BP shareholders challenge company over environmental safety

[CHIMO]

Activist shareholders and pension funds will grill BP this week over its safety record and US contractors as the financial fallout from the Gulf of Mexico disaster continues to spread.

The coalition of investors, who have successfully forced companies such as Shell to be more transparent over the environmental impact of their controversial oil sands operations, is planning to launch a similar campaign against deepwater drilling, the Guardian has learned.

Today BP's shares fell by a further 3%. Since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank nearly a fortnight ago almost $30bn (£19.7bn) has been wiped off its market value on worries about the cost of the clean-up operation, any fines and damage to BP's long-term reputation.

Lauren Compere, the managing director of Boston Common Asset Management, has organised a conference call with the company this Friday with up to 40 other institutional investors holding an estimated $1bn of BP shares. "We will raise questions over the amount of due diligence and oversight BP carries out on its partners and contractors before it enters into contracts with them," she said. "There have been a number of incidents with BP in the US over the last five years. It makes you wonder how well they are overseeing their operations there, although we have seen kernels of improvement in BP's safety approach since Tony Hayward took over."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/04/bp-shareholders-challenge

[Dogmudgeon]

1. BP actually was one of the best ...

... which shows how low the bar has been set.

--d!

[joshcryer]

2. Thanks to corporate whore environmentalists...

...we've set the bar so low that we're shocked, shocked I tell you, when shit hits the fan.