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How did so many things go so wrong at the Deepwater Horizon oil-spill site? Was it human error, an act of nature, or a blend of both? And why didn't any of those great engineering ideas to stem the spill work out? There are lots more questions than answers, even on Day 50 of the disaster on the Gulf. But a couple of things are clear: First, we got into this fix because of multiple failures and miscalculations. Second, still more ills could well surface before all this is over. Here's a quick recap of what went wrong at the wellhead, and what could go wrong in the future:
1. Why did the well explode in the first place? The Deepwater Horizon oil well, 5,000 feet beneath the sea surface, was right between the exploratory drilling phase and its operational phase. Executives from BP and the other companies involved in the drilling told a Senate hearing that heavy drilling mud was removed from the well without putting on a final cement cap. That move has drawn severe criticism, because it reduced downward pressure on the well. Oil and gas blasted up the line on April 20, touching off the initial explosion. The arguments over what the companies did or didn't do in advance of the blast will play a key role in the coming avalanche of lawsuits.
2. Could this rig have been saved? Firefighters worked mightily to put out the blaze, which killed 11 workers. Some have questioned whether the tons of water and fire retardant dumped onto the rig contributed to its sinking on April 22. If the rig could somehow have been saved from sinking, that would have made the job of capping the oil leak much easier. Instead, the rig fell to the bottom of the sea, mangling the riser line that led up from the wellhead.
3. Why didn't the blowout preventer work? The five-story-high contraption known as a blowout preventer, or BOP, was supposed to be the fail-safe option to close off the leaking well. The BOP contains a series of valves that should have closed upon command, or if the oil-and-gas pressure went out of control. Oil executives voiced profound disappointment that it didn't work. So why didn't it? Technology Review points to several reports, issued years ago, that say blowout control measures that are reliable in shallow waters are not so reliable below depths of 3,000 feet or so. This particular BOP might have been damaged by debris during the rig's fall, or it might have been unable to withstand the pressure from this particular well. Even remotely operated vehicles were unable to close down the valves - which suggests that the gush has irreparably damaged the BOP's plumbing. Would a backup BOP have done any good? That's a question to be considered during the crisis postmortem.
4. Why didn't the containment box work? In early May, BP had hoped that a 40-foot-high containment box could be lowered over the well's leaking pipe and suck up the oil and gas. The problem was that the box was too big: The seawater that was trapped within reacted with the methane bubbling up from the leak, forming crystals of methane hydrate. Those crystals essentially plugged up the hose so that oil could not be sucked up ... kind of like the hair that gets stuck in a vacuum-cleaner attachment. What's more, the crystals were lighter than water, which made the box too buoyant to keep clamped over the leaking pipe. In mid-May, BP switched to a different siphoning system that brought up oil from within the broken riser line.
5. What went wrong with the siphon? The four-inch siphoning tube worked, but it could collect only a fraction of the leaking oil - 5,000 barrels a day at best. During the early phase of the oil disaster, some experts thought the total leakage amounted to 5,000 barrels a day. The siphoning operation made it obvious that much more oil than that was getting into the Gulf. To plug the leak completely, BP pinned its hopes on an operation known as "top kill," which involved pushing enough heavy drilling mud down the well to counteract the pressure of oil and gas.
6. What went wrong with the top kill? BP pushed the mud down the well for hours at a time, for three days. But the operation could never get enough mud down the hole to keep the oil and gas from gushing back up. The exercise reminded me of trying to unplug a kitchen drain by running tap water down the sink with the garbage disposal on. Gunk just came flooding back up every time they turned off the spigot.
7. Why didn't the junk shot work? One of the extra twists to the "top kill" maneuver was to throw some extra debris - say, golf balls or strips of rubber - into the drilling mud, in hopes of plugging up the blowout preventer's leaky plumbing. This is what's known as a "junk shot." Engineers told The New York Times that the junk shot didn't come close to succeeding, apparently because the debris didn't gum up the works as they hoped. BP set aside the strategy of sealing off the wellhead, and instead tried to suck up the oil using a contraption known as the lower marine riser package, the LMRP, or the "top cap."
