Daily Telegraph: For conspiracy theorists, this has always been the end game. A catastrophic oil spill. A political pummelling from President Barack Obama. And then, when BP is suitably softened up, a swoop from Exxon with a £100bn bid, providing an American solution to a very British problem.

…any move by an American predator for BP would be political dynamite…

By Helia Ebrahimi
Published: 9:01PM BST 11 Jul 2010

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:43 AM on 12th July 2010

Takeover plans: Oil giant Exxon have been given the nod by Washington to mount a £100billion bid for BP

Oil giant Exxon has been given clearance by Washington to mount a £100billion bid for BP as the embattled British company undertakes a high-stakes gamble to cap the Gulf of Mexico spill.

The U.S. government has told Exxon that it will not stand in its way if it chooses to attempt a takeover.

Sources said the American oil group – which was responsible for the world’s biggest oil spill until the disaster in the Gulf – had expressed a ‘serious interest’ in the deal.

The development came as BP removed a containment cap on the well to put a better one in its place.

During the procedure there will be no means of controlling the leak, meaning some 2.5million gallons of oil will gush into the sea until it is sealed again.

Since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, BP has lost more than half its share value.

Last night BP refused to comment on the takeover speculation  -  but conceded it could take seven days to place a better cap on the well.

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Daily Telegraph: Speculation grows that ExxonMobil sought White House clearance to bid for rival oil giant.

By Helia Ebrahimi
Published: 7:29AM BST 12 Jul 2010

Monday, 12 July 2010

By James Moore, Deputy Business Editor

BP will not be able to rely on support from the British Government if it is the target of a takeover bid, it emerged yesterday, as rivals considered whether to take a tilt at the embattled oil company. A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS) declined to comment on reports that the US oil major Exxon, has been in contact with the Obama administration over a possible bid for its beleaguered FTSE 100-listed rival. But a spokeswoman for the DBIS said: “Takeovers and mergers are commercial matters for companies.”

BP has been reeling ever since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in April, with its stock-market value halving as a result. The shares closed last week at 364.75p, although that is still up by about a fifth from the low point reached when the company’s initial efforts to plug the leak had failed.

BP’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, has been in the Middle East to attempt to lure investors amid suggestions that a rival could use the company’s current weakness to launch a takeover bid. There has also been interest in the shares from Libya.

While the Government’s statement about merger policy suggests that Britain would allow a deal to pass, such a move would create huge controversy given the number of American takeovers of British companies thought to be in prospect over the coming months. The Conservative Party has traditionally adopted a hands-off approach when it comes to foreign deals. The coalition Government also stopped short of intervening on BP’s behalf after it was the subject of bitter criticism from President Barack Obama, whose handling of the disaster has been sharply criticised in the US.

However, a bid from an American company would still be likely to put pressure on Vince Cable, the Secretary of State for Business and a former chief economist at BP’s rival, Royal Dutch Shell.

Kraft’s hostile takeover of Cadbury sparked anger because the US food group was seen as having taken advantage of Britain’s laissez-faire approach when it comes to foreign takeovers, and because of the way that UK takeover rules work. As Kraft strung out its bid, Cadbury’s share register became filled with short-term speculators who were keen to net short-term profits by giving the green light to a takeover.

As the oil giant grapples with the financial effects of the spill, talks about an £8bn asset sell-off to help meet the costs of tackling the disaster in the Gulf are reportedly under way. Assets that could be disposed of include BP’s substantial stake in the giant Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska. A sell-off of assets worth about $10bn (£6.6bn) would help to give some assurance to the markets about the company’s ability to meet the escalating costs of cleaning up after the leak.

However, the sale of a stake in Prudhoe Bay – one of BP’s prize assets which produces 390,000 barrels of oil a day – would be a bitter pill for the company to have to swallow.

Other sell-offs being considered by BP are its stake in the Argentinian oil producer Pan-American Energy, as well as its operations in Venezuela, Colombia and Vietnam.

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By Timothy Coulter – Jul 11, 2010

Workers in Waveland, Mississippi, wear protective clothing as they clean up the oil that continues to wash ashore from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill: Getty Images

Transocean, the Swiss owner of the doomed Gulf of Mexico rig, faces the wrath of Americans as the cost of oil catastrophe reaches $3bn

By David Usborne

Sunday, 11 July 2010

Companies partnered with BP in developing the crippled Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico could possibly also be targeted in the sweeping criminal investigation under way in Washington, Eric Holder, the US Attorney General, will say this morning.

Any switch of attention to the other players in the disaster, likely to include Transocean, owner of the doomed rig, may offer partial relief for BP which so far has been alone in taking the wrath of the White House and shouldering the costs of the catastrophe, which last week topped $3bn (£2bn).

“There are a variety of entities and a variety of people who are the subjects of that investigation,” Mr Holder says of his department’s probe, in an interview with Bob Schieffer of CBS, to be broadcast in the US today. “For people to conclude that BP is the focus of this investigation might not be correct.”

Transocean, based in Switzerland, saw its shares rise by more than 4 per cent on Friday at the news that a Louisiana judge had ruled against a request by the Obama administration to reinstate a six-month ban on deep-ocean drilling pending the end of the BP investigation.

But Transocean, which has grown in recent years, out of a series of mergers and acquisitions, to become the world’s largest deepwater driller, was on the defensive last week about its broader record, both as a corporate entity that pays its taxes and over worker safety and human rights.

The company, already under attack from leading US senators over plans to pay out $1bn in dividends, was forced to react to a New York Times article detailing numerous recent Transocean controversies, including an ongoing tax evasion investigation in Norway, the loss of eight lives off the coast of Scotland when a support vessel capsized, and allegations by human rights groups of business being conducted in countries blacklisted by the US.

