Judge tosses Gulf spill claims against toxic dispersant maker

sfgate.com | Dec 5, 2012

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge presiding over litigation spawned by the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill has dismissed all claims against the manufacturer of a chemical dispersant that was used to break up crude gushing from BP’s blown-out well.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled last week that federal laws shield Illinois-based Nalco Co. from liability over the government’s use of Corexit after the 2010 spill.

Nalco didn’t decide whether, when, where, how or in what quantities Corexit would be used in response to the spill, Barbier noted. And the judge said it wouldn’t be proper for him to second guess the federal on-scene coordinator’s decision to use the dispersant.

Lawyers for cleanup workers and coastal residents exposed to the dispersant had argued Nalco isn’t immune from claims it supplied a defective product that wasn’t safe for use in the Gulf.

But the judge said the claims would create an “obstacle to federal law” if he allowed them to proceed.

More than 1.8 million gallons of dispersant were used in responding to the spill. It was last used four days after BP capped the well in June 2010.

A 2010 study by the Environmental Protection Agency found that Corexit, when mixed with oil, is no more toxic to aquatic life than oil alone. But congressional investigators have claimed the U.S. Coast Guard defied a federal directive to use the chemical sparingly and routinely approved BP requests to use thousands of gallons of Corexit per day.

Nalco’s Corexit Dispersant Makes Oil 52 Times More Toxic

LiveScience | Nov 30, 2012

by Douglas Main

For microscopic animals living in the Gulf, even worse than the toxic oil released during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster may be the very oil dispersants used to clean it up, a new study finds.

More than 2 million gallons (7.5 million liters) of oil dispersants called Corexit 9527A and 9500A were dumped into the Gulf of Mexico in an effort to prevent oil from reaching shore and to help it degrade more quickly.

However, when oil and Corexit are combined, the mixture becomes up to 52 times more toxic than oil alone, according to a study published online this week in the journal Environmental Pollution.

“There is a synergistic interaction between crude oil and the dispersant that makes it more toxic,” said Terry Snell, a study co-author and biologist at Georgia Tech. Using dispersants breaks up the oil into small droplets and makes it less visible, but,  “on the other hand, makes it more toxic to the planktonic food chain,” Snell told LiveScience.

Toxic mixture

That mixture of dispersant and oil in the Gulf would’ve wreaked havoc on rotifers, which form the base of the marine food web, and their eggs in seafloor sediments, Snell said.

In the study, Snell and colleagues tested ratios of oil and dispersant found in the Gulf in 2010, using actual oil from the well that leaked in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the dispersant. The mixture was similarly toxic at the various ratios tested, the study found. His group exposed several varieties of rotifers to concentrations of the oil-dispersant mixture likely seen over a large area of the Gulf.

“The levels in the Gulf were toxic, and seriously toxic,” Snell said. “That probably put a big dent in the planktonic food web for some extended period of time, but nobody really made the measurements to figure out the impact.”

The dispersant makes the oil more deadly by decreasing the size of the droplets, making it more “bio-available” to small organisms, said Ian MacDonald, a researcher at Florida State University. “The effect is specifically a toxic synergy — the sum is worse than the parts,” said MacDonald, who was not involved in the research.

A cautionary tale

This is one of the first studies to look at the impact of the oil-dispersant mixture on plankton. A decline in populations of plankton could impact larger animals all the way up to whales, he said. In general, plankton can rebound quickly, although the toxicity to larvae in sediments is concerning, since it reduces the size of the next generation. This ocean-bottom oil slurry could have also impacted other species that spend part of their life cycles here like algae and crustaceans.

“This is an important study that adds badly needed data to help us better understand the effects of oil spills and oil spill remediation strategies, such as the use of dispersants,” said Stephen Klaine, an environmental toxicologist at Clemson University who wasn’t involved in the research. “Species’ differences in the sensitivity to any toxic compounds, including the ones in this discussion, can be huge.”

The results contrast with those released by the Environmental Protection Agency in August 2010. That study found that a mixture of oil and Corexit isn’t more toxic than oil alone to both a species of shrimp and species of fish. However, several studies have found the mixture is more toxic than oil to the embryos of several fish species. The EPA could not immediately be reached for comment.

“To date, EPA has done nothing but congratulate itself on how Corexit was used and avow they would do it the same way again,” MacDonald said.

