Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Who Actually Owns BP?

Companies / Oil Companies Aug 23, 2010 - 03:22 AM GMT

By: Global_Research

Companies

Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleMost relevant sources agree that 40% of the shares of BP are held in the United Kingdom, 39% of the shares are held in the United States, while the remaining 21% are held throughout Europe and the rest of the world. The largest single holder of shares is getting harder to track down. Generally an Internet search will lead to the other 9 leaders, roughly 23%:



BlackRock (New York) 5.9%
Legal & General (United Kingdom) 4%
Barclays Global Investor (owned by BlackRock) 3.8%
Norges Bank Investment Management (Norway) 1.8%
Kuwait Investment Authority (manages funds for the Kuwaiti Government) 1.75%
M & G Investment Management (UK asset owned by the Prudential) 1.67%
Standard Life (Scottish insurance company) 1.5%
Capital Research & Management Company (Los Angeles) 1.3%
China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange 1.1%

Too many sites fail to mention who owns a whopping 28.34% of BP—more than the other 9 out of the top 10 together. That would be Wall Street’s JPMorgan Chase. And that certainly explains why our own government has offered mostly limp and phony bluster and coverup as BP has done pretty much whatever it wants in our new energy sacrifice zone—such as the deliberate blockage of oil collection in favor of bringing in “Carolina Skiffs” and huge aircraft to spray dispersants at night. BP lies, our government lies and covers, and the Gulf dies. Evidently, our government’s top priority is limiting BP’s liability.

Nalco is the company that manufactures Corexit dispersant which, despite being banned in the UK because of its toxicity, has been used by the millions of gallons in the Gulf. Corexit has been approved by our EPA—but only for surface use. Well, the EPA illegally issued a permit for BP to inject Corexit at the gushing well head. BP even admitted they used Corexit illegally. They made an enormous catastrophe even much worse by polluting the Gulf with Corexit. Injecting Corexit right at the well head, they created massive plumes of dispersed oil that float around below the surface, killing life in the Gulf for...long enough. That’s what energy sacrifice zones are for; BP greatly reduced its liability by killing the Gulf. Our government tried to convince us that “most” of the oil is miraculously gone—that only 24% remains! Who would have imagined that our own CorpoMedia would be the one to nix that fairy tale, actually telling the truth that 80% of the oil is still in the Gulf, floating around in those dispersed, biocidal plumes? When CorpoMedia controverts CorpoGov, it’s obvious that something extraordinary is up. It’s called goodbye to life in the Gulf of Mexico. There’s a lot of oil and gas down there, and all the Gulf’s biology is in the way.

What "Size of People" Are You?

Preliminary work involved in transforming the Gulf of Mexico into an energy sacrifice zone has given BP executives ample opportunity to prove that their mouths are big enough to hold both feet. They have not disappointed. Who can forget CEO Tony Hayward in that sleazy infomercial about how much BP cared—that BP would “...make things right”? It was like Corexit spraying from every TV in America. And of course there was his whining about wanting his life back as he dallied off to a yacht race in UK waters. But perhaps the most telling gaffe came from the Swedish mouth of BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, right after his meeting with Obama. Svanberg used the term “small people” to refer to those damaged by BP’s catastrophe-magnified-with-Corexit. Once wasn’t enough, he used it 3 times; the first time saying that President Obama was “...frustrated, because he cares about the small people”, then he noted that “We at BP care about the small people”, concluding with how much BP “...cares about the small people”. Of course he abjectly apologized later for speaking “clumsily”, but, hey, Carl-Henric, it’s the thought that counts.

So, yes, unfettered capitalism has replaced the sanctity of human life with different “sizes” depending on the amount of moneypower one commands. The vast and rapidly growing majority of us are “small people”. From there upward, transparency falls off precipitously, so it’s progressively more difficult identifying larger sizes—but there’s no stopping conjecture. Perhaps the mediums include our political class, those doing to the smalls what they are told to do. Most millionaires probably belong in this group, maybe even Carl-Henric Svanberg himself. In the large size are the billionaires, as well as many of those behind blacked-out windows being chauffeured to annual Bilderberg meetings. Beyond the large, secrecy becomes so profound it’s like lying on the bottom of a stream and trying to spot airplanes cruising by at 40,000 feet. In the X-large and XX-large sizes are surely those who make the final decisions about wars, depressions, and the major energy sacrifice zones. Top multi-national corporations are up in this zone. And it’s a safe bet that anyone or anything this high probably ascended on the power of fossil fuels. In 2010, 3 of the 5 largest corporations in the world are: #2, Royal Dutch Shell; #3, Exxon Mobil; #4, BP.

The Actual Costs of Fossil Fuels

This is another realm where transparency gets muddied by secrecy, indirection and lies. But when you start factoring in oil wars, and wars over transfer routes (both currently disguised as wars on terror), you quickly transcend the cost of all the “economically unfeasible” clean and renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, ocean wave, biomass.... Then when you consider things such as pollution, including anthropocentric loading of the atmosphere with heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, fossil energy becomes—perhaps with climate change—terminally expensive. And then there’s the social damage of extreme wealth concentration, and attendant commodification and stratification of human life (the different sizes, just like shirts), along with the rapidly growing assembly of energy sacrifice zones—pushed by climate change into possibly including the magnificently-complex life support system of our one and only little blue world...could any energy be more expensive? It seems the answer is no.

Yet we drill and fracture and bulldoze maniacally in our quest to wring out remaining oil, natural gas, and coal that has possibly already killed everything. The answer to the question WHY? would be just another cost of fossil fuel.

The medium, large, X-large and XX-large have proven they will do anything to perpetuate the system that has given them their size. Meanwhile, it appears the only salvation for the vast bulk of humanity, along with most of Earth’s species, is in the hands of the small people. We vastly outnumber all other sizes put together, and that leads to one of the scariest questions of all: Just how small are we?

Rand's novels CASTLING, a "Story of the Power of Hemp"...and, TIMING, the sequel...are published by StarChief Press.
 Global Research Articles by Rand Clifford

© Copyright Rand Clifford , Global Research, 2010

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in