Deepwater Horizon still gushing oil and gas
Even the Wall Street Journal trashes BP
BP Lies again and again about everything
BP PR Neanderthals
BP has no sense of responsibility to the public for the mess it has created :
At nearly every step since the Deepwater Horizon exploded more than a month ago, causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history, rig operator BP PLC has downplayed the severity of the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
On almost every issue -- the amount of gushing oil, the environmental impact, even how to stop the leak -- BP's statements have proven wrong. The erosion of the company's credibility may prove as difficult to stop as the oil spewing from the sea floor.
"They keep making one mistake after another. That gives the impression that they're hiding things," said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who has been critical of BP's reluctance to publicly release videos of the underwater gusher. "These guys either do not have any sense of accountability to the public or they are Neanderthals when it comes to public relations."
Quote from : As Gulf oil spill grew, BP's credibility faded By Justin Pritchard and Tamara Lush, AP Writers VIA The Associated Press May 29, 2010
...Big Oil has spent years deluding itself and others into thinking that this kind of spill was impossible and that preparing for one wasn't necessary. Indeed, BP once called a blowout disaster “inconceivable.” Certainly, if you can't conceive of a disaster, you'll become more and more lax, more and more reckless, until one happens. You’ll cut corners on backup systems and testing. And you certainly won't pre-build and pre-position any relevant equipment for staunching the flow. Since a disaster can't happen, you and your allies in Congress will block all serious safeguards and demagogue all efforts to oversee the industry as “Big Government interference in the marketplace that will raise the price of gasoline for average Americans.”
...As president, Obama bought into Big Oil's story that new technology meant that a big blowout disaster was impossible. And so he embraced offshore drilling a few months ago and even now has been slow to stop defending it. Thus, the questions that all Americans should be asking their president isn't whether he's plugged the leak yet. It's, "Why did you believe Big Oil and its right-wing allies?"
Quote from :Obama's daughter asked the wrong question:There's not much that Obama himself can do to "plug the hole." But he could be honest about why the spill happened by Joseph Romm Via Salon.com, May 28, 2010
BP still denies existence of underwater oil plumes even though a number of scientist have confirmed their existence.
And dispersants mix with oil and become more toxic
BP Oilpocalypse Creates Underwater Nightmare
As for BP's safety standards almost non-existent as they cut corners and fudge reports and cook the books to appease regulators -
BP faking safety test on wells
Coutdown -Keith Olbermann interviews BP Whistleblower Mike Mason on BP safety ignorance
Obama should be using this catastrophe not just to re-evaluate off shore drilling or just deepwater drilling he should focus on basic issues such as a policy concerning deregulation , corporate malfeasance of the elite and the oil and Gas and Coal industries. He could also use the event to begin developing alternative fuels and methods for energy production ie wind turbines and solar panels etc.
It is funny how the anti-government crowd are disingenuously using this event to criticize Obama for: one not doing enough two: not putting enough pressure on BP etc. when most of the time they argue that government has no right regulating the oil industry or any other business concern- these pro-business pro-unfettered capitalism crowd are also against the EPA Environmental protection Agency and its attempts to in their view interfere in the way businesses conduct themselves.
It is also telling that the Uberconservatives who applauded the Supreme Court decision to recognize corporations as individual citizens and so therefore they have the same rights and entitlement as other American citizens- but in legal terms doesn't this mean they the corporations also have responsibilities and liabilities equivalent to any other citizen. Therefore a corporation can be arrested, fined, imprisoned or even executed in a capital offense. So Tony Hayward & others representing BP could be charged and detained indefinitely and sent to prison or even executed. Or does one just impound the corporation and its assets.
Even the Wall Street Journal trashes by BPs actions at The Deepwater Horizon drilling site
BP Decisions Set Stage for Disaster by Ben Casselman & Russell Gold Via Wall Street Journal ,May 27, 2010
Government investigators have yet to announce conclusions about what went wrong that day. The final step in the causation chain, industry engineers have said in interviews, was most likely the failure of a crucial seal at the top of the well or a cement plug at the bottom.
