But the accident will exacerbate existing problems for the oil giant, giving its unions new negotiation leverage and further soiling the company's poor safety record, which already included several oil spills.

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But the problems can all be overcome through existing engineering solutions, if politics and economics can only change tack.

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The challenge is that sustaining growth and innovation through acquisition is good when the goal is to address real customer problems but not when the goal is the more cynical goal of merely selling yet another product through an existing sales channel to an existing customer base.

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