BP (NYSE: BP) has dominated the news for months, following an explosion aboard a Transocean (NYSE: RIG) rig. With a trio of major efforts now moving forward to repair the environmental, financial, and corporate damage from the disaster, the oil giant has become a three-ring circus.
Easily the most important of its three initiatives involves attempts to change out a loose-fitting well cap that has captured only a portion of the gushing oil. It'll be replaced by one more tailor-made, and hopefully capable of blocking virtually all of the oil from spewing into the gulf.
The project generally has received positive comments from BP's management. But we likely won't know for four or five days whether the new cap is funneling most of the oil to surface vessels, rather than permitting it to escape and continue to sicken the Gulf. BP is also adding a third containment vessel; after a couple snags, it should be up and running shortly.
Another of the company's efforts involves attempting to raise capital from sovereign wealth funds in places like Singapore or the Middle East, for what clearly will be a hefty amount of clean-up fees, compensation for Gulf Coast residents, fines, and other charges. The funds collected may help prevent ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), Shell (NYSE: RDS-A), or PetroChina (NYSE: PTR) from initiating takeover runs at BP.
In addition, BP apparently is having conversations with several oil companies regarding asset sales. And it appears to be in deeper discussions with Apache (NYSE: APA) regarding the sale of a package of assets worth up to $10 billion, including its Alaska projects. A deal of that size potentially could be announced when BP releases its earnings on July 27.
The third item of importance to BP involves Monday's first formal meeting of the presidential commission tasked with investigating the spill. BP, of course, is not represented on the commission: No one with an energy or petroleum engineering background is.
The group's agenda will include the Obama administration's deepwater drilling moratorium. The two co-chairmen -- former Florida Senator Bob Graham and William Reilly, the headed of the Environmental Protection Agency under the first President Bush -- have promised to avoid haste in their moratorium discussions.
You may have noticed that BP's shares have climbed about 20% in the past couple of weeks. Nevertheless, the company remains surrounded by myriad questions. I prefer to stick with ExxonMobil as the conservative proxy for the rest of Big Oil.
