In too deep : BP and the drilling race that took it down

Select an Action

Title:

In too deep : BP and the drilling race that took it down

Author:

Reed, Stanley, 1950-

ISBN:

9780470950906

Publication Information:

Hoboken, N.J. : Bloomberg Press, 2011.

Physical Description:

xiv, 226 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm.

General Note:

Includes index.

Contents:

Night of horror, day of triumph -- The oil lord -- Agents of empire -- The big kahuna of the gulf -- Money, politics, and bad timing -- Lord Browne's long goodbye -- Riding the throughput curve -- Tony Hayward comes up short -- Disaster on the Horizon -- BP struggles to survive.

Corporate Subject:

British Petroleum Company.

Subject Term:

BP Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Oil Spill, 2010.

Oil wells -- Mexico, Gulf of -- Blowouts.

Underwater explosions -- Mexico, Gulf of.

Offshore oil well drilling -- Mexico, Gulf of.

Petroleum industry and trade -- Accidents -- Mexico, Gulf of.

Oil spills -- Mexico, Gulf of.

Oil spills -- Cleanup.

Added Author:

Fitzgerald, Alison.

Summary:

"The truth behind the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history In 2005, fifteen workers were killed when BP's Texas City Refinery exploded. In 2006, corroded pipes owned by BP led to an oil spill in Alaska. Now, in 2010, eleven BP workers were killed in the Gulf of Mexico's Macondo blowout. What's next? In In Too Deep: BP and the Drilling Race that Took It Down, Stanley Reed--a journalist who has covered BP for over a decade--and investigative reporter Alison Fitzgerald answer not only the question of what's next but also examine why these disasters always happen to BP and not to the other large oil companies.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake)	363.7382 REE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

The truth behind the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history

In 2005, fifteen workers were killed when BP's Texas City Refinery exploded. In 2006, corroded pipes owned by BP led to an oil spill in Alaska. Now, in 2010, eleven men drilling for BP were killed in the blowout of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.

What's next? In In Too Deep: BP and the Drilling Race That Took it Down , Stanley Reed'a journalist who has covered BP for over a decade'and investigative reporter Alison Fitzgerald answer not only that question, but also examine why these disasters happen to BP so much more than other large oil companies.

Places the blame on a corporate culture created by former BP CEO John Browne who was forced to resign in 2007 after he lied in court documents in a case involving his gay lover Details a BP built on risk-taking and cost-cutting Examines the past, present, and future of BP

In August 2010, BP successfully "killed" the company's damaged deepwater well. But, the environmental fallout and public relations campaign to rebuild the brand are just beginning. In Too Deep details why BP, why now, and what's next for this oil giant.

Author Notes

STANLEY REED was London Bureau Chief of BusinessWeek from 1996-2010. He is a specialist on the Middle East and energy. He has covered BP for more than a decade and accompanied then-CEO John Browne on a trip to Russia in 2003. He also visited BP's Thunderhorse, the largest oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, in 2009. He won the 2003 Best of Knight-Bagehot Award from the Columbia Journalism School for his coverage of the Iraq war. He is now a reporter-at-large for Bloomberg News.

ALISON FITZGERALD, an investigative reporter at Bloomberg News, writes about the convergence of government and economics in Washington, D.C. Her coverage of the financial crisis and government rescue of the banking industry won her the 2009 George W. Polk Award for national reporting and the "Best of the Best" award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. Her 2008 work on the global food crisis was honored by the Overseas Press Club.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Reed and Fitzgerald begin their first book with a riveting description of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion. Those employees who weren't killed by the explosion had to "jump the ten stories from the blazing rig to dark waters below." With our attention duly captured, the authors do little to hold it for the rest of the book. Facts are recounted ("Oil flowed for 87 days") and historical perspectives are provided (although it was BP CEO Tony Hayward who received the brunt of the public outcry, former CEO John Browne helped move the company from mid-sized to a kind of "Goldman Sachs" of the oil industry). The authors, both veteran reporters, certainly did their research, noting that BP's plans for managing a disaster on the Gulf Coast were incomplete and apparently copied from Arctic scenarios; documents include recovery plans for "walruses, seals and sea lions." They also unearth past disasters, such as BP's 2005 Texas City refinery explosion in which 15 died, and an oil leak in Alaska in March of 2006 that led the House Energy and Commerce Committee to determine that BP had inadequately maintained its pipeline network, a discovery that led the authors to determine that company incentives as far back as the 1990s helped create the Deepwater disaster. Unfortunately the narrative lacks the emotional color that made this story so compelling. What could have been fascinating is instead just gritty and bleak. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Choice Review

The story of how the Deepwater Horizon disaster occurred lies embedded within the management style, values, and mind-set of BP's chief executives as well as its corporate culture. Reed and Fitzgerald (reporters, Bloomberg News) gathered their notes from numerous observations and interviews to provide a behind-the-scenes perspective on BP's management team and critical lessons learned. However, despite the authors' insistence to the contrary, the long-term environmental and public relations effects of the damaged deepwater well can be only a matter of speculation. The authors' depiction of the disaster initially captures readers' attention with vibrato and immediacy; however, their ensuing discussion is a bland, boring reiteration of facts, opinions, and mere speculation. This book will appeal to inquisitive, nonspecialist readers eager for insights from this disaster. Such readers will benefit from the informative accounts in Blowout in the Gulf, by William R. Freudenburg and Robert Gramling (CH, Jun'11, 48-5711); Joel Achenbach's A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea (CH, Nov'11, 49-1485); and Bob Cavnar's Disaster on the Horizon (CH, Apr'11, 48-4503). Summing Up: Optional. General readers and lower-division students. J. P. Miller formerly, Simmons College

Cast of Characters	p. ix
Authors'Note	p. xi
Prologue	p. 1
Chapter 1 Nigh of Horror, Day of Triumph	p. 5
Chapter 2 The Oil Lord	p. 21
Chapter 3 Agents of Empire	p. 45
Chapter 4 The Big Kahuna of the Gulf	p. 59
Chapter 5 Money, Politics, and Bad Timing	p. 79
Chapter 6 Lord Browne's Long Goodbye	p. 99
Chapter 7 Riding the Throughput Curve	p. 119
Chapter 8 Tony Hayward Comes Up Short	p. 137
Chapter 9 Disaster on the Horizon	p. 155
Chapter 10 BP Struggles to Survive	p. 175
Epilogue	p. 195
Acknowledgments	p. 199
Notes	p. 203
About the Authors	p. 215
Index	p. 217

Available:*

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Choice Review

Table of Contents

Helpful Links

Research Links

Contact

Events and Rooms

Follow Us

Today's Hours