8. Is the top cap working? Sort of. The top cap doesn't run into the methane-hydrate problems that the containment box did because it closes more tightly over the pipe leading up from the blowout preventer. Less water gets inside the chamber, which provides less opportunity for hydrate crystals to form. Methanol can also be pumped into the cap to retard hydrate formation. To attach the cap, remotely operated vehicles had to saw off the dented riser line - and that part of the operation didn't go as smoothly as hoped. After the saw got stuck, a part of the riser had to be cut off with a giant pair of shears, leaving a jagged edge on the pipe. The cap has four vents to ease the oil/gas pressure while it's being put into place and checked out. So far, only one of the vents has been closed. As a result, lots of oil is still being vented into the sea. BP says progress is being made, with 7,850 barrels of oil being collected over a 12-hour period today. However, experts say cutting off the riser line actually increased the total flow of oil, effectively making things worse ... at least temporarily. Other oil-sucking systems are being put in place, including the Q4000 arrangement that was used for the unsuccessful top kill and a free-floating riser that's designed to ride out hurricane season.
9. Who's in charge, and what have they got? Efforts to contain the oil on the surface are another story entirely, but the main concern here is whether enough resources are being brought to bear. BP is responsible for the cost of the oil cleanup, and over the past few days company executives have said they will "meet our obligations." But critics worry that the cleanup hasn't kept up with the threats posed by the spill. Today's report about an undersea plume of oil contamination stretching as far as 142 miles from the spill site raises the level of concern. Alaska marine biologist Rick Steiner, a veteran of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill response and a longtime critic of the petroleum industry, is worried that the cleanup effort is losing steam. He complained that marine contractors have "done a terrible job" of tending the containment booms around coastal areas. Disaster fatigue could become more prevalent as the crisis continues.
10. Will the relief wells work? Experts have been saying since late April that the long-term fix for the oil leak depends on the relief wells that are being drilled beneath the seafloor. Those 18,000-foot-deep wells are supposed to intersect with the gushing well, and provide openings for BP to push mud and cement down into the leak. As of Monday, the wells have reached depths of 12,956 feet and 8,576 feet, BP said. The wells are due for completion by August, but there's no guarantee that they'll actually intersect with the original well. Some have compared the job to threading a needle, or finding a needle in a haystack. Last year, after an Australian offshore-oil blowout, it took five attempts to hit the mark. If the Gulf of Mexico situation develops in the same way, that could add weeks upon frustrating weeks to the duration of the disaster.
Bottom line? It'd be great to have some strokes of good luck for a change: a top cap that works better than expected, or a hole in one on the relief-well front. But it's most important to have the will and the wherewithal to deal with what's shaping up as a long-term disaster relief project on America's shores. What do you think? Weigh in with your comments and suggestions below.
More sources on the spill:
- The Oil Drum
- Mark I. Moore
- Upstream Online
- Deepwater Horizon Response
- BP: Gulf of Mexico Response | Technical briefing | Slides
- Disaster in the Gulf: msnbc.com special report
Join the Cosmic Log corps by signing up as my Facebook friend or hooking up on Twitter. And if you really want to be friendly, ask me about "The Case for Pluto."
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I realize that some oil comes out of the ocean floor naturally, but how could anybody consider this catastrophe a "human error, or an act of nature or both?"
It's obviously human error, but I'd really like someone to explain to me how it could be considered natural.
Also, I wish NBC, MSNBC, and Newsvine would stop showing those ads for BP with their idiot CEO basically crying. I haven't seen one lately at the top of the Newsvine board so I hope they've stopped.
And as Philippe Cousteau and others explained, it's not just the oil we see but what we don't see that's going to have a long lasting impact as well.
For those who can; go to the area and spend some money to stimulate their economy. BP is going to try and get out of paying anything they can. I will never buy even a can of soda at a BP store!
As an engineer, I am deeply disappointed in the lack of a viable potential problem analysis and plan to respond expediently to a disaster such as this.
The odds for an event of this type went up dramatically when BP pulled the heavy mud out early...and didn't respond to events that warned of an impending blowout.
We keep hearing of the extreme difficulty of working at depths of 5000 feet via press releases and interviews. The press releases/interviews are merely making excuses for not taking the appropriate preventative action, before tapping and taking 100's of millions of dollars of oil out of this extreme enviornment.
The preventative actions were not taken, the emergency preparedness hardware was not in place, the decision sequence prior to the blow out had flaws.....And BP makes 12 Billion in dividend payouts!
Several billion in preventative planning and investment by each of the big oil team each year surly would have either prevented the incident altogether orat least greatly reduced the loss of life, enviornment and the economy of the Gulf.
The post op analysis on this event needs to take place aggressively and with the worst case scenario identified and addressed in a way that we will be prepared the next time.
