil in the gulf and we started—we'll start a massive study program with scientists from all over the gulf region and this will take a decade. We'll support that. We need to understand so we learn from this for the future. Not only for the Gulf of Mexico but everywhere in the world.