But neither scenario explains the whole story. A Wall Street Journal investigation provides the most complete account so far of the fateful decisions that preceded the blast. BP made choices over the course of the project that rendered this well more vulnerable to the blowout, which unleashed a spew of crude oil that engineers are struggling to stanch.
BP, for instance, cut short a procedure involving drilling fluid that is designed to detect gas in the well and remove it before it becomes a problem, according to documents belonging to BP and to the drilling rig's owner and operator, Transocean Ltd.
BP also skipped a quality test of the cement around the pipe—another buffer against gas—despite what BP now says were signs of problems with the cement job and despite a warning from cement contractor Halliburton Co.
Once gas was rising, the design and procedures BP had chosen for the well likely gave this perilous gas an easier path up and out, say well-control experts. There was little keeping the gas from rushing up to the surface after workers, pushing to finish the job, removed a critical safeguard, the heavy drilling fluid known as "mud." BP has admitted a possible "fundamental mistake" in concluding that it was safe to proceed with mud removal, according to a memo from two Congressmen released Tuesday night.
Finally, a BP manager overseeing final well tests apparently had scant experience in deep-water drilling. He told investigators he was on the rig to "learn about deep water," according to notes of an interview with him seen by the Journal.
and one employee said BP CEOs were worried about completing the project sooner than later because it had run over budge and was late starting so the pressure was on everyone working on the rig :
Some of BP's choices allowed it to minimize costly delays. "We were behind schedule already," said Tyrone Benton, a technician who operated underwater robots and worked for a subcontractor. He said that on the day before the accident, a Monday, managers "hoped we'd be finished by that Friday.... But it seemed like they were pushing to finish it before Friday."
He added: "They were doing too many jobs at one time." Mr. Benton is suing BP and Transocean claiming physical injury and mental anguish.
...Halliburton, the cementing contractor, advised BP to install numerous devices to make sure the pipe was centered in the well before pumping cement, according to Halliburton documents, provided to congressional investigators and seen by the Journal. Otherwise, the cement might develop small channels that gas could squeeze through.
In an April 18 report to BP, Halliburton warned that if BP didn't use more centering devices, the well would likely have "a SEVERE gas flow problem." Still, BP decided to install fewer of the devices than Halliburton recommended—six instead of 21.
Even the basic pipe design was wrong :
"I couldn't understand why they would run a long string," meaning a single pipe, said David Pursell, a petroleum engineer and managing director of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., an energy-focused investment bank. Oil major Royal Dutch Shell PLC, in a letter to the MMS, said it "generally does not" use a single pipe.
...
Despite the well design and the importance of the cement, daily drilling reports show that BP didn't run a critical, but time-consuming, procedure that might have allowed the company to detect and remove gas building up in the well.
Before doing a cement job on a well, common industry practice is to circulate the drilling mud through the well, bringing the mud at the bottom all the way up to the drilling rig.
This procedure, known as "bottoms up," lets workers check the mud to see if it is absorbing gas leaking in. If so, they can clean the gas out of the mud before putting it back down into the well to maintain the pressure. The American Petroleum Institute says it is "common cementing best practice" to circulate the mud at least once.
Circulating all the mud in a well of 18,360 feet, as this one was, takes six to 12 hours, say people who've run the procedure. But mud circulation on this well was done for just 30 minutes on April 19, drilling logs say, not nearly long enough to bring mud to the surface.
Three offshore engineers the Journal asked to review the drilling reports all pointed to the failure to circulate the mud completely as a serious mistake. Robert MacKenzie, a former oil-industry cementing engineer now at FBR Capital Markets, said, "If you have any worries about gas, if you have any worries about getting a good cement job, you should definitely do it."
BP also didn't run tests to check on the last of the cement after it was pumped into the well, despite the importance of cement to this well design and despite Halliburton's warning that the cement might not seal properly. Workers from Schlumberger Ltd. were aboard and available to do such tests, but on the morning of April 20, about 12 hours before the blowout, BP told Schlumberger workers their work was done, according to Schlumberger. They caught a helicopter back to shore at 11 a.m.
