Petromasculinity: Diamond Offshore Drilling got $9.7 million tax bailout, filed for bankruptcy protection, paid $9.7 million in executive bonuses, laid off nearly a quarter of its workforce. Seadrill Limited got $3 million bailout, did nothing to stem layoffs or bankruptcy. Superior Energy Services announced $115 million in payroll cuts, layoffs, furloughs; got $30.5 million tax bailout, paid $44 million to top execs, filed for bankruptcy

Oil Driller Took $9.7 Million Bailout, Declared Bankruptcy, Gave Execs $9.7 Million, Laid Off Staff by ClimateDenierRoundup Community, February 25, 2021, DAILY KOS

We and others have talked about Cara Daggett’s concept of petromasculinity a lot since she coined the term in 2018 to describe the way that the fossil fuel industry has been imbued with testosterone. Even if you aren’t familiar with the phrase, you know what it means —  like truck nuts rolling coal and gushing oil rigs symbolizing the patriarchal dominance of the natural world. Beyond justifying, and perhaps even glamorizing, brutally dangerous working conditions, it’s also a key entry point into the culture wars. It gives the industry natural backers in the patriarchy to help reinforce the narrative of elite, emasculated environmentalists shrilly nagging the noble, rugged, hardworking blue collar everyman of the oil field out of a job.

That story is designed to conceal the truth: it’s Big Oil that’s currently killing jobs in oil. Specifically, it’s oil company executives who, for example, received millions of dollars in aid during the pandemic and, instead of using that money to keep workers employed, declared bankruptcy, laid off workers, and gave the government handout to themselves as a bonus. (And who says they don’t deserve it? Firing people as you drive a company into the ground is hard work, after all.)

We wish that were an exaggeration or oversimplification. But BailoutWatch recently revealed that Diamond Offshore Drilling got $9.7 million in a tax bailout as part of the CARES Act, filed for bankruptcy protection anyway, paid $9.7 million out to executives as bonuses, and then this month, “disclosed it has laid off nearly a quarter of its workforce.”

And it’s not the only one. Seadrill Limited got a $3 million bailout last year, yet that did nothing to stem its layoffs or bankruptcy for the London-based drilling company and its various affiliates.

Superior Energy Services was even worse. In May of 2020, it announced $115 million in payroll cuts, layoffs and furloughs. Two months later, it got a $30.5 million tax bailout. Then, in September, apparently impressed with having saved so much money by laying off its workers, the board paid $7.3 million to each of its six top executives. Three months later, Superior Energy Services filed for bankruptcy. …

What’s petromasculinity got to do with this? Well, when pressed about how they steered millions of dollars of public funds into the private profits of polluters, people like Ted Cruz are “proud to defend jobs in Texas.” Cruz is supposedly a fiscal conservative who claims to care deeply about government spending and interference in the energy industry. So why isn’t he mad about the fact that these companies took that money, gave it to executives, and slashed jobs anyway?

First and foremost, because the industry didn’t give him millions of dollars so that he would be mean to them. Secondly, because he probably just hasn’t figured out a way to blame it on his wife or children.

But part of the reason why he’s so supportive of corporate socialism is because petromasculinity blends fossil fuels with the patriarchy. Therefore, you can look like you’re helping the regular Joes keep their manly jobs, while in reality you’re actually just helping elite millionaires keep their caviar and champagne stocks topped up.

If the fossil fuel industry had never waged sustained and decades-long campaigns to make the public feel certain ways about its products, including that it comes from big strong sweaty men who support loving families with a generous paycheck, then people might actually stop and think about whether handing over millions of dollars to executives at these companies actually does anything to “defend jobs in Texas.” But they did.

It’s just a shame they paid someone as bad ad delivering thinly-veiled patriarchal, homophobia (with a good dose of anti-semitism thrown in for good measure) as Ted Cruz.

Refer also to:

Judge lets nasty frac’er escape bankruptcy, rules Chesapeake is worth $1 Billion more than the company does, sets free $7 Billion in debt, gives “big payday” to some, says to CEO Robert Lawler: “To remember that a lot of people have suffered a lot of pain for Chesapeake to have a second chance….”

Evil law-violating frac’er Chesapeake Energy files for bankruptcy, owing $9Billion. How much magic money will the court give the frac’ers this time?

Chesapeake Energy Corporation Teams Up With Bankrupt GasFrac (Calgary) To Test Gelled (with what toxic chemicals?) LNG (Highly Dangerous) Fracking in Ohio

Satan Hailing Frac’ers Lynch the People. Oil & Gas companies hurtling into bankruptcy (intentionally – to avoid lawsuits, leak repair & clean-up, enabled by taxpayer-funded courts) as execs snatch millions in unjust rewards (also enabled by our courts).

Yet another frac’er bites sweet dust: Weatherford facing more than $10Billion in debt files for bankruptcy protection. US court order accepts restructuring plan, which includes Weatherford getting $2.2Billion in magic money; Stockholders to receive proportionate shares of the company’s **new stock** while operations continue as “normal.”