The
Three major catastrophes in the last decade and all have the same common denominator, Government and Multi-National Corporations. 9/11 never would have occurred if NSA or the FBI had followed up on intelligence that would have been obvious to a Cub Scout. The economic meltdown was the direct result of Congress abolishing regulations that had been in place since the 1930's, the SEC dropping the ball and Wall Street policing itself, all with the blessing of the FED. Now, the latest disaster and again the usual suspects, DOE is essentially being run by big oil, talk about the fox watching the hen house. The natural resources of this country our owned by us the Citizens and Tax Payer's, but are doled away to some Multi-National Corporation by the same government that should be putting the public's interest first. Then to add insult to injury the Tax Payer's are forced to bail out the incompetent fools when they inevitably screw the pooch. This oil well should and would have been imploded a month ago if not for the interest of Halliburton, whom ironically was so well positioned to exploit the situation it's on the outer fringes of statistical deviation. In the last decade our civil rights have been systematically eliminated, our savings purged and our environment destroyed. All by a government that is supposedly elected by the people and sworn to uphold the interest of the people. I for one have given up on that fairy tale. Collectively, we the people are the dumbest collections of fools, the most passive, or a combination of both. Either way if we do not make a stand, we most certainly are Doomed.
how could this be a nature disaster over human caused?
Well (no pun intended
when you drill for oil under millions of tons of water, one human error, or natural occurance could create such pressure on the freshly opened wound int he earths crust, that no matter what you do to stop it the pressure prevents you from being able to do what could simply be done say on land or in shallower water. Something as simple as a shift in the crust in that area could have shifted the plate sealing the oil under that sruct making it impossible to prevent this catastrophic failure. NO i am not saying this was a natural occurance, but it is ever so remotely possible that a natural occurance is an underlying reason why we have such a mess to clean up now.
It is possible, not likely but possible
And based on occurances all over the world these days, the probability is higher than 500 years ago or 500 years from now
Seen the sink hole in guatamala, earthquakes around the world, torrental rains, times are a changing, and all bets are off when you go messing with mother nature, she will win
Mmallen - thank you for your post - I suggest you blog the perspective you presented here. I have worked on several jobs where federal inspections were required many for different agencies from start to finish and prior to the start there were impact studies, soils analysis on and on as well as a comphrehensive disaster response scenario.
It is important for the general public to understand there were many spoons in this pot. And those spoons we pay to oversee similar operations on a regular basis these are our agencies, our tax dollars and their responsibility. The thing that struck me was how obvious it was that Obama appeared to have only a vague understanding - which make sense if you consider his neighborhood hawking food stamps and rent restriction - they just don't talk much about this kind of stuff in the hood. ya feel me?
If there is any ass kicking to do he might want to start with the pethora of agencies paying six figure salaries to fat cat bureaucrats not doing their job.
if the main pipe can be threaded, why couldn't we try a split nut with a hinged closing door on both sides closing off the opening as this split nut is being tightened onto the pipe , then a locking mechanism once fully closed???
That bit was rather poorly worded; it's either human error, or an interaction between both. No one could make the argument that it was 100% a natural disaster. Unless, of course, one likened the folks at BP to animals.
Bit of a stereotypical assumption, ya feel me? Maybs even a bit offensive, bro.
I feel like there really, truly, sincerely shouldn't be a "next-time" to learn for. Of course there will be, but I keep hoping that at some point, people realize that our consumerist nature puts us at odds with what was once a really gorgeous planet, and subsequently commit to a "de-industrial revolution", if you will, whereby we swear off resource-heavy production practices. I've lived without a car for 2 years now. It's excellent! I ride my bike to work.
I think that necessity isn't so much the mother of invention as war and pornography are. As such, I seriously have to ask a very simple, yet often overlooked, question: if civilization keeps moving forward, what is it moving forward to? Back in the day, this continent had gorgeous expanses of woods and swamps. Now we have chip bags and six-packs that take up space in landfills. Yippee? Should I be happy? I mean I know it's something that everyone probably considers at some point in their life, it's not like I'm dumb enough to believe I'm having an original thought here, but... If engineers and industrialists make the world go round (no offense mmallen, you seem like a nice person), who says it should go round in the first place? Are we really anywhere any better than we were at the start? Okay, there's the Dubai spire, the Golden Gate Bridge, Staples Center, etc. Great, that's all really neat stuff and all, but... who really cares?
It's all about establishing a legacy! Trying to mold the world enough that people will remember you were there, the proverbial "Logan sat here" in big, 60-foot high letters. But anything done for impure motives should not be done. The greatest lesson I think one has to learn in life is, "I am small. I am mortal. And some day my "self" will cease to exist and I will merge back with the soil." Embrace it, man! It's totally fur realz.
