British Petroleum’s shares have shed 40 percent of their value in the last six weeks, falling from $61 to a low yesterday of $36, but if sellers keep up the pace for just a few more days, the company could be trading at salvage prices by next week. Despairing news over the holiday weekend set up the avalanche of selling that buried BP stock when it began to trade Tuesday morning.  Last Friday, the world had been transfixed by live images from the Gulf of Mexico seabed that showed oil continuing to gush out-of-control from the broken well despite BP’s efforts to plug it with a “top kill.” We now know that that mud sealant that was injected into the drill hole didn’t build up the necessary pressure to resist the gusher because the wellbore itself was ruptured.  For all the good it did, the 1.2 million gallons of mud forced into the wellbore by a 30,000-horsepower piston might as well have been discharged directly into the sea.

British Petroleum is facing criminal and civil charges as a result of the disaster, and it’s possible the company will not even be around in a year or two other than to pay claims.  Although the world will undoubtedly get along just fine if that happens, the loss of Louisiana’s wetlands and the catastrophic damage to the Gulf ecosystem will not be so easy to bear. An estimated 20 million gallons of crude have poured into the Gulf so far, but that number could go much higher if the leakage continues until August, when it is expected that a second and third well will be operating to take the pressure off the existing well.

Alaska, 21 Years Later

In the meantime, environmental reports from Louisiana have been heartbreaking. The slick has coated delicate mangroves that jerry-rigged barriers have manifestly failed to protect, and aquatic life has literally been climbing out of the ooze for a gasp of air.  Those who live and work along the Gulf are being prepared for the possibility that the effects of the damage will persist for decades, even if cleanup efforts achieve a superficial veneer of success. This evidently has been the case for the once-pristine Prince William Sound, Alaska, where a ruptured tanker, the Exxon Valdez, spilled near 11 million gallons of crude in 1989.  Twenty-one years later, push a spade just a few inches into the beach and you will turn up rocks still coated with smelly oil. The Sound may look much as it once did, a local resident told the evening news, but appearances can be deceiving, and evidence of the disaster is still all around. We shouldn’t get our hopes up that the experience in the Gulf will be any better.

Rick Ackerman

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Rick Ackerman is the editor of Rick’s Picks, a daily trading newsletter and intraday advisory packed with detailed strategies, fresh ideas and plain old horse sense. You can subscribe by clicking here.