“A Murderer’s Row: Maturities are coming year after year.” Bankruptcies rising in U.S. oil patch as Wall Street’s disaffection with frac’ers reverberates through industry. 26 producers file for bankruptcy so far in 2019; 28 filed in all of 2018. Bankruptcies expected to rise,

U.S. Shale Is Doomed No Matter What They Do: “More bankruptcies are all but certain as oil and gas borrowers must repay or refinance **several hundred billion dollars** of debt over the next six months”

Texas Court Orders Sierra Club to Pay $6.4 Million to Bankrupt Energy Future Holdings/Luminant Generation to Cover Costs Incurred “in discovery and expert witness fees”

Judge Walter S. Smith. Jr. was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Judge-gifted bankruptcies to keep companies frac’ing & polluting and con investors into losing more money; Abandon thousands of frac harmed families; And intentionally dump pollution and clean-up on taxpayers. In the USA, “explorers burned through some $342 billion of cash since 2010, leaving little in the way of returns for investors.” In Alberta, AIMCo took $100s of millions (under Kenney & Harper, will likely take $billions more) from pensioners years ago to give to “quite leveraged” frac’ers already then.

Jason kenney’s billions of $$$ in corporate welfare not enough? Halliburton to cease cementing operations in Alberta by end of 2019 but “will continue to provide specialty cementing solutions, blends and chemical additives to our customers that require our proprietary products and processes.”

Alberta teachers, unions “across-the-board livid” about KKKenney’s UCP stealing control of their pensions via mega-money losing AIMCo.

Kenney goes a beggin’ to Trudeau for mega cash & tax cuts to give yet more $billions in corporate welfare to billion dollar profit raping oil patch; Kenney & CAPP want Canadians (and their heirs and their heirs and their heirs, etc.) to be forced to pay for oil & gas industry’s rape & pillage & pollution of Alberta.

Will mega loser AIMCo throw more pensioners’ money away in corporate welfare/bailout to failing flailing Alberta frac’er Calfrac?

UCP Filthy Lucre Lust: Hands off our CPP! We don’t want AIMCo rendering our pensions into “a pork barrel to convert into welfare payments for fossil fuel billionaires.”

Kenney stealing $16.6 Billion from Alberta teachers to give yet more corporate welfare to polluting oil & gas & frac bankrupters via AIMCo? Includes revealing comments by Diana Daunheimer.

If AIMCo were independent, trustworthy and believable would its CEO need to boast so loudly and dishonestly in the media? Will King Kenney fire Mr. Uebelein if he refuses to give bankrupting oil and gas frac’ers a billion more dollars here and a billion more dollars there?

Law-violating, aquifer-frac’er bully Ovintiv/Encana/(Cenovus spawned after Ernst lawsuit filed): “New York-based investor considers Ovintiv…to be the poster child for all that ails the North American exploration and production sector…. The sector as a whole is rife with excessive compensation and a lack of accountability”

Vile: Job killers Ovintiv (American, previously Encana) and Cenovus (previously Encana) get pandemic relief, Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (and help spread COVID-19 from frac fields to communities?)

Bankruptcy plan to let Cenovus/Husky “legally” escape clean-up, aided by taxpayer-funded courts? Cenovus (Encana spawn), buys Husky for $23.6 Billion, “including debt” (financed by Canada Pension Plan and AIMCo?); Will kill jobs Kenney promised would increase when he gave industry $Billions in tax breaks, mega corporate welfare, tax super holiday and citizen-financed propaganda (war room and Steve Allen’s witch hunt).

Alberta increasing Oilpatch Welfare while enabling more harms and pollution and hundreds of $Billions in liabilities. Red Deer County caves, slashes taxes for shallow gas producers, gives zero tax relief for frac’d water well owners and farms

Alberta picks yet another hanky panky “Dickhead.” Blackrock (lost $90 Billion in fossil fuel investments last 10 years) rule breaker Mark Wiseman to chair AIMCo (money-losing launderer of funds from pensioners to bankrupt frac firms).

UCP appoints another “dickhead” to direct AIMCo: Nova Scotian Bob Kelly, past CFO of Wachovia (laundered $billions for drug cartels) and fallen from grace exCEO of Bank of New York Mellon.

Denton’s Law firm wanting more easy money? UCP Kenney’s Witch Hunt given another million dollars, making it look like just another AIMCo money laundering scheme. To pay Harper for his time puppeting Kenney? (Harper works at Denton’s and Witch Hunt boss Steve Allan’s son is partner there. Creepy.)

BlackRock Takes Command; “Literacy is Power,” meanwhile Alberta’s AIMCo Loses $4 Billion on bet gone wrong. Bet gone wrong or laundering (aka stealing) more money from ordinary citizens and pensioners to give to the rich?

Alberta’s Never Ending Corporate Welfare Will Bite You: Energy Relief will Cost Taxpayers, Front Page Red Deer Advocate

Alberta: More corporate welfare stench! 65,000 shallow gas wells qualify to get more than $23M in freebies from taxpayers. Again, not a penny for Albertans suffering frac quake damages, drinking water loss/contamination, health harm, loss of livestock etc.

What does frac’ing do best? Polluting us while going bankrupt: “Staggering” $86Billion in debt maturities coming due. Investors now have “risk aversion” to the sector.

Is this why Paramount bought Apache Corp’s Fox Creek assets? Koch Industries sells its tarsands properties to Paramount. Paramount/Trilogy next to declare bankruptcy, walk from clean up, with AER’s blessings?

Judge grants railroad bankruptcy protection after Lac-Mégantic disaster, About 100 residents remain homeless for a year

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