Having lived on the Mississippi Gulf Coast for over 14 years, during and including Katrina, I fear that the worst has already been done to Louisiana. People who have depended on the bounty of the sea for generations, and those who supply them, and those who buy from them and service them with restaurants and hotels, cannot now or perhaps ever again ply their boats. The pelicans that had begun a comeback after Katrina will now be doomed from the "Pelican State." Oystering, fishing, shrimping...gone for a lifetime. The tender and fragile marshes, all bird life, Nutria and even gators, finished. The magic that was New Orleans has been extinguished.
BP in their wildest dreams of fortune made cannot begin to repay these people for what they have lost. It is far more than monetary.
I can't tell if the pipe is jagged inward or outward or how much length we have to work with. could there be a pipe of slightly larger I.D, with a heavy duty fitting that is tapered on the inside to go over the riser pipe, forcing the original pipe deformatives inward to allow the new pipe to be forced down as far as posible and be compression sealed and clamped?
Things went so wrong in the Gulf because that is what the ruling elite globalist wanted. These people will stop at nothing
If you have been following this story closely since the blow out, you would realize that BP is totally responsible for altering the Blowout Preventer so it could not possibly work while pushing the crew beyond human endurance and common safety factors. Let's hope that BP goes completely broke over this. They are not and will not pay their due till people take them to court to force payment - just watch. Seems the White House Puppet is in their pocket and will probably not do much more than is currently happening.
By the way can anyone answer why nearly all Exxon stations all changed to BP after the Exxon Valdeze spill? What brand name will they adopt this time around?
Evidently they've been getting away with safety violations for yrs. It's not as if it just happened when the dems came into office. So you have to put some blame on the Bush era as well.
BP did not do anything to the blowout preventer. Transocean damaged it by moving the drilling pipe about 15 ft. while the annular on the bop was closed for a test of its functionality. That was a mistake by the drill operator and it sheared chunks of the annular seal. These chunks came up the pipe and were collected by Transocean staff. They were taken to a Transocean supervisor and he said it was no big deal. Bad call. BP it seems, rushed Transocean to work faster, which was a mistake. The MMS is at fault also for not regulating much of anything. So, you want BP to go broke. Do you know that BP employs about 40,000 people in this country. They are responsible for this, will pay big time and hopefully come out better and the whole industry will be better off after they learn from the mistakes made.
Not Democrat
Are you for real, do you actually think BP in the end will pay one penny of this, the cost to fix this mess lies squarely on the backs of ever human on this planet, they will get every penny they spend today cleaning this mess up, from the people of this planet for hundreds of years to come if we make it that long, dont kid youreself otherwise
Well, they have already paid out over $1 billion so far. All told, it will probably cost them $10-20 billion, maybe more. There is a real possibility the company may not survive this. I am very saddened by this accident for the dead, the environment, and all involved. But, some people are going way overboard here. BP, it's competitors, the government, and academia were brought together to stop this leak, unfortunately unsuccesfully. It may take years, but the gulf will recover. Hopefully sooner than later.
Sorry Darrah those days are over. The Dems have had the congress for the past 4 years and whitehouse for the past year and a half. The Person who was supposed to have oversight: that was appointed by the Obama team; that was fired, issued multiple waivers to BP weeks before this thing blew. So what were those waivers for and why isn't the media demanding to see them!
The Liberals have been screaming about the oil companies being in the pocket of government for the past 8 years. If they felt this was so important instead of just showboating to attack Bush maybe they should have spent some time reforming that instead of pushing this massive healthcare disaster on us that most Americans by an overwhelming majority didn't want and now asking to be repealed.
So you can stick the bush bashing. Maybe you can look at the left wing loons that pushed the drilling so far out into the Gulf "to protect the environment". No doubt BP is at fault, however Obama has his hands in this as well regardless. The bash bashing is over sugarpuff. You can engage in it all you want but it no longer has any traction. Thats why Obama hasn't dared to even make a comment about Bush. He knows better.
Now it's Obamas turn. Lets see how all you libs like it when the shoe is on the other foot.
You are 100 percent correct opal, just as they don't absorb tax increases either they pass them on to the consumer in higher costs. Someone might want to educate the white house about that.
Doug, you are only partially correct. It is true that they will try to absorb as much additional revenue to cover these costs or tax increases, however, BP will not be able to charge significantly more than its competitors. People will just buy from the cheaper source, contributing to even lower revenues. They will already be facing a negative image with individual boycotts, so BP, rightfully so, will pay dearly for this for a long time.
