The initials BP are by now a household word. It is a name that in the public mind at least has become synonymous with longtime legal, environmental, and safety issues.
The story starts two days after Christmas in 1965, when the oil rig Sea Gem collapsed and killed 13 crew members in the icy waters of the North Sea. Then came 40 years of toxic waste dumping, and oil and gas price manipulations, followed by the disastrous Texas City oil refinery blast of 2005 that left 15 workers dead and 270 injured.
