The Lemon Fool

For all who hold BP, the report on safety quoted at least in The Times this morning should be worrying. 'BP criticised over serious safety flaws at top sites' is the heading. It goes on to talk about 'at least two potentially fatal near misses'. Culture, always culture. All this was supposed to have changed after the Deepwater Horizon disaster but as I have often said it is very difficult to change a culture, good or bad.

I do not hold.

Another snippet nothing to do with BP is that the late Harry Hyams the property developer was so obsessed with privacy that he held the AGM of his public company at 4.15 pm on New Year's Eve. I like that.

Dod1010 wrote:For all who hold BP, the report on safety quoted at least in The Times this morning should be worrying. 'BP criticised over serious safety flaws at top sites' is the heading. It goes on to talk about 'at least two potentially fatal near misses'. Culture, always culture. All this was supposed to have changed after the Deepwater Horizon disaster but as I have often said it is very difficult to change a culture, good or bad.

I do not hold..

Here's more on this from the Telegraph;

BP rapped for serious safety breaches that risked lives in North Sea leak

BP made "serious breaches" of safety regulations resulting in an oil and gas leak that could have killed North Sea workers, the Norwegian regulator has found.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... -leak.html

I hold BP. and although I agree this is an issue, having worked in power stations in the past, I'm aware that there is always a potential for these safety matters to occur, and realise I have no control over them, therefore I fall back on HYP SI.

Regards,

Ian

High risk goes with the territory. Dod has made a decision that he won't tolerate that risk, which is good for him. However, some of us have a higher tolerance, especially in a large HYP. I suppose the question at the back of my mind is: having seen many other companies fall on their faces, is this just one of those factors we have to take on when we invest in equities?

I thought it was quite an interesting comment by Miner 1000 today, in which he implied that LGEN may not be quite as immune as Dod believes. In other words, it's all a value judgement, and what the heck do any one us really know?
I'm also reminded of the same thread in which the discussion about mining shares became very technical with the two "Miners" debating material prices etc.

This is all way beyond my pay grade, so I rely on SI, diversity and the portfolio principle to give a reasonable level of protection. That's what HYP was designed to do for amateurs like us who cannot hope to be experts in all our shares, and certainly could not have information about the ongoing internal machinations of companies like BP or BLT.

Arb.

Arb

As you know I agree with a lot that you say and really Shell is exposed to at least as much risk as is BP, if not more with the acquisition of BG. I think the difference is that BP has form, and more than just Deepwater Horizon. So my point really is that it is the culture thing again. I have always thought that Shell is much more collegiate in the running of its businesses and that I think helps.

As for Legal & General? It has not let me down in over 20 years of holding it and I knew it quite well in my working life as well.I have no reason to think it has suddenly changed its spots.

Dod

There is a slightly different culture in BP vs Shell. I fully accept that with low probability / high potential risks one bad one can distort the averages, but so far the effect of the culture has tended to result in an average that favours Shell over BP in safety terms. Stay safe.
regards, dspp