However, Snell said the dispersant should not be used. It would be better to let the oil disperse on its own to minimize ecological damage, he said.

“This is a cautionary tale that we need to do the science before the emergency happens so we can make decisions that are fully informed,” Snell said. “In this case, the Corexit is simply there to make the oil disperse and go out of sight. But out of sight doesn’t mean it’s safe in regard to the food web.”

“It’s hard to sit by and not do something,” Snell said.”But in this case, doing something actually made it more toxic.”

Toxic Corexit Producer Nalco Dismissed From Lawsuits Over 2010 BP Spill

Nalco said the claims for exposure-related injuries were preempted by federal law

bloomberg.com | Nov 28, 2012

By Margaret Cronin Fisk

Ecolab Inc. (ECL)’s Nalco Holding Co. unit, which provided a chemical dispersant used to deal with the 2010 BP Plc (BP/) Gulf of Mexico oil spill, has been dismissed from lawsuits over the incident.

BP used the Nalco dispersant to break up oil and reduce the harm to the Gulf Coast following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April 2010. Plaintiffs sued Nalco, claiming the dispersant, called Corexit, was defective and more toxic than the oil itself.

Nalco said the claims for exposure-related injuries were preempted by federal law giving the government authority to direct all actions to remove a substantial spill. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans agreed, finding today that the claims were preempted by the U.S. Clean Water Act and the National Contingency Plan, which put the government in charge of the response.

“Nalco did not decide whether, when, where, how or in what quantities Corexit was applied in response to the Deepwater Horizon/Macondo Well oil spill,” Barbier said in a 36-page opinion today.

Barbier also said allowing such claims might harm an all- out response to future spills.

“If the court were to permit” the claims against Corexit, even if the product was found to be defective or dangerous, “then during the next substantial spill or ‘spill of national significance,’ the threat of liability might cause the manufacturer of dispersant X to refuse to provide its product,” Barbier said.
‘We’re Ecstatic’

Barbier said he wasn’t considering whether Corexit was toxic or defective, just that the claims against Nalco had to be dismissed as a matter of law.

“We’re ecstatic,” Michael J. Monahan, spokesman for St. Paul, Minnesota-based Ecolab, said today. “Its a vindication of the position we’ve had all along,” he said in a phone interview.

Steve Herman, an attorney for the plaintiffs, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail for comment on the dismissal.

The lawsuit is part of In re Oil Spill by the Oil Rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, MDL-2179, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans).

BP agrees to pay largest criminal fine in US history in $4.5bn Gulf oil spill deal

BP’s deal with the US government and the SEC limits the company’s exposure to further criminal charges and penalties. Photograph: KPA/Zuma/Rex Features

Oil giant will pay $4.5bn to US authorities and agrees to plead guilty to 11 felony counts of misconduct over fatal rig explosion

guardian.co.uk | Nov 15, 2012

by Suzanne Goldenberg and Dominic Rushe

BP has agreed to pay the largest criminal fine in US history – $4.5bn – to resolve all criminal charges arising from the fatal oil rig explosion and catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The company said on Thursday that it had agreed to pay $4bn to the US government over five years, and $525m to the Securities and Exchange Commission. That money will be paid over three years.

The criminal settlement does not settle all of the claims against BP for the April 2010 blowout of the Deepwater Horizon, and the subsequent oil spill.

The oil giant is not yet off the hook for environmental damage to the Gulf of Mexico, and could face billions in restoration costs to waters, coastline and marine life.

But Thursday’s deal does limit BP’s exposure to further criminal charges and penalties, and frees the company to focus on resolving those other civil claims.

The fine is the largest criminal penalty in US history, easily outstripping the previous record of $1.2bn levied by the Justice Department against drug giant Pfizer over fraudulent marketing practices.

In addition to the fines, the oil company agreed to plead guilty to 11 felony counts of misconduct or neglect of ships’ officers, arising from the deaths aboard the Deepwater Horizon when the rig exploded and sank.

It also agreed to single misdemeanour counts under the Clean Water Act and the Migratory Bird Act and one felony count of obstruction of Congress.

The settlement remains subject to US federal court approval.

“All of us at BP deeply regret the tragic loss of life caused by the Deepwater Horizon accident as well as the impact of the spill on the Gulf coast region,” BP’s chief executive, Bob Dudley, said in a statement.

