BP and the Gulf Week That Was

We're now two months removed from the offshore-drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people, sent the Deepwater Horizon to the bottom of the sea, set millions of gallons of crude flowing into the water and cratered the stock price of one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, BP (NYSE: BP - News).

Since April 20, we've learned a few things, none of them good.

Here's a recap: Halting thousands of gallons of fossil fuels from spewing every day out of a busted pipe 5,000 feet below the ocean surface is extremely difficult; politicians still love to hear themselves talk; executives from giant corporations still don't particularly like contrition; and an outcome in which everybody can walk away and claim victory appears less and less likely.

Everybody's mad, and they all have their own reasons to be. President Obama's mad, members of Congress are mad, BP shareholders are mad. Officials at BP, Transocean (NYSE: RIG - News) and Halliburton (NYSE: HAL - News) aren't happy -- who wants to be portrayed as a bunch of villains in papers around the globe, over and over again?

Workers and residents in the Gulf are panicking about their economy and way of life. Alternative-energy advocates are in we-told-you-so mode, and environmental activists are apoplectic. Let's face it, even people who aren't especially green-minded don't tend to revel in images of oil-coated pelicans and widespread wildlife kills.

Oil, Oil Everywhere

It's not breaking news to say the situation is bad in the Gulf. We still hear about the Exxon Valdez 21 years after the oil tanker ruptured off the coast of Alaska. By many accounts, the Deepwater Horizon has the potential to be significantly worse than what happened in Prince William Sound in 1989, if for no other reason than the amount of oil that's now escaped into the ocean. The ultimate effects won't be known for months certainly, and for years perhaps.

While it's hard to say this week saw much improvement on containing the crisis, it did produce a number of notable images and comments from the main players, some of which appear in the accompanying video.

The short version of events is that the president visited the South to assess the situation and look for progress, but his speech that followed the trip wasn't particularly well-received. Meanwhile, BP set plans to suspend its dividend and establish a $20 billion fund to offset the costs of dealing with the cleanup and its consequences, and Tony Hayward, the oil company's CEO, appeared before lawmakers in Washington to, let's be generous, "answer" questions.

Analysts and commentators continued to fight about whether this is a good time or a bad time to buy BP's shares, whether the company will remain viable or whether it will require some type of merger or savior to keep its assets drilling and producing. If you're an investor, you already know you'll find passionate arguments on both sides of the issue regarding what to do with your money.

Since most of us aren't petroleum engineers -- ever heard of a blowout preventer until about eight weeks ago? -- we can't do much more than watch and wait, and hope that the experts will get the leak stopped.

Having to rely on hope in the absence of all else is never an enviable position. But sometimes, that's all you've got.