BP's Oil Booming Failure

[Ket]

Exxon Valdez happened in 1989. 21 years ago, that's two decades.

...and a study conducted by NOAA determined that as of early 2007 more than 26 thousand U.S. gallons (22,000 imp gal; 98,000 L) of oil remain in the sandy soil of the contaminated shoreline, declining at a rate of less than 4% per year.

Source - http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/feb/02/oil.pollution

Another good article to read is here, and Wikipedia has a plethora of links to read about how long of an impact an oil spill has on the ocean and coastline.

It's not just a month or a year or five years.

Decades. Multiple decades. 

[Trieste]

I'm also incredibly skeptical of BP's party line of "We're going to ignore the cap you placed on our liability because we want to Do the Right Thing"... given that Exxon took their fight up to the goddamn Supreme Court and were rewarded by having their damages reduced by, what, $5.5 billion? I don't really trust that one.

Although, given that the Supreme Court is poised to be tilted a little more liberal, it might not be in their best interests to litigate after all. Hm.

Transocean still seems to be turning heads with their idiocy and their attempts to limit their own liability. Point + laugh.

[Valerian]

I found this Time magazine article that discusses the abysmal results from all of BP's plans thus far, and also found a telling statistic.  This is the breakdown of safety citations various oil companies received from OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) from June 2007 to February 2010:

Sunoco - 8
Conoco-Phillips - 8
Citgo - 2
Exxon - 1


During that same period, BP received 862 such citations, of which 760 were labelled "egregious and willful".

Maybe it would be possible to dismantle the whole horrible mess of a company right now, and put whatever is earned by selling off the bits and pieces into funding some actual experts. 

[Vekseid]

It's a British company. Which makes seeing federal and state/local officials doing their bidding and preventing reporting in the region seem downright treasonous. Either the Obama Administration is complicit or BP has active bribes with thousands to tens of thousands of government officials.

[Entendre]

Videos like this really bother me. While I admire the activism of the creator and his or her personal research into the topic, I don't think it is remotely fair to judge the accident like this.

Having seen the degree of intelligence necessary to get a job designing one of these rigs, I can comfortably say that the men and women engineering these floating drills are geniuses in their own rights. It takes up to a billion dollars to build a single rig and roughly a decade of systematic diligence. When you're complaining about drilling accidents, you have to consider the depth and pressure these engineers are dealing with. A comparable task to drilling at these depths would be blindly using twenty foot chopsticks to eat wonton soup. We all have a right to some basic information about the drilling accidents, but unless you're a mechanical or petroleum engineer with that type of experience and knowledge, I think you should really hold your tongue and let the experts do their best. Support, rather than criticism, would be nice.

Also, I don't blame BP in the slightest. I blame the economy and complaints about oil prices. When you complain about the price of gas, you allow politicians who support cutting corners in industry to lower oil prices to get elected. If BP didn't cut the same corners that Exxon, Lukoil and Chevron did, it would go out of business. Money is the cash cow and when you start buying higher priced gas with environmental awareness in mind, then companies can afford to start practicing greener, and safer methods of oil drilling and refining. Until then, oil users have no one to blame but their own greed.

Regarding booming, I don't honestly buy the testimony of the woman speaking. We live in a free-market economy and right now, this moment, her skills are in demand. If she were that good, BP would be hiring her this instant and the government would be paying her an arm and a leg to hopefully quell their public embarrassment. They would get less flak for hiring a loud-mouthed activist than they are currently getting for the spill.

[TheGerbilyOne]

Videos like this are honestly one of those things that just makes me smile. I can only hope that the media in general picks up on this.

I can only hope that this doesn't get any worse, even though considering the remarks of BP's Top Officials make me think that they are still treating it like it is none of our business.

[Trieste]

Having seen the degree of intelligence necessary to get a job designing one of these rigs, I can comfortably say that the men and women engineering these floating drills are geniuses in their own rights. It takes up to a billion dollars to build a single rig and roughly a decade of systematic diligence. When you're complaining about drilling accidents, you have to consider the depth and pressure these engineers are dealing with. A comparable task to drilling at these depths would be blindly using twenty foot chopsticks to eat wonton soup. We all have a right to some basic information about the drilling accidents, but unless you're a mechanical or petroleum engineer with that type of experience and knowledge, I think you should really hold your tongue and let the experts do their best. Support, rather than criticism, would be nice.

I don't really care what they show the general public, although I expect what is shared to filter through into the general public. What I do care about is that they are keeping other* experts out of the loop. When they estimate the flow of oil at 1,000 barrels a day and everyone else who gets a look at it estimates it at 5,000 or 10,000 or 30 frickin' thousand barrels a day, they are being shady. When they have to be forced by the government to stream video of the leak so that we can actually see what's going on down there, when there is evidence that the blowout preventer didn't engage because the hydraulic systems were improperly hooked up in order to pass a safety test, when we're told that it's only a little oil and the ocean is very big so it'll probably just be fine, BP gets labeled as scumbags. They should have every red cent seized, and the money should be put toward Gulf cleanup when the government finally caves to pressure (and they will; it's only a matter of time) and steps in to clean up their mess.