“We apologise for our role in the accident, and as today’s resolution with the US government further reflects, we have accepted responsibility for our actions.”

The company’s chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, said BP believed the settlement was in the company’s best interests.

“We believe this resolution is in the best interest of BP and its shareholders,” he said in the statement. “It removes two significant legal risks and allows us to vigorously defend the company against the remaining civil claims.”

In London the company’s shares, which had stopped trading before the news of the fine broke, closed down a fraction of a penny at 425.4p. So far, the company has set aside $38.1bn to settle claims and fines related to the disaster.

The Justice Department is expected to issue a statement on the settlement later on Thursday. It was expected that a number of BP executives and managers, including those working on the rig the night of the explosion, would be charged.

All but one of the 14 criminal charges announced on Thursday relate to the night of the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon, and are based on the negligent misinterpretation of the negative pressure tests performed on the well.

A number of the investigations into the disaster have homed in on the final hours before the rig explosion, when engineers tried and abandoned different plans to finish off the well.

The final criminal count arises from statements BP officials made to a closed session of Congress about how much oil was gushing from its stricken well. The company is accused of deliberately underestimating the flow-rate – which experts say compromised efforts to cap the well.

It was not immediately clear how BP’s plea would affect its operations in the Gulf. The oil company remains one of the major players in deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP said it was not aware of any government actions to suspend or curtail its activities in the Gulf, as a result of the settlement.

The settlement could also clear the way for the justice department to come to a plea deal with BP’s partners on the doomed well: Transocean, which owned the rig, and Halliburton, which cemented the well.

BP oil spill toxins from Gulf of Mexico found in eggs of pelicans nesting in Minnesota

Nearly 80 percent of collected samples contained Corexit, a chemical dispersant used to break up oil spills. Both the petroleum compounds and Corexit are dangerous in small doses, capable of causing cancer, endocrine disruption, and birth defects.

thisdishisvegetarian.com | May 23, 2012

by Jonathan Reynolds

Researchers for the Department of Natural Resources have found evidence of petroleum compounds and the chemical used to clean up the 2010 BP oil spill in eggs of pelicans nesting in Minnesota.

Petroleum compounds were present in 90 percent of the first batch of eggs tested. Nearly 80 percent of collected samples contained Corexit, a chemical dispersant used to break up oil spills. Both the petroleum compounds and Corexit are dangerous in small doses, capable of causing cancer, endocrine disruption, and birth defects.

Pelicans generally spend winters in the Gulf of Mexico, Texas, and Cuba, before returning a full year later to begin breeding.

Mark Clark, an ecologist and faculty member of North Dakota State University, explained on Minnesota Public Radio that any contaminant in the bird is bad, especially when the egg is tampered with, “because that’s where the developing embryo and chick starts, and when things go wrong at that stage, there’s usually no recovery.”

The BP spill, similar to an atomic detonation, took its toll on the unfortunate victims in the immediate area, choking them to death on crude oil. Two years later, and for many more years to come, the chemical fallout is taking its toll, negatively impacting millions of innocent lives in drastic ways for generations to come.

Eyeless shrimp and mutant fish raise concerns over BP use of Corexit

Eyeless shrimp and fish with lesions are becoming common, with BP oil pollution believed to be the likely cause. (Al Jazeera / YouTube)

‘Eyeless fish, and fish lacking even eye sockets, and fish with lesions, fish without covers over their gills….’

– Darla Rooks, Louisiana fisher

Fox News | Apr 18, 2012

NEW ORLEANS –  Eyeless shrimp, fish with oozing sores and other mutant creatures found in the Gulf of Mexico are raising concerns over lingering effects of the BP oil spill.

On April 20, 2010, an explosion aboard the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 people and spewed an estimated 4.9 million barrels into the Gulf, in the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Two years later, scientists and commercial fishers alike are finding shrimp, crab and fish that they believe have been deformed by the chemicals unleashed in the spill, according to an extensive report by Al Jazeera English.

“At the height of the last white shrimp season, in September, one of our friends caught 400 pounds of these,” Tracy Kuhns, a commercial fisher from Barataria, La., told Al Jazeera, showing a sample of the eyeless shrimp.

