BHP ‘Newsletter’ Slamming Critics Said to Be Counterfeit

BY HANS LAETZ

The chief spokesman for BHP Billiton in Texas says an e-mail newsletter purportedly from the company that is making the rounds on the internet “is not authentic company communication.”

The “Cabrillo Port News” has been mailed to supporters of the proposed LNG terminal, and resembles mailings that the company has issued in the past. It makes disparaging remarks about Cabrillo Port opponents.

BHP spokesperson Patrick Cassidy was reached at home in Houston by the Malibu Surfside News Monday night and asked if the company had issued the mailing. After investigating it, he said Tuesday that the newsletter’s message was unapproved and was not authentic.

The company has in the past used a Ventura public relations company to issue a Cabrillo Port newsletter, and a spokesman for that company was not available for comment.

Cassidy said the latest version of the newsletter was not approved by him and does not meet the company’s policy of always quoting its own officials.

“Offering an opinion about people’s opinions would seem to be the very type of circular argument the (newsletter) writer is complaining about,” Cassidy said. “This wouldn’t make it through company editors.”