The Oil Drum

The sequence of events (covered here on The Oil Drum previously) that led to the Forties Pipeline closure on 27 April 2008 began in 2005 when BP, currently the UK's largest company, sold Innovene, their Grangemouth refinery subsidiary to Ineos. Ineos is privately owned petrochemicals company that has grown from nothing since its formation in 1998, fueled by debt reported to be €9 billion.

BP, once 50% owned by the UK government, used to own and operate the Forties Field, the Forties Pipeline system and the Grangemouth oil refinery. This is a tightly coupled complex system where oil from the North Sea flows by pipeline to Kinneil terminal where it is either diverted to Grangemouth to be refined and then combusted by energy hungry consumers or it is diverted to Hound Point for export by tanker (see map below the fold). The failure of any vital part of this complex system may close the whole system down. This system is now fragmented and its failure has just happened.

Failure by BP to recognise the dependency of the Forties Pipeline upon vital services provided by Grangemouth, and to provide contingency back up for their loss, is the principal cause for over 40% of UK North Sea oil and gas production now being shutdown.

Incident prone BP are of course not the only stake holder to shoulder responsibility and below the fold I explore the responsibilities of the Grangemouth Workers, Ineos, The Banks, Government and The Media in contributing to this debacle.

I meant to finish this last night, but after walking something like 20 miles over the last 3 days and handing out information for Transportation Alternatives at the Queensboro bridge last night  I was a little tired so you'll have to forgive me. :)

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Now that the strike is over and the trains and buses are running again, we can take stock of the third transit strike in 40 years (1966, 1980, 2005) and the third time that NYC's transportation system has been disrupted for more than 24 hours in less than 5 years (Sept 11, Blackout 2003, the Transit Strike). All of these events have illustrated the value of mass transit, the inability of cars to replace it and the need for more transportation alternatives to both mass transit and automobiles.

BROOKLYN BRIDGE, 7:30am As we enter day 3 of the transit strike, it's a good time to reflect on public opinion. NY media coverage has focused mostly on commuter frustrations and heated words between the heads of the MTA, TWU, Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg (who actually has no control over the MTA). If you were to just watch the local Fox News channel, with their "Illegal Strike" graphics, you would think everyone hates the union and there is no public support for the strike. However, according a new Marist Poll, New Yorkers are actually pretty split about who's to blame for the strike with 39% blaming the MTA vs. 40% for the TWU. As you could imagine, due to the many inconveniences, a majority (55%) of New Yorkers are against the strike, but surprisingly 38% of people actually favor the strike. When broken down on ethnic and racial lines, there is a wide divide between support for the strike between New Yorkers who are white (23%), Latino (44%) and African-American (61%).

While no public official gets high approval rating for their handling of the strike, TWU president Roger Touissaint's approval is 39% vs. 27% for Pataki (who really controls the MTA's board). Bloomberg has a 43% approval rating for the strike.

In general I think this shows that there is little love for the MTA and shows that minority groups have higher support for unions taking action.

There are many great photos of the strike in the blogosphere, starting with the indispensible Gothamist, which has a good round up of all the different local photo slide shows. AD over at Startsandfits, has some great photos so does Curbed.

I started taking photos on 2 mile walk to work along 2nd Ave, but not all came out as well as I had hoped. Here's a few that were no blurry beyond recognition.

I decided to walk to work in the cold weather because I was worried about not having a light on my return trip tonight in the dark (today is one of the shortest days of the year). Most people in my office took the strike in strive and made their way to work with a smile. Others are working from home or taking the day off to do local shopping for Christmas.

For the first time in 25 years New York City is largely shutdown today as the Transport Workers Union local 100 rejected a final offer from the MTA and went on strike. I could tell that the strike was on early this morning because of all the honking horns out my window (traffic will be a nightmare today). As I have mentioned before, a lot of wealth rides on NYC rails and buses. Which is why the Taylor law was enacted, making any strike illegal, resulting in fines that increase exponentially everyday.

This could be a watershed in how New York City views it's all its transit systems, including biking, walking, carpooling and even skating to work. The 1980 strike is largely given credit for making people more comfortable wearing sneakers to work and then changing into their dress shoes at the office.

Again, I really hope there isn't a strike, but if there is I hope people will not only realize the value of mass transit but perhaps find that walking or biking or telecommuting is really not that bad. I also wonder how Bloomberg's mandatory carpooling experiment will work out.