Darla Rooks, another lifelong fisher from Port Sulfur, La., told the broadcaster she was seeing “eyeless fish, and fish lacking even eye sockets, and fish with lesions, fish without covers over their gills and others with large pink masses hanging off their eyes and gills.”

Rooks added that she had never seen such deformities in Gulf waters in her life — a refrain common to most fishers featured in the report — and said her seafood catch last year was “ten percent what it normally is.”

A survey led by the University of South Florida after the spill found that between two and five percent of fish in the Gulf now have skin lesions or sores, compared to data from before the spill, when just one-tenth of one percent of fish had any growths or sores.

Scientists blamed the mutations on the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) released from the spill’s submerged oil as well as the two million gallons of the dispersant Corexit that BP used in an attempt to clean up the spill.

“The dispersants used in BP’s draconian experiment contain solvents, such as petroleum distillates and 2-butoxyethanol. Solvents dissolve oil, grease, and rubber,” Riki Ott, a toxicologist and marine biologist explained to Al Jazeera. “It should be no surprise that solvents are also notoriously toxic to people, something the medical community has long known.”

BP has maintained that Gulf seafood is safe, saying in a statement, “Seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is among the most tested in the world, and, according to the FDA and NOAA, it is as safe now as it was before the accident.”

On Wednesday BP sealed an out-of-court, $7.8 billion settlement with lawyers acting on behalf of thousands of individuals and businesses affected by the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Under the deal, the Gulf seafood industry is slated to receive over $2 billion for economic loss.

BP’s Corexit Oil Tar Sponged Up by Human Skin

Corexit® dispersed oil residue accelerates the absorption of toxins into the skin. The results aren’t visible under normal light (top), but the contamination into the skin appear as fluorescent spots under UV light (bottom). Credit: James H “Rip” Kirby III, Surfrider Foundation

motherjones.com | Apr 17, 2012

By Julia Whitty

The Surfrider Foundation has released its preliminary “State of the Beach” study for the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s ongoing Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Sadly, things aren’t getting cleaner faster, according to their results. The Corexit that BP used to “disperse” the oil now appears to be making it tougher for microbes to digest the oil. I wrote about this problem in depth in “The BP Cover-Up.”

Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists

The persistence of Corexit mixed with crude oil has now weathered to tar, yet is traceable to BP’s Deepwater Horizon brew through its chemical fingerprint. The mix creates a fluorescent signature visible under UV light. From the report:

The program uses newly developed UV light equipment to detect tar product and reveal where it is buried in many beach areas and also where it still remains on the surface in the shoreline plunge step area. The tar product samples are then analyzed…to determine which toxins may be present and at what concentrations. By returning to locations several times over the past year and analyzing samples, we’ve been able to determine that PAH concentrations in most locations are not degrading as hoped for and expected.

Worse, the toxins in this unholy mix of Corexit and crude actually penetrate wet skin faster than dry skin (photos above)—the author describes it as the equivalent of a built-in accelerant—though you’d never know it unless you happened to look under fluorescent light in the 370nm spectrum. The stuff can’t be wiped off. It’s absorbed into the skin.

And it isn’t going away. Other findings from monitoring sites between Waveland, Mississippi, and Cape San Blas, Florida over the past two years:

The use of Corexit is inhibiting the microbial degradation of hydrocarbons in the crude oil and has enabled concentrations of the organic pollutants known as PAH to stay above levels considered carcinogenic by the NIH and OSHA.

•     26 of 32 sampling sites in Florida and Alabama had PAH concentrations exceeding safe limits.

•     Only three locations were found free of PAH contamination.

•     Carcinogenic PAH compounds from the toxic tar are concentrating in surface layers of the beach and from there leaching into lower layers of beach sediment. This could potentially lead to contamination of groundwater sources.

The full Surfrider Foundation report by James H. “Rip” Kirby III, of the University of South Florida is open-access online here.

Alaska’s oil windfall

Oil revenue accounts for 90% of Alaska’s tax haul, and a booming energy sector puts more money into residents’ pockets.

CNNMoneyMarkets | Feb 29, 2012

By Maureen Farrell

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Alaska has a big vested interest in high oil and gas prices.

Oil revenue accounts for 90% of the state’s tax haul. So its budget swells and oil royalties gush into a special state investment fund — the only one of its kind in the United States.

And that can translate into windfalls for residents, who share in the oil bounty through annual dividends paid by the fund and, in boom times, direct payments from the state.

