Business Week reports:
Beer Flows, Strippers Promote at Oil Conference After Rig Blast
May 5 (Bloomberg) — BP Plc’s oil spill after a fatal rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico hasn’t stopped the party in Houston, where the world’s offshore energy industry is gathered for its biggest event of the year.
Beer and wine flow at the Offshore Technology Conference’s concession booths, and exhibitors use humor and titillation to get the attention of 67,000 predominantly male attendees from more than 100 countries. Some guests leaving the exhibit hall May 3 found fliers stuck on their cars promoting a strip club. The ads offered free admission and had photos of a rig on one side and a woman removing her clothes on the other.
The April 20 explosion and fire on Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and triggered a leak from a BP well that continues to spew oil into the ocean. President Barack Obama said May 3 that the spill may become an “unprecedented environmental disaster.”
“You want to respect the people that gave their life for this industry,” said Jim Bullen, sales manager for TorcUp Inc., an Easton, Pennsylvania-based maker of drilling tools. “At the end of the day, we’ve got a business to run and life goes on. It’s sad. It just exemplifies how dangerous an industry offshore drilling really is.”
A sign at TorcUp’s exhibit booth reads, “Tools for studs … with big nuts.” Women wearing high heels and short, racing- themed suits with zippers up the front hand guests a power tool to spin the Wheel of Torque for a chance to win a gift card.
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Business Week: Beer Flows, Strippers Promote at Oil ConferenceLandowners and politicians, there isn’t a prayer of “working it out” with an industry that has no sense of decency.
Tags: BP, Deepwater Horizon
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