Did Goldman Sachs Engineer Oil Disaster for Profit?

Editor’s Note: First, we learn Goldman Sachs sold nearly 50% of their BP stock leading up to the Deepwater Horizon disaster making or saving nearly $100 million.  Now, we learn that they own the company Nalco who supplies the chemical dispersement COREXIT® used to “clean” up the spill.  Why is it that every time there is a “crisis”, the same elite companies know about it ahead of time and financially benefit? 

Article from Pyramids of Control

I can’t say that I have many jaw-dropping moments anymore; things seem so obviously corrupt and tyrannical these days.  However, a new tentacle of the hydra-like creature Goldman Sachs has surfaced from the Gulf oil volcano.  Illinois-based Nalco makes COREXIT®.  The Corexit 9500 chemical dispersant has now been highlighted by experts as being 4 times more toxic than the oil that is flowing into the Gulf.  Scientists in congressional hearings added that the dispersant is more toxic than other similar dispersant on the market.  I think we all have learned that whenever a major disaster happens — especially when major, society-altering solutions are being offered — one needs to follow the trail of money and power to see who benefits.  Sure enough, a casual search of Nalco’s Web site reveals their company history.

Nalco seems to have started in 1928 in Chicago and become immediately involved in both the oil industry and water treatment facilities.  1982 seems to have been a massive turning point for the company as their Web site states, “ORS-419 is used in the tires of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The Nalco product is the only non-silicone product of its type on the market approved by the space shuttle tire’s manufacturer.”  Thereafter, things really seem to have taken off as shown here:

1983:  Nalco breaks ground for a new 300,000-square-foot trio of headquarters buildings in Naperville, representing an investment totaling $90 million.

1984:  Nalco introduces the PORTA-FEED® reusable container system, the most advanced liquid chemical handling system yet introduced.

1985:  Nalco leads the chemical industry in the development of CAER (Community Awareness and Emergency Response), a forerunner of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 and the CMA Responsible Care® initiative.

1986:  Nalco consolidates groups from the Energy Chemicals Division and Oil Field Services Division to form a new Petroleum Chemicals Division to be headquartered in Sugar Land. The new Petroleum Chemicals Division will include Visco Chemicals, Refinery Process Chemicals, Additives, Adomite Chemicals and Gas and Oil Handling Chemicals Groups.

1989:  Sales top $1 billion.

Then, in 1994 Nalco joined forces with Exxon Chemical to announce the formation of a new alliance “Nalco/Exxon Energy Chemicals, L.P. to provide products and services to all facets of the petroleum and natural gas industries.”

Another name change occurred in 2001 when the company became Ondeo Nalco.  Finally in 2003 we learn who has taken the reins to lead us into the present.  As their site states:  “The Blackstone Group, Apollo Management L. P. and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners buy Ondeo Nalco.”  Global sales now exceed $4 billion and the Gulf cleanup is in the hands of a group of corporate pals who have brought us such fine moments of humanity such as Blackstone’s  “locust capitalism” hostile takeover binge which triggered a major political backlash in Germany and elsewhere, and the newly proposed austerity measures coming to America.  Apollo Management is in the Wall Street Journal’s Who’s Who in Private Equity with the very human investment strategies of leveraged and distressed buyouts and debt investments — investments now top $37 billion.  And, by now, Goldman Sachs’s reputation precedes itself as having engineered the housing crash and exacerbating a financial meltdown in Greece and across Europe.