As far as tax increases, sure you are right in many ways, but by this logic, the government should make all corporations, businesses, and anybody with enough money to impact the economy tax free and pass the bill on to all individual taxpayers directly. As a taxpayer, I'm not cool with having to pay more taxes just to keep the price down on gas, goods, etc. Next thing you know, my taxes are more to keep the price down on flat screen TV's and new cars that I will not be purchasing. At least currently there is some amount of a 'usage tax' even if it is in the form of complex taxes. On top of that, specifically with the oil and gas scenario, if everyone is paying 2.75/ gallon and the taxes suddenly disappear, does this guarantee the industry would pass all the savings on to the consumer? More likely that they would keep the profits on 30% of the difference just because they can. Gas is currently an essential expense to most people, and many will buy regardless of the price. If taxes increase the price of gas, it will reach a point where people conserve on gas if they can, reducing the profits of the oil companies.
Big oil has a terrible track record for cleaning up their messes. If they aren't forced to, they won't. If they can bribe, bully or lie their way out of this predicament, they will.
The long haul for this disaster will be several generations.
What I find ridiculous is that the absolute greediest companies on the planet, big oil, drug companies, big banks, continually lobby for tax break and incentives that ensure they pay little or no taxes.
I think folks should realize that drilling for oil is dangerous, it is much more dangerous in deep water. The same. rig that sunk has drilled a well to 30,000 feet. Those operating the rig made mistakes. The chore after the well is contained is to find those mistakes and set up procedures to prevent those mistakes in the future.
That is how any event such as this is dealt with, assigning guilt,
passing out punishment etc will solve nothing.
Let's see -- the Nixxon to Exxon ploy didn't work so they tried BP -- you're right, they need another catchy name -- how about Gulf Oil or GO?
Remember Amaco?
BP + Amaco = BP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP
There is a much larger issue that this article doesn't address and that's the woefully inadequate spill response. If you look in Appendix H of the BP Gulf contingency plan, http://www.mms.gov/DeepwaterHorizon/BP_Regional_OSRP_Redactedv2.pdf , at PDF page 518 you'll see that BP claimed that it had almost 492,000 bbl/day of de-rated spill recovery capacity for the nearby MC 462 lease. That's 25 times what is supposedly needed for this "19 kbbl/day" spill and several times the planned equipment quantity has subsequently been deployed! The methodology used to calculate the required response capacity therefore lacks any credibility particularly where regulators and industry devised a new, more scientific method of calculating skimming system effectiveness in 2002, the ASTM F1780 -97(2002) Standard Guide for Estimating Oil Spill Recovery System Effectiveness.
The method currently universally used by MMS, Coast Guard and most state regulators is called the Estimated Daily Recovery Capacity, EDRC, that de-rates skimmer pump capacity to 20% of its maximum pumping capacity because the skimmers typically suck up a lot of water with the oil. The problem the EDRC that the new ASTM standard corrects is the failure of the EDRC to assess the ability of the whole skimming system to actually get the oil to the pump for recovery, (see http://www.psp.wa.gov/downloads/OSAC/osac_archive_20090701/assets/pdf/poster.pdf ). By the time skimming vessels arrive on scene, the average thickness of the oil spill is typically <1 mm and they can't move their weir skimmers and U-boom configurations faster than 1 knot or they lose the oil. They simply cannot cover the area needed to feed the skimmer pump and that's one of the primary parameters that the ASTM F1780 is designed to consider when calculating skimming system effectiveness.
As mentioned above, the flawed EDRC methodology is used by almost all regulators and when you look at the severity of potential spill sources, this spill is dwarfed by a potential worst case supertanker spill that can be as large as 2,000,000 bbl released instantaneously. That is twice what is presently estimated to have occurred over 48 days, (i.e. a tanker spill could be 100 time worse). The USCG is required by law to "immediately and effectively" recover that worst case tanker spill, by 33 USC 1321 (c)(1)(A), that could have occurred by a collision with the drill rig, (e.g. same company, same spot, same resources), and it is readily apparent from the vast spill size and oiled natural resources that the equipment inventory is not capable of even responding to this relatively small spill.
The public must be informed that all of the currently approved spill contingency plans are knowingly phony as a $3 bill where both regulators and industry refuse to use the scientific methodology they developed 8 years ago.
Things went wrong in the Gulf, because nobody ever listens to the little guy. Just like now, I have a solution, but nobody will listen, because I don't have a degree. I have designed many things, without failure, including something using the same basics as what the engineers are up against now. They are thinking upside down. I have even been complimented by engineers, but it got me nowhere. No degree.
