Balcombe MP Francis Maude
Balcombe MP Francis Maude appointed Lord Browne, a director of Cuadrilla Resource Holdings Ltd, to the Cabinet Office in June 2010.
The Cuadrilla executive ‘works closely‘ with the cabinet office board, chaired by Maude, in his role as ‘lead non-executive’.
On appointing Browne, Maude said: “his experience will be a real benefit to make Whitehall work in a more businesslike manner”.
In January Maude visited Balcombe to talk to consitutents concerned about hydraulic fracturing in the village. Those who attended described the MP as ‘non-committal’.
At the meeting, Maude failed to disclose his association with a senior member of the Cuadrilla management team, nor their close working relationship.
Browne joined Cuadrilla four months before his appointment to government. In one of his many roles he acts as Managing Director of Riverstone LLC – in February 2010 Riverstone invested 27m in Cuadrilla and Browne and two other Riverstone executives joined the Cuadrilla board. He was instrumental in hiring the current head of UK operations, Mark Miller.
Cuadrilla director Lord Browne
I imagine the reason for Lord Browne’s appointment has absolutely nothing to do with Cuadrilla, but quite a lot that under his tenure BP grew from a local national OilCo to a very big player indeed {altho’ his vigorous cost-cutting, in the matter of laying off engineers & hiring HR types, is thought by some to have contributed to later BP disasters}. So, Blair favourite that he was, one can see the attractions to this Cabinet of a cost cutting, job eliminating, nanny encouraging, “proven track record of private sector growth” person.
Probably the same qualities that made him attractive to Riverstone.
Haven’t BP messed up enogh of our planet?
Where would that be?
“BP is a London-based oil company with one of the worst safety records of any oil company operating in America,” says Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen. “In just the last few years, BP has paid $485 million in fines and settlements to the US government for environmental crimes, willful neglect of worker safety rules, and penalties for manipulating energy markets.” We speak with Slocum and with an attorney representing several workers who survived the blast that sank BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig. He’s also representing the wife of one of the eleven workers now presumed dead who is filing a lawsuit accusing BP of negligence. [includes rush transcript]
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/5/group_bp_has_one_of_the
have a look for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill_-_May_24,_2010_-_with_locator.jpg
you can see a reverse-chronological list of oil spills here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills
and information on BP’s most recent, The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the BP oil disaster, or the Macondo blowout:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill
Georgie, that is a truly terrible list. But considered as a response to my {provocative – I apologise} “Where would that be?” to Angela Southon’s “Haven’t BP messed up enough of our planet?” … there appear only to be 2 BP spills listed: Macondo/ Deepwater Horizon & Prudhoe Bay March 2nd, 2006 {653 to 689 tonnes}, altho’ there are another 3 dealing with the Trans-Alaska pipeline, which presumably carries BP oil, one of which is reported as sabotage.
Seriously though, hasn’t the Macondo spill been cleaned up, so that it could no longer be claimed to be messing up our planet?
Not to be white-washing for BP, but in all that long list, there do seem to be other candidates for “messiest oil company”.
No it hasn’t been cleared up! Look at Gulf Restoration website. Fish and crustacean stocks collapsed, many areas of beach ruined, huge volumes of a very poisonous “cleaner” called Correxit were spread by B.P., turns out it has made the oil even more toxic and slower to decay. A lot of illness; oil well or some other vent near it may still be leaking.
Is it this a British company causing environmental disaster oversea? Maybe they should stay and make profit oversea and wreck UK land. We still need oil though and so let them stay overseas and we UK people let it be.
This is downright disgraceful. Should be given wide publicity.
Lord Browne should be made to declare his interest and get out.
Will be sharing far and wide.
C is for Corruption, C is for Conservative
The Deep Blue Horizon accident happened last year and it was not under his watch. He retired from BP years before the accident so it is not appropriate to blame someone just because of simple ‘guilty by association’. He should nevertheless has declare his interest in Cuadrilla but Muade probably knew it already.
In regards of shale gas drilling, British Geology Survey already has concluded in their study that fracking is pretty safe in term of water contamination and earth quake. EPA also agree there are currently adequate regulation and procedure to protect the environment from fracking in Europe.
Sorry Tommie but pretty safe just doesn’t quite do it for me.
There are so many dangerous aspects of shale gas mining that must be considered. Most docs I have read simply say no problems providing best practices are adhered to but we know better. By the way lord Browne also oversaw the Royal Society of Engineering fracking report…..he has a finger in every pie. Money money money.
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