BP Gulf Oil Spill

Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill

fingers crossed it works.

why did it take so long for them to try this? was it a known option all along? or did they just think of it and put it into action? or were they trying not to do something that would not allow them to catch oil to seperate and sell at the same time?

 

Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill

Short answer to a good question. It took a hell of a lot of effort to design, assemble, and field all that went into getting the Top Kill equipment on location. And you had to be reasonably confident that you had covered all the bases and planned for all known potential problems. If you F'd it up, then you would have made the problem worse.

 

Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill

and that goes back to my earlier statement along the lines of "if they had only thought to but that kind of testing and following the results in the bop in the first place....."

im just very pissed at what seems to be growing evidence of the cavalier "drill baby, drill" attitude. dont get me wrong, i am not anti-oil. but i am anti "careless because money comes first" attitudes.

but i so hope this works and people can get going on damage assessment and clean up.

 

Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill

Why weren't there measures in place, in case a disaster like this occurred?

 

Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill

Okie, I understand your frustrations and when it's all said & done there very well may be evidence of mistakes made that shouldn't have been made, processes that didn't work as advertised, or shortcuts taken that shouldn't have been. Hopefully we will learn from this tragic experience and implement measures to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Here's a link to a video from BP on Top Kill. I'm not endorsing it, just recommending it as a learning tool to understand the complexities and challenges to implementing Top Kill.

Kent Wells Tech Update - 24 May 2010

 

Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill

I have lots of dealings with contractors in the oil and gas industry. Big oil companies definitely have a "we are bigger than the world" attitude and they have the money to fight any fight they pick. It is clear that MMS has been sitting in the oil industry's lap and the same can be said of the Louisiana DNR. Our state is polluted, landowners have had to file expensive lawsuits to force oil companies to clean up the land and the oil companies still fight tooth and nail all the way to the courthouse. DNR is supposed to be enforcing our environmental regulations, landowners shouldn't even have to file suit if DNR had done their job over the years. I'm all for business and economic development in our state, however, we all learned in kindergarten that you're supposed to clean up your mess!