For example, when oil and gas hit record highs in 2008, residents received $3,000 checks, twice what they normally get.

“Things become much easier for the state when oil prices are high,” said Gerald McBeath, a professor at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. “It makes it possible for them to increase funding for schools, construction and protection services.”

But, of course, there’s a dark side to high oil prices.

Alaska is a net importer of food and other consumer staples, the cost of which rise when energy prices spike. Residents get hit with outsize fuel and food prices.
What’s behind the gas price spike

In addition, the state investment fund’s investments — primarily stocks, bonds and real estate — usually take a hit if the economy cools.

Still overall, rising gas prices mean higher revenues for the state’s treasury.

In 2011, Alaska collected $7 billion from oil companies, up from $6.2 billion in 2010.

Now if oil prices continue to climb, the state will exceed the $8.9 billion it had projected it would earn in 2012. Back in 2008, revenues hit $11.3 billion.

And unlike fiscally-strapped states struggling over which public services to cut, Alaskan officials are deciding whether to increase state-backed programs or create new ones. Examples include a $4.3 billion hydroelectric dam or more dividend checks to residents.

“Whenever we have money in the treasury, people come forward with ideas to spend it,” said Steve Colt, a professor at the University of Alaska at Anchorage. “There’s a long laundry list of smaller projects that people are advocating for.”

The state’s treasury now holds reserves of $12.1 billion, the largest amount of any U.S. state.

Alaska collects income from oil companies in three ways: excavation taxes, corporate taxes on oil profits and royalties. The treasury gets 75% of the royalty payments, and the oil investment fund gets the rest.

The Alaska Permanent Fund was created in 1976, soon after oil started moving through the TransAlaska pipeline. The idea was to give residents a cut of the state’s oil revenues in the form of an annual dividend.

The royalties have helped the fund build a $41 billion portfolio.

The dividend to residents is based on the fund’s returns over the past five years. That helps smooth out oil’s boom and bust years. During good years, the fund gets more in royalties, but typically those years coincide with challenging economic times and tougher market conditions.

“You’ve got more money to make money with, and more money to lose money with too,” said Mike Burns, executive director of the Alaska Permanent Fund.

Indeed, the fund’s 2009 fiscal year covered both record oil prices and the fall of Lehman Brothers — and the ensuing stock market plunge. The fund reported a loss of 18.5% that year, but it generated 20.5% returns in fiscal year 2011.

he fund also makes longer-term bets on real estate and infrastructure.

Alaska’s fund is a 50% owner of the Manhattan headquarters of megabank UBS. It also owns a piece of Tyson’s Corner mall outside of Washington, D.C., and the North Bridge shopping mall in downtown Chicago.

The fund even has stakes in airports in London and Vancouver, a waste disposal plant in Great Britain and a propane storage plant in India. To top of page

Higher prices boost Big Oil profits as production slows

This May 5, 2011 file photo shows gasoline prices of $5.09 USD displayed at an Exxon station in Washington, DC. ExxonMobil, the world’s largest energy company, on October 27, 2011 posted a 41 percent profit jump for the second consecutive quarter as sales soared. Net earnings rose to $10.33 billion, or $2.13 per share, in the July-September period, the company said. Sales increased 31.5 percent from a year ago to $125.33 billion, outstripping analyst forecasts of $113.56 billion. AFP PHOTO/Karen BLEIER (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)

Associated Press | Oct 29, 2011

By CHRIS KAHN

Higher oil prices have masked a slowdown in production among the biggest oil companies.

Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and BP reported a surge in quarterly profits this week even though they’re producing less oil from fields around the world, including a combined 7 percent decline in the third quarter that just ended. Each company has devoted billions of dollars to finding new petroleum deposits, but it could be years, even decades, before those investments translate to more oil and natural gas.

Experts say smaller companies will need to step up to satisfy growing world demand. China, India and other developing nations are expected to push the global appetite for oil to a record 90 million barrels per day next year, enough to outstrip supplies.

Three years ago, a severe drop in oil supplies helped push oil prices to above $147 per barrel, saddling airlines and shipping companies with high fuel costs. Gasoline prices soared above a national average $4 per gallon.

“We’re not at the point where oil prices are going to go bananas” and spike like they did in 2008, said Ken Medlock, an energy expert at Rice University. “But if we saw production declines like this for five or six years, then it’s time to worry.”

