BP is safer, sadder, and wiser

So says the Economist in a long sympathetic article about BP.  The Deep Water Horizon disaster in the Gulf knocked its share price down below $80, from $100.  Cleanup and payoffs cost them $42 billion.  They had to sell $38 billion worth of assets to raise the money.  They are desperate  enough to do deals with the Russians that the other western majors won't touch with a ten foot pole. 
   What the Economist fails to tell, is how a major oil company could be run by chuckleheads for so long.  BP blew up a refinery in Texas, with fatalities, due to skimping on maintenance.  They let the Alaska pipeline rust out and leak crude oil.   A couple of BP suits aboard the rig did the Deep Water Horizon explosion  The suits ignored protests by every experienced man aboard, and ordered the drilling mud pumped out.  The cement seal had failed to seal.  With the heavy drilling mud removed, explosive natural gas pushed up the drill hole and burst into flames when it reached the surface.  The Wall St Journal ran a series of articles afterward which make it quite clear that responsibility for the disaster rested entirely with the BP suits.  Who fled the country to avoid prosecution. 
   Just how senior management at a major oil company could tolerate, and even encourage this kind of bet-the-company risk taking is inconceivable to me.  No company I ever worked at would do things like that.  When it was a matter of things going boom, people getting hurt, or property damage everyone was damn careful.  Nobody wanted a catastrophe.  Apparently things were different at BP.
   They probably still are.  The Economist didn't tell about anyone getting fired at BP over Deep Water Horizon.