Oil Rig Explosion

#2
#2
That'd be an awful convenient out for the "drill baby, drill" crowd, too. Stranger things have happened though.
 
#4
#4
I'm all for drilling off of our coasts, if and thats a big IF we can do it safer. This has become a nightmare. Kind of strange that it happend on Earth Day too, but who knows.
 
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#5
#5
That's only slightly dumber than the conspiracy theories I've heard on talk radio.
 
#6
#6
Catbone said:
I'm all for drilling off of our coasts, if and thats a big IF we can do it safer. This has become a nightmare. Kind of strange that it happend on Earth Day too, but who knows.
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That is strange, but I doubt a green group would ever do something so damaging... I guess someone like NK might just to add emphasis...? But sometimes people just want to find someone to blame. It's more comforting to think someone is always behind every bad thing that happens, rather than face the uncertain and random world we live in.
 
#8
#8
What's interesting now--apart from the mess--is the CYA blame game.

BP is almost universally portrayed as being responsible, and yet my understanding is that Transocean was operating the drilling rig at the time it blew up.

Did BP contractually assume liability? Or was BP effectively in control of operations despite the lessor/lessee arrangement?
 
#9
#9
Did not read the link but wanted to chime in on this mess. Something that bothers me is watching as these idiots like the CA governor drawback their support for offshore drilling. What a bunch of small minded pansy ass fools. There are two things that happened here. First, a leak happened. Second, is the response to the leak. Need to separate the two. Accidents happen. The bigger problem here is the response after the accident. I am betting that second part falls mostly on government shoulders.
 
#10
#10
allvol123 said:
There are two things that happened here. First, a leak happened. Second, is the response to the leak. Need to separate the two. Accidents happen. The bigger problem here is the response after the accident. I am betting that second part falls mostly on government shoulders.
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And they are saying that the bigger problem is the events which caused the disaster.

Why are they wrong?
 
#11
#11
Velo Vol said:
And they are saying that the bigger problem is the events which caused the disaster.

Why are they wrong?
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Because if whatever caused the accident was the bigger problem then that would mean these accidents were rather frequent. I don't believe they are. THE problem here is the response. Accidents will always happen in any line of work, this is not the first oil spill ever. The response is the bigger issue here.
 
#12
#12
allvol123 said:
Did not read the link but wanted to chime in on this mess. Something that bothers me is watching as these idiots like the CA governor drawback their support for offshore drilling. What a bunch of small minded pansy ass fools. There are two things that happened here. First, a leak happened. Second, is the response to the leak. Need to separate the two. Accidents happen. The bigger problem here is the response after the accident. I am betting that second part falls mostly on government shoulders.
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The government isn't capable of handling every possible situation that could ever happen. Blame government all you want, but no matter how much money and power we give them, they will never meet these kinds of expectations.

BP is culpable. No one else.
 
#13
#13
allvol123 said:
Did not read the link but wanted to chime in on this mess. Something that bothers me is watching as these idiots like the CA governor drawback their support for offshore drilling. What a bunch of small minded pansy ass fools. There are two things that happened here. First, a leak happened. Second, is the response to the leak. Need to separate the two. Accidents happen. The bigger problem here is the response after the accident. I am betting that second part falls mostly on government shoulders.
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We don't need the government .... the private sector can take care of itself :p

I think that the response isn't horrible on anyone's part. This is an extremely difficult accident. The coast guard was quickly laying down buoys, but there is no bay to immediately contain this (like a ship running aground)...they have a huge area to cover. BP is working on shutting off the valve, but if you don't have the safety equipment in place, you don't have it in place.

Perhaps one fault is not having the regulation in place to require certain safety features, similar to Norway in the North Sea, which according to some who I have spoke with, is in many ways a leader in safety/execution. The acoustic switch would probably be very nice right now, but that costs money and we haven't seen the straight up need in the past...not sure if that will change now or not...probably will.
 
#16
#16
TennTradition said:
We don't need the government .... the private sector can take care of itself :p

I think that the response isn't horrible on anyone's part. This is an extremely difficult accident. The coast guard was quickly laying down buoys, but there is no bay to immediately contain this (like a ship running aground)...they have a huge area to cover. BP is working on shutting off the valve, but if you don't have the safety equipment in place, you don't have it in place.

Perhaps one fault is not having the regulation in place to require certain safety features, similar to Norway in the North Sea, which according to some who I have spoke with, is in many ways a leader in safety/execution. The acoustic switch would probably be very nice right now, but that costs money and we haven't seen the straight up need in the past...not sure if that will change now or not...probably will.
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I would imagine BP or any company has to submit monstrous amounts of paperwork to get the right to drill in the places. Is there no place in this process where someone asks "what do we do if this happens?" Why would you not have the equipment in place?
 
#17
#17
allvol123 said:
I would imagine BP or any company has to submit monstrous amounts of paperwork to get the right to drill in the places. Is there no place in this process where someone asks "what do we do if this happens?" Why would you not have the equipment in place?
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This is an unprecedented disaster as far as US drilling in concerned. There were safety systems in place, and they didn't work. The explosion never should have happened, but it did...and the fire couldn't be controlled.

We need to do better. That's why I agreed with IP when he was making the posts that he was making about this changing our offshore drilling policies. It doesn't mean that we can't drill....but this illuminates the fact that additional safety measure need to be in place.