Big Oil’s third-quarter financial results highlight a growing problem within the industry. New petroleum sources are increasingly tough — and expensive — to find. The best new deposits are found more than a mile under the ocean, or in vast layers of sticky Canadian sand, or in the frigid Arctic.

Related

Oil Industry Hums as Higher Prices Bolster Quarterly Profits at Exxon and Shell

Costs have increased dramatically as the industry digs deeper.

A decade ago, tapping a new well used to cost about $10 to $20 for every barrel of oil produced. Now it’s estimated at about $50 or $60 for wells in the Gulf of Mexico and $70 or $80 in the Canadian oil sands.

To boost production, oil companies not only must find new sources of oil, they need to make up for production losses at aging fields. Exxon’s fields, for example, are declining by 5 to 7 percent each year, Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit said.

“They need to add 200,000 to 300,000 barrels a day of production just to break even,” Gheit said. “That’s huge.”

Overall, analysts think oil producers can still increase supplies in coming years, thanks to smaller companies and increased contributions from OPEC. But it may not be enough to keep up with demand.

Morgan Stanley analyst Hussein Allidina expects supplies to rise by about 1 percent to 2 percent every year until 2016. That assumes “flawless execution,” Allidina said in a research note. Even if that happens, demand will grow 1.5 percent every year over the same period.

It raises the possibility of price spikes. A surge in oil not only means higher fuel prices, it also poses problems for the industry. The record jump in oil prices in 2008 may have led to record profits for Exxon that year, but it weakened the economy so much that prices eventually plunged. That sapped profits in later quarters and forced the industry to table many projects.

Smaller companies are expected to ramp up in fields that are too tiny for Big Oil. For example, Occidental Petroleum said it has increased oil production about 4 percent so far this year. Saudi Arabia and a handful of other OPEC members have the ability to put more oil on the market, if needed. And Libya is expected to start exporting oil again later this year following an eight-month rebellion.

Exxon Mobil on Thursday said profits jumped 41 percent in the third quarter to $10.33 billion, or $2.13 per share, as higher oil and natural gas prices made up for lower production. Profits doubled for Shell and BP for the same reason. Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, is expected to report its financial results on Friday.

Exxon sold oil in the U.S. for an average of $95.58 a barrel, up 35.2 percent from a year earlier. Internationally, it charged $107.32 a barrel, up 45.4 percent. It also charged more for natural gas.

The higher prices propped up earnings at Exxon’s exploration and production business, which finds and pumps oil and natural gas.

Exxon’s U.S. refineries also benefited. Their profits quadrupled as demand for gasoline and other fuels soared around the world, enabling them to charge more.

Exxon shares rose 81 cents, or 1 percent, to $81.88. BP shares climbed 78 cents to $45.43.

Oil prices also jumped 4 percent to end the day at $93.96 per barrel in New York.

Strippers earning up to $2,000 a night in North Dakota town thriving amid oil boom

In a North Dakota oil boomtown, there’s one job market that never goes bust: Stripping.

Daily News | Oct 26, 2011

BY Larry Mcshane

A pair of strip clubs in Williston, N.D., are drawing exotic dancers who can earn up to $2,000 a night thanks to the influx of well-paid oil workers in the remote region, CNN Money reported.

“My best girls would rather dance here than in Vegas, because they make more money here,” boasted Melissa Slapnicka, co-owner of the club Whispers.

Slapnicka, who says aspiring strippers from Alaska, Germany and the Czech Republic have applied for work at her club, said the patrons are quick to spread their oil money around.

The co-owner/bartender says her tips – once $50 a night – are now more like $200 each evening.

And it’s even better for the talent. One stripper told CNN that she was making more in a single night than she could earn in a week on the Las Vegas strip.

“We make more than doctors,” she said. “Back in the day, it was hard to make $200 a night. It was like pulling teeth. Now you can pull in $2,000 a night.”

The oil workers are making big bucks, and have few options in spending their cash. Many of the customers at Whispers and nearby Heartbreakers are married men who chased the oil money to North Dakota – and left their families at home.

“They’re just here for a little company, because they’re lonely,” the stripper told CNN Money. “Other places, (men) wait until Friday because it’s payday.

“But here, they don’t wait. It’s payday everyday.”