I'm sorry to say, but we are all partially responsible for wasting so much energy in this country. For 100 years we have been addicted to oil and now we will swim in it.
Can BP please post a picture of the whole plumbing from sea bed to where riser pipe was cut off, and total highth of this unit. And/or a factual drawing with measurements of pipe diameters ,pipe lengths, flange diameters , bolt sizes and bolt patterns of flanges connecting blowout preventer parts and/or pipe sections. Also upward pressure of well in pipe. Thanks
did you quit using oil and gasoline?not me,@!$%# happens sometimes it stinks.are you there helping during your time off or during vacation? i think bp will and is doing there best. between bp and our wants to spend gov.every unemployed could be put to work cleaning instead of whining and pointing fingers.
There are actually several residents who have been through the saftey classes required to "work" for the clean up effort. They call in everyday to report and are told they are not needed. Yesterday where we live a bunch of prisioners were bussed in and stood around all day with no direction under shade tents. You can see video of this on Fox and ABC Birmingham affiliate's websites. They are not using every possible resource. Oil sat on our beach for two days with out anyone trying to clean it up. When the residents tried to clean it up the police were called on them. Why don't you come down here and see for yourself while we watch this nightmare of lies and empty promises unfold before our very eves. I totally agree that accidents happen. Not having a plan on what to do if an accident occurs is unacceptable. Telling us we will have the resources to clean up this mess and then not delivering them to us is unacceptable. Not using the local help and volunteers that have taken the time to get trained and voluntered their vessels is unacceptable. That's all. Do you like being lied to? I don't. People still coming here to vacation is actually very helpful to the coastal communities that are being hurt by this disaster because it is bringing in revenue and helping keep people employed.
Excuse me, "Amoco".
BP "tagged" as Beyond Petroleum and of course, British Petroleum.
Beyond petroleum, not much life going on...:(
I listened to an oil field trouble shooter last week explain that about 10% of the flow would be contained by the "top cap". He stated firmly that relief wells would be the only solution. He was very happy about going to Columbia as a trouble-shooting trip rather than the Gulf. He's had 30 years experience and it was very interesting listening to him discuss the situation from drilling to disaster. He gave December as the timeframe for relief well completion. I look upon his estimates as having greater validity that what we are hearing from BP.
An excellent summary of the oil spill and progress to date. I would also like to see the same type of point by point summary of the case against BP. The Washington Post had an excellent article about BP's history of cutting costs and corners. They are still using that strategy. In fact, all the tactics used to cap the well head have been oriented at recovery of oil and saving the well head for future development. Ultimately, it may have been cheaper and better to focus on capping the well head only and drilling at a new angle into the oil reserve.
I am hearing about state of the art accoustic valves being required in Norway and used in Europe for Blow Out Preventers. I have also heard about Canada requiring a back up Blow Out Preventer on a parallel pipe line into the oil reserve. I think we are in a similar moment such as the Valdeze Oil Spill resulting in tankers with two operational/steering cabins. There is little margin for error at those depths and the standards need to be increased for safety.
Reading and listening to all the criticism, it is amazing how many specialist we have in this country! Where were your good ideas and suggestions 50 days ago?
BP is doing what they can - desperate actions and all - to stop this spill. Each gallon spilled is a loss to the company. Each day paying for the vessels working to contain the flow of oil is a loss to the company. Every inch of encroachment on the coast is a loss for the company.
And don't blame BP for the fact that the GOVERNMENT decided to place a 75 million cap on damages! It sounds the Democrats are yet again pandering - repealing the law retro-actively!
BP's leadership has repeatedly stated that they will pay every legitimate claim.
Are you serious? You must be an employee....if not your an idiot....Their BP's decision to unload the mud is the whole cause of this mess.....They deserve all the criticism they get and then some.
No, unlike your statement, I am neither an idiot nor an employee. I worked for the oil industry a long, long time ago, but unlike some, I prefer to think through issues rather than fire from the hip.
I listen to reports. I read. I follow news casts. Based on gathered information, I make decisions.
What I see, is a lot of "hind sight" being displayed, and a lot of emotional reactions.
I am getting so tired of so many comments about party lines, or which elected officials are to blame. I live in one of the affected areas of this disaster. Please it is so distracting to what really needs to be done right now, contain and clean. The focus needs to be on someone credible to for the clean up of this mess. BP's message about all of the thousands of workers, boats, and boom are not true. We have untrained workers standing under tents because it is too hot for them to work. We also do not have the equipment to clean our water before it gets onto land. We have no skimmers!!!! Boats had gathered up big areas of oil offshore TWO times this weekend and no skimmer boats ever showed up to get the oil and it all washed up on the beach.