The operators in the North Sea operate under very tight scrutiny, but it is apparently impressive compared to other areas. We may not have to go that far, but I think that accident says we need to go farther that we have in the past in the US.

These are pretty fragile ecosystems we're talking about, and can affect extremely widespread areas...we need to keep that in mind.

Hopefully we continue learning as we go, but it's obviously at a cost.
 
#18
#18
allvol123 said:
I would imagine BP or any company has to submit monstrous amounts of paperwork to get the right to drill in the places. Is there no place in this process where someone asks "what do we do if this happens?" Why would you not have the equipment in place?
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I would be interested in comparing the safety features of the BP rigs in the gulf compared to their rigs in the North Sea. I would bet the hoops they have to jump through in the North Sea are even bigger...with more safety systems (a lot of that is speculation, admittedly, based on discussions I've had). BP isn't going to do it if they don't have to because I don't think they would have imagined this would happen...they would have viewed it as overkill...and now they're against the gun....and so is the US government is coordinating the cleanup from this company's oil leak, because they trusted that the safety systems were sufficient to prevent this type of sustained leak (presumably).
 
#19
#19
TennTradition said:
I would be interested in comparing the safety features of the BP rigs in the gulf compared to their rigs in the North Sea. I would bet the hoops they have to jump through in the North Sea are even bigger...with more safety systems (a lot of that is speculation, admittedly, based on discussions I've had). BP isn't going to do it if they don't have to because I don't think they would have imagined this would happen...they would have viewed it as overkill...and now they're against the gun....and so is the US government is coordinating the cleanup from this company's oil leak, because they trusted that the safety systems were sufficient to prevent this type of sustained leak (presumably).
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You seem somewhat confident that the response was managed fairly well, or as well as could reasonably be expected, from the beginning. I'm not sure I feel the same way. I understand that the leak beat the systems in place to stop a leak. I cannot imagine there is not a plan in place for when the leak is not containable, or at least a better one than this.
 
#20
#20
allvol123 said:
You seem somewhat confident that the response was managed fairly well, or as well as could reasonably be expected, from the beginning. I'm not sure I feel the same way. I understand that the leak beat the systems in place to stop a leak. I cannot imagine there is not a plan in place for when the leak is not containable, or at least a better one than this.
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Well, just like the company didn't have the resources in place to stop this leak the first week(s)...the government was not ready to fully contain a 5,000 barrel a day leak in open water with no notice.

They aren't going to stage a fleet of berms, oil vacuuming ships, etc. on standby so they can clean up BPs huge potential leaks. If they did, they would be derided for huge government waste.

I'm not demonizing BP, and I'm not demonizing the government. Once the rig sank and the leak started, it seemed that responses began. BP started trying to isolate the leak, and they have failed. The government moved in to start laying berms and try controlled burns, but the size of the circumference of the slick grew rapidly as the size of leak was assessed and the resources to control it were moved into place.

Is a better response possible? I'm sure. On both parts. I don't think I've seen anything that would constitute gross negligence ... though the size of a disaster like this reminds us how important it is to operate safely.
 
#21
#21
allvol123 said:
You seem somewhat confident that the response was managed fairly well, or as well as could reasonably be expected, from the beginning. I'm not sure I feel the same way. I understand that the leak beat the systems in place to stop a leak. I cannot imagine there is not a plan in place for when the leak is not containable, or at least a better one than this.
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I guess I would also pose the argument this way. You seem to be letting BP off of their responsibility for a failure of imagination, but expecting the government to not suffer from the same problem. Resources may have been in place, but not for a leak that may rival the greatest oil spill in US history - just as safety systems were in place, but not for a disaster of this nature on BP's part.
 
#22
#22
TennTradition said:
They aren't going to stage a fleet of berms, oil vacuuming ships, etc. on standby so they can clean up BPs huge potential leaks. If they did, they would be derided for huge government waste.
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I don't think being derided for huge government waste really causes government to hesitate on spending.
 
#23
#23
TennTradition said:
I guess I would also pose the argument this way. You seem to be letting BP off of their responsibility for a failure of imagination, but expecting the government to not suffer from the same problem. Resources may have been in place, but not for a leak that may rival the greatest oil spill in US history - just as safety systems were in place, but not for a disaster of this nature on BP's part.
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No, I'm just putting more of the blame or lack of imagination on the government. The federal government is the gatekeeper here. BP doesn't drill for squat unless given the rights. I don't doubt they do the minimum possible, but they aren't the ones setting the bar.
 
#24
#24
allvol123 said:
I don't think being derided for huge government waste really causes government to hesitate on spending.
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ha ha ha :)

True.

My point still stands, but you're right...their 'reluctance' wasn't a fear of the public outcry....because it wasn't reluctance...it was a failure to anticipate this magnitude of a sustained leak/spill.
 
#25
#25
allvol123 said:
No, I'm just putting more of the blame or lack of imagination on the government. The federal government is the gatekeeper here. BP doesn't drill for squat unless given the rights. I don't doubt they do the minimum possible, but they aren't the ones setting the bar.
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I'm not sure where you come down on off-shore drilling, but if you think that it should be expanded, then I think that is an unfair position. I don't know if you are doing this, but I don't think it is fair to call for drilling to be allowed by companies, but then say that the government is the ultimate gatekeeper for anything bad that might happen. It can be argued that the government failed to regulate to the full extent necessary and it can also be argued that BP failed to practice due diligence in their design. My guess is that this is unprecedented and will result in a paradigm shift.
 
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