...A disagreement broke out on the rig on April 20 over the procedures to be followed. At 11 a.m., workers for the half-dozen contractors working on the rig gathered for a meeting. Douglas Brown, Transocean's chief mechanic on the rig, testified Wednesday at a hearing in Louisiana that a top BP official had a "skirmish" with top Transocean officials.
The Transocean workers, including offshore installation manager Jimmy Wayne Harrell, disagreed with a decision by BP's top manager about how to remove drilling mud and replace it with lighter seawater. Mr. Brown said he heard Mr. Harrell say, "I guess that is what we have those pinchers for," referring to a part of the blowout preventer that would shut off the well in case of an emergency.
BP won the argument, said Mr. Brown, who is a plaintiff in a suit against BP and Transocean.
and see: How do I loathe BP? Let me count the criminally negligent ways.by Cedwyn via Daily Kos May 30, 2010
As Gulf oil spill grew, BP's credibility faded By Justin Pritchard and Tamara Lush, AP Writers
VIA The Associated Press May 29, 2010
At nearly every step since the Deepwater Horizon exploded more than a month ago, causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history, rig operator BP PLC has downplayed the severity of the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
On almost every issue -- the amount of gushing oil, the environmental impact, even how to stop the leak -- BP's statements have proven wrong. The erosion of the company's credibility may prove as difficult to stop as the oil spewing from the sea floor.
"They keep making one mistake after another. That gives the impression that they're hiding things," said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who has been critical of BP's reluctance to publicly release videos of the underwater gusher. "These guys either do not have any sense of accountability to the public or they are Neanderthals when it comes to public relations."
FOR INSTANCE on the volume of the Leak:
Nelson said that he believes BP has delayed release of everything from the actual flow rate to the videos because of a federal law that allows the government to seek penalties of $1,000 to $4,300 per barrel -- 42 gallons -- of oil spilled in U.S. waters. "And so naturally they want to minimize what people were thinking they were going to spill."
High-end estimates by BP, the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reached 588,000 gallons per day in late April, BP spokesman David Nicholas acknowledged Friday to The Associated Press after weeks of the company sticking with the lower estimate. But it wasn't until Thursday that officials had conceded that the leak was considerably larger than the 210,000-gallon-a-day figure that had been floated as the best estimate for the prior four weeks.
and:
The 210,000-gallon estimate that became the official talking point for weeks turned out to be wrong, too. A team of scientists from the government and academia said Thursday that the leak is really spewing somewhere between 500,000 and a million gallons a day.
The new estimates were between 12 and 24 times greater than what was first offered, and instantly made the Deepwater Horizon spill the worst in U.S. history. Even using the low end of the estimates, nearly 18 million gallons have spilled so far. At the high end, the well could have gushed as many as 39 million gallons.
Even President Barack Obama has voiced his frustration, laying the blame squarely on BP for the often incorrect assessment of the spill's size
and concludes with skepticism and distrust of BP :
The shift in spill estimates -- and the other downplayed details from BP -- have caused environmental activists like Lorraine Margeson of St. Petersburg, Fla., to question whether other details are lowballed, as well. Margeson wonders if the numbers of dead animals and birds are being accurately reported by BP and other officials.
"From the get go, every aspect of the situation has been downplayed," she said. "This thing has been out of control in terms of informing the public and transparency from day one."
BP CEO disputes claims of underwater oil plumes
By The Associated Press May 30, 2010,
Scientists from several universities have reported plumes of what appears to be oil suspended in clouds stretching for miles and reaching hundreds of feet beneath the Gulf's surface.
Those findings -- from the University of South Florida, the University of Georgia, Southern Mississippi University and other institutions -- were based on initial observations of water samples taken in the Gulf over the last several weeks. They continue to be analyzed.
One researcher said Sunday that their findings are bolstered by the fact that scientists from different institutions have come to similar conclusions after doing separate testing.
"There's been enough evidence from enough different sources," said Marine scientist James Cowan of Louisiana State University, who reported finding a plume last week of oil about 50 miles from the spill site that reached to depths of at least 400 feet.
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