Please help us by writing your represenatives and urging them to put more pressure on BP for these immediate needs. There will be plenty of time to point fingers and blame people later. No matter where you live this will have an impact on you somehow. Shipping lanes are being closed and contaminated and will raise the price of goods across the nation. The state where you live may supply the rest of the country with a product and they won't be able to do so right now. That will hurt your states economy. Seafood prices are skyrocketing and who knows how long it will be damaged. People who vacation on our beautiful beaches and enjoy our wildlife can't do so right now as usual. Business and fishermen are hurting and losing their jobs, in turn damaging the economy even more. Please help us to speak up about these issuesto your representatives to get this crisis solved. Although the Gulf Coast will be hardest hit, others across the country will see an impact.
Thanks, Orange.
It seems we can't get a report of lightning striking without a whole bunch of postings blaming Obama, followed by a whole bunch blaming Bush. Neither has much to do with this event happening. BP did. They certified that they had the resources to respond to a blowout (as part of their licensing) and obviously that was of no more substance than checking the box.
As said, there will time later to assess blame or decide how we want to regulate the industry in the future. Now we need to unite in an unprecedented effort to clean up our shores and a full press engineering investigation as to the causes of the failure with NO political blame. This was an engineering failure and needs to be fixed by engineering. The only hope of avoiding this happening again is mostly engineering, and to a lesser extent regulation.
I think BP losing tens of billions on this screw up will be its own "regulation" of future drilling.
The whole situation is a shame. Not only the environment suffers, the economy, the lives taken, the livelihood of those dependent upon the gulf and the complete irreparable tragedy for the oil industry, the shame involved on the overlooked safety issues. What a burden this will be for years. I was born and have lived on the gulf coast for the greater part of my life and can only pray that this doesn't force me away from my home town area. I can remember the beauty that has been here since my childhood.
I hope the blame game will stop and ALL parties involved will step up to bat. It's going to take more than BP's efforts to fix this, yet they seem to be the only ones ready to participate. Where is Trans Ocean, Haliburton, or better yet our beloved federal government.
I agree, but I just wanted to put a word in for the dems after "not democrat" did their thing.
This goes beyond party lines.
As long as you have fuel to drive your vehicle and products from oil that built the computer your typing on.......things are fine. When an accident happens, suddenly its got to be someone's fault and what the heck is going on. BP didn't sneak in one night and start drilling, the government and the people have always been aware of the risks. But now we don,t want to share the responsibility. Typical. Always fix the blame, never the problem.
This disaster has also exposed several other issues... (1) not much is being said about Halliburton/Cheney. Why not ? ;(2) A fact that yet another govt agency (that we citizens support daily) is involved in letting things slide (putting it mildly). How many other govt agencies are doing the same ? Keep in mind that just not to long ago we saw that one of our govt agencies was letting coal mining operations operate with numerous violations. We see time and time again this same scenario... yet ?
Take the top 100 executives from Haliburton, top 100 executives from BP and top 100 executives from transoceanic and shove them head first down into the pipe gushing oil from beneath the Gulf of Mexico. Confiscate every cent that they and their family have, sell all of their property and put their families on welfare.
That would be the ultimate "junk shot". If that doesn't stop the leak, then take the next 100 top executives from each company and do the same to them. Eventually the remaining brilliant minds from each company will find a way of stopping the oil leak.
Maybe the plan should include Mrs. "drill baby drill" in addition to the first 300 executives.
You are mistaken, my friend. Obama, on April 26, 2010, renewed his call for increased offshore drilling, oblivious to the disaster at hand. A search of LexisNexis, an academic database used by fellow liberal scholars for news research, among other things, reveals that the president was not, in fact, on top of the spill from day one, as the Administration claims.
Now, some say he was pressured into taking such a position, but if he is such a formative, informed, intelligent, independent leader, why would he do that? Perhaps he is not the man American built him up to be . . .
Thus, when you mock Palin for "drill baby drill," you inadvertantly mock Obama.
Mock even the thought of using American resources and threaten to the kill the "straw dog " oil execs. It seems blame and law suits will get this hole plugged instead of boats, bodies and skimmers. Around 1917 the Russians cut off, banished and killed those "evil", profiteer business owners. How did that work out. We are headed down the same hole that Europe MAY be emerging from. God help us if we don't help ourselves.
unbolt the flange just below the place where the pipe was "cut-off". bolt on a full bore ball valve and close the valve. flow stopped.