While not responding directly to the article, the company issued a statement saying it was acting within the law in Myanmar, where as recently as this spring it was allegedly involved in a drilling site where another of the stakeholders was identified as a Singaporean business that itself has been linked by US officials to money launderers for the Myanmar military junta.

It emerged, meanwhile, that Transocean had acknowledged in filings with the US financial authorities that, in the past, some of its equipment has been forwarded through Iran and that it once had a stake in a Syrian company. Both Syria and Iran have been subjected to US business sanctions.

As for investigations of possible tax evasion in Norway, the company has said it could result in fines and assessments in excess of $800m.

Transocean has publicly blamed BP for the Gulf blowout, even though there were far more of its people on the rig, the Deepwater Horizon, when it exploded on 20 April, than from BP. But pressure on the company has been growing on Capitol Hill. Late last month, senators warned it against moving forward with dividend payments, though there is little sign of the company heeding this.

“Many things remain unclear about what happened on the Deepwater Horizon,” the senators wrote in a letter. “Before your company begins to reward its shareholders, we urge you to follow BP’s example by withholding further shareholder rewards until investigations of this are complete.”

At the end of June, Senator Max Baucus revealed he was looking into whether Transocean had exploited loopholes in the US tax system by moving its corporate headquarters to Switzerland. Previously, the company was based in Houston, Texas. Then it moved its nameplate, but few of its executives, to the Cayman Islands. From there, it went to Zurich.

“Transocean’s questionable business practices may be at fault for costing lives and livelihoods on the Gulf Coast, and now there are questions regarding its tax practices as well,” the senator said. “Hardworking Americans pull their weight by paying the taxes they owe every day and American companies must do the same.”

BP was also tangling last week with one of its minor partners in the crippled well. The Houston-based Anadarko oil company, which owns 25 per cent of the well, stated it was declining a request from BP that it share some of the clean-up costs.

“We are disappointed they have failed to live up to their obligations,” BP spokesman Mark Salt said late on Friday. “Anadarko’s refusal to pay its share will in no way affect BP’s commitment to stop the leak, clean up the spill, and pay all legitimate claims as quickly as possible.”

Engineers for BP were meanwhile preparing to take the current containment cap off the gushing well and replace it with one with a better seal. The company is accelerating efforts to complete the first of two relief wells in the hope of stopping the leak before the end of July.

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RELATED ARTICLE: Standard Chartered behind BP’s crisis fund

Miami Herald

The Associated Press

Posted on Sunday, 07.11.10

…Herkstroter, aided by an army of American consultants, is, in effect, putting his executives on the psychiatrist’s couch. He’s asked scores of Shell employees to run the gamut of New Age consulting. They’ve helped each other climb walls in the freezing Dutch rain. They’ve dug dirt at low-income housing projects and made videotapes of themselves walking around blindfolded. They’ve tracked their time to figure out whether they’re adding any value. They’ve even taken Myers-Briggs personality tests to see who fits in at the new Shell and who doesn’t.

Again, I appeal to President Obama and his Cabinet for and IMMEDIATE investigation of SHELL OIL with reference to our ancestral inheritance and others like us who want our ancestral properties and rights returned to us immediately. I hope all of the above falls under President Obama’s new overhaul laws regarding Shell and others now drilling in Louisiana.

THE CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY

By Peter H. Stone | July 09, 2010

A Justice Department probe into whether former Interior Secretary Gale Norton (right) illegally gave preferential treatment to Royal Dutch Shell Group, which later hired her for an executive job, is expected to end soon without any charges, say sources familiar with the inquiry.

The probe was looking in part at Interior’s decision to grant three lucrative oil shale leases on federal lands in Colorado to a Shell subsidiary in January 2006. Norton left the top job at the department in March 2006, and said she had not lined up a new position. About nine months later, Shell hired Norton as general counsel for its U.S. unconventional resources unit.

Shell’s Colorado-based unconventional resources unit focuses on exploration and production including shale technology.

The Justice probe mainly focused on whether Norton broke a conflict of interest law that bars government officials from negotiating future employment with a company that stands to benefit from official actions. The inquiry was looking at whether Shell – the only company to receive three of the lucrative leases in Colorado – benefitted from special treatment.

Craig Truman, a Denver attorney for Norton, declined to comment, saying “we never talk about our cases outside of court.”

A Justice spokeswoman, Laura Sweeney, also declined to comment.

But the sources, who asked to be anonymous, have told the Center that the inquiry is winding down because government lawyers don’t believe they have enough evidence to bring a prosecution.

The oil leases were granted to Shell at the recommendation of a group of states and an interagency panel which included Interior officials. One analysis by Shell and the Rand Corp. indicated the leases could be worth hundreds of billions of dollars to the company over their production lifetime.

“We’re unable to comment on pending investigations,” said Shell spokesman Theodore Rolfvondenbaumen.

The Justice investigation grew out of an earlier inquiry into Norton at the end of the Bush administration by the office of then-Interior Inspector General Earl Devaney. The internal watchdog’s office concluded that there was enough evidence of possible illegal action by Norton to warrant a criminal referral to the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section. The inspector general’s inquiry included interviews with many Interior employees.

A federal grand jury in Washington that was probing whether Norton violated any conflicts of interest laws related to Interior dealings with Shell subpoenaed documents from the oil giant in the fall of 2009.

Historically, public integrity probes are complex undertakings and can be difficult to prove, while often proceeding at a tortoise-like pace. For instance, the lengthy Justice-led inquiry into the influence peddling operations of one-time super lobbyist Jack Abramoff that led to 19 convictions – including jail sentences for J. Steven Griles, the former number two at Interior under Norton, ex-Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, and Abramoff — began in early 2004 and is still underway.

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