Bp

The geography and water circulation patterns of the northern Gulf of Mexico promoted the breakdown of oil and gas spewing from a busted wellhead during the BP oil disaster, according to a new study. Using computer models and Navy data on gulf currents, the authors concluded that rather than moving away from the deep-sea wellhead in a linear fashion, oil-laced water often looped back, returning hydrocarbon-munching bacterial blooms to the rising oil plume for repeated feasts. "That northern portion of the gulf is almost enclosed on three sides," said lead author David Valentine, a UC Santa Barbara professor of microbial geochemistry.

  The petroleum industry and federal regulators focused more on exploration and production than safety in the years leading up to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, helping to set the stage for the worst offshore environmental disaster in U.S. history, according to a new independent report by the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council. Conducted at the behest of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the report said the "multiple flawed decisions that led to a blowout" on the Deepwater Horizon rig resulted from "a deficient overall systems approach to safety" among the corporations that ran the drilling of the Macondo well, including BP, Transocean and Halliburton.

When the weight of strangers' grief overwhelms him, Kenneth Feinberg takes a walk. Sometimes he buys an ice cream and sits on a park bench, letting the sun replenish his depleted well of compassion. Other times, after listening to the pain, anger and recriminations of the bereaved, Feinberg takes refuge in opera — not for its cathartic pathos, but because it's the one place where he can count on falling asleep. A balding, bespectacled lawyer with skin nearly as thick as his Boston accent, Feinberg must daily sort the emotional rubble of disaster.

The scathing documentary "The Big Fix" investigates questions of corporate negligence and political corruption surrounding last year's Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its lingering aftereffects on the Gulf Coast. Even before the devastating spill off the coast of Louisiana, BP — the British company that operated the Deepwater Horizon — had racked up numerous safety violations, as well as deadly explosions and ruptured pipelines in Texas and Alaska. Filmmakers Josh and Rebecca Tickell, however, have more than one villain in their sights.

The scathing documentary "The Big Fix" investigates questions of corporate negligence and political corruption surrounding last year's Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its lingering aftereffects on the Gulf Coast. Even before the devastating spill off the coast of Louisiana, BP — the British company that operated the Deepwater Horizon — had racked up numerous safety violations, as well as deadly explosions and ruptured pipelines in Texas and Alaska. Filmmakers Josh and Rebecca Tickell, however, have more than one villain in their sights.

BP won approval from the Interior Department for a plan to explore for oil and gas in deep-water areas of the Gulf of Mexico, moving the company closer to drilling new wells barred after the blowout of its Macondo well touched off the country's worst offshore environmental disaster. The exploration plan was the first BP had submitted to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April 2010, killing 11 workers and spewing nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the gulf.

BP and the two other companies drilling the exploratory Macondo oil well in the Gulf of Mexico all violated federal safety regulations leading up to last year's oil spill, a federal investigation concluded in findings that could be crucial for a Justice Department investigation and numerous lawsuits surrounding the disaster. The report pinned much of the blame on oil giant BP, which was "ultimately responsible" for operations and safety on the rig. But the joint inquiry by the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement was critical of BP's drilling contractors,Transocean and Halliburton.

The Obama administration announced Friday that it would hold its first oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico since the deadly Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill. "This sale is an important step toward a secure energy future that includes safe, environmentally sound development of our domestic energy resources," said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. "Since Deepwater Horizon, we have strengthened oversight at every stage of the oil and gas development process, including deep-water drilling safety, subsea blowout containment, and spill response capability.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. rode a wave of higher oil prices to a second-quarter profit of $1.82 billion, up 71% from the same period last year, the company said Tuesday. The Westwood oil exploration and production company was among the first in the industry to announce quarterly results, which included earnings per share of $2.23, compared with $1.31 a year earlier. The results beat Wall Street expectations of $2.17 a share, according to a survey of analysts by Thomson Reuters.

In my home state of Louisiana, Wednesday's one-year anniversary of the BP oil rig explosion has arrived in the season of Lent, a time of spiritual reflection that, in this heavily Catholic region, is also touched by comic irony. That's because Lent, which is supposed to be a period of fasting and abstinence, is also a prime time to savor our local seafood. The meatless Fridays of the church calendar are meant to be a penance, but they have instead often become occasions for crawfish boils and shrimp gumbo, oyster po' boys and soft-shell crabs, rich étouffées and fragrant bisques.