I said that EXACT same thing when I saw them fumbling to cut the pipe RIGHT ABOVE the flange!
unbolt the flange just below where the pipe was "cut-off". bolt on a full bore ball valve and close the valve. flow stopped.
You don't "unbolt" ANYTHING 5000 ft. below sea level. A man get crushed. We don't have a machine that capable. Try unscrewing a stuck mayo jar that's broken without using your thumbs, blindfolded..... That would be easy compared to what is being attempted. Major cap, seal as best you can, get a monster pump and line on it and start filling supertanks with oil, saltwater and slit. Run that until you get the new wells drilled in the fall. We better start thinking outside the box about the coastlines. Controlled burns and locals running a million small scale skimmers and siphons maybe????
This whole deal is a horrible thing for the gulf coast, and indeed, the world. We have become dependent upon oil as an energy source. I would personally prefer to promote alternative energy sourses, but I fear it is too late. We are dependent upon oil and natural gas as much as a junkie needs heroin. The anology is not too far-fetched, the junkie CAN change, it is just a painfull process and it takes time. Just as they give the heroin addict drugs to slowly ween him down, the wind, water, geophysical, solar, and nuclear power sources will have to gradually take over. It is easy to blame BP and their product suppliers and put a ban on offshore drilling. The bare fact is we NEED the oil!!!! I certainly sympathise with people who live on the gulf coast, especially those who make a living fishing! But the bottom line is that we NEED oil to continue our lifestyles. I definitely do NOT want to kill fish, birds, and other animals, yet when it comes down to survival, I want my house to be warm in the winter. US or THEM, or shall we compromise and try some alternative energy sources? I am not trying to be some environmentalist tree-hugger, just trying to be real... The nuclear power source, despite the drawbacks of waste desposal, seems the best way for us to be able to maintain our lifestyles, keep warm and cool, without destroying our environment. I welcome any sort of argument, I have been a serious student of the Bible and watching as it all plays out. Please give any opinions you have agreeable or disagreeable. Thanks, Modelmaker
People need to understand that disasters of this type have and always will occur and are most often caused by human error. The important thing to remember is that the people who lose their lives in these sort of accidents generally know the risks, and certainly the rewards when they receive their paychecks. Offshore drilling, and drilling in general, is an inherently dangerous profession rewarded by relatively high compensation. If we haven't yet learned that we can't count on anyone to ensure our own safety except for ourselves, then we are all fools. Safety is not only the responsibility of employers, it is EVERYONE's responsibility. I work in another inherently higher risk profession, underground mining. However, I know first hand what the risks are, and more importantly, I make it a point to know, very well what I have to do as an individual to ensure that I and my fellow workers go home safely to their families, every day. I am sick and tired of the media only reporting the side of the story that gets the ratings. I find it sickening that the individuals who die everyday, one by one, in much less severe accidents, are never in the headlines. Why is that you ask? Its because most people don't care about one or two lives, but 14 gets and keeps their attention. More people have died in drilling accidents since this disaster than died that day. Have you read or seen anything about them? This is what we have become. The real greed is excercised by the media, another large corporation with more power than any government, oil company, or mining company. Come on people, wake up and smell the coffee. We are all too often just sheep, wandering blindly through the pasture, while the wolf is always watching and waiting..........think about this.
I don't understand why most are saying "break BP" and "drive them bankrupt". BP is a parent company of many smaller companies. BP Exploration is responsible for drilling, BP Refining, BP Production, BP Marketing, and BP Chemicals had nothing to do with the Gulf Oil mess. I know to most of you there is no difference, but to the thousands of workers and their families who work for the other subsidiary companies there is a BIG difference. I see most of you are following Obama's lead by slinging insults, threats, and blame instead of trying to fix this mess and then get things cleand up.
Amen, I totally agree. Again, another example of the media trying to drive us into yet another recession. Before the recession, the media had nothing to report, so they drove us into this. They made a lot of money, while the rest of us suffered. If we allow BP to be bankrupted, who will pay for that? We, the hard working people of this country will. Gasoline prices will skyrocket, the economy will suffer, etc. etc. etc. People have to stop buying into this crap and start REALLY THINKING for themselves. Stop believing everything you hear or see on TV. Use your own common sense to decide. What do you really know about what went on in the Gulf? For most, only what the media reported. Just remember, there are two sides to every story; you've only been told one.........