And blaming people for demanding cheap oil is somewhat pointless. We have a Democrat in the Oval Office and we have a Dem-controlled Congress. It's not like we have a bunch of oil barons in power, although until the government stops pandering to them they will still have a completely ridiculous amount of power.

* Meaning independent experts not employed by BP.

[Serephino]

I saw on the news that BP among the other companies involved are being investigated for criminal negligence.  This means that yes, they are at fault.  There was also talk of them being banned from doing business in our country anymore.  This of course comes after the explosion of the refinery in Texas a few years ago, and another incident I can't remember.   

[Vekseid]

I'd go so far as to say that defending BP and Transocean over this is not only a flat out lie as they both are demonstrably responsible for more than their share of incidents (Transocean was also responsible for the Ixtoc spill) - but also hideously counterproductive.

Every other oil company in the world has a better record than these two. The only time someone created a bigger disaster was when it was done intentionally.

BP and Transocean are clearly not as competent as their competitors, but their competitors are going to suffer for it anyway. Their responsible drilling operations are getting stalled over this mess despite comparatively spotless records. Liquidating the two will not diminish the value of the assets themselves, nor will the valuable employees that are working with them now vanish.

I have no illusions about our reliance on oil, or the sorts of people running these companies. But better can be done - we know it - and until we can get off our crack addiction, we have every right to demand better.

[Muninn]

I know I'm late but I recall a video I saw (whether online or on TV I can't remember nor find at the moment) where a class made a trip to a beach where an oil spill had occurred years ago, the students dug a shallow hole into the clean-looking sand, poured some clean water into it and watched as the sludge began to surface from this "clean" sand.  I'll try to find the video later.

I also have this, dunno if it's relevant but it definitely has an impact:

Caught in the Oil
(slight warning: Not for the faint of heart.  These are terrible, terrible images of suffering wildlife)

[Entendre]

I'm not going to post a detailed analysis of shear ram BOP technology, but until someone can demonstrate why this one BOP was any different from the roughly five hundred others which were successfully employed by toppled rigs over the last five years, I will have trouble believing that this was careless oversight let alone negligence.

As to safety for those working on the rigs, I agree that it is a deadly job, but that isn't really relevant. Hundreds of men die yearly on these rigs and get no attention. Safety would be nice, but I think this is more about the spilled oil.

Lastly, BP is one of the premier producers of solar cells, one of the largest contributors to green energy research worldwide, and donates millions to public research institutions annually. They may have screwed up, but I consider their past record at least minimal proof of their moral fiber.

[Sabby]

Dude, Entendre, at this point, the cause of the accident couldn't be less important. Whether it was criminal negligence, or a very severe case of bad luck that no force could have foreseen or prevented, the fact is that it has happened. BP owns these rigs, and knows what could happen if one were to fail, so it is their responsibility to prepare for just such an incident.

Even if they maintained perfect safety procedures and made sure that the margin of error was as small as possible, the fact they didn't properly prepare for an accident, and aren't acting on it appropriately, is the issue at hand.

I do hear what your saying man, but focusing on the reason this happened, and defending BP with an 'accidents happen' mentality is just so not guna fly. This COULD happen, and as a business, you HAVE to prepare for the worst case scenario. Because if the sad day comes, and you were spending all that time counting on it never showing up instead of preparing for it... well, look how its turning out

[Entendre]

I definitely and willingly concede that. BP was unprepared for a disaster of that magnitude and that is their fault. The original accident was not.

My only point was that this isn't a straightforward case of corporate greed. When people paint the picture as though BP was knowingly cutting corners in terms of preventing the disaster, then I rose to point out that this wasn't the case.

[Will]

You actually did say that they were cutting corners in your earlier post, and that it was totally okay.

Of course, it really isn't relevant to the thread, which is titled "BP's Oil Booming Failure."  In other words, their horrible response to the situation at hand.

[Oniya]

You actually did say that they were cutting corners in your earlier post, and that it was totally okay.

Of course, it really isn't relevant to the thread, which is titled "BP's Oil Booming Failure."  In other words, their horrible response to the situation at hand.

I think I've contracted Mr. Oniya's dyslexia.  This whole time, I've been reading that as 'BP's Booming Oil Failure' - as in a failure that keeps growing and growing.

[Phaia]

Its okay..all is now right!! We have James Cameron involved!!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jun/02/james-cameron-underwater-oil-spill

he Might very well have a lot of experince filming in deep water but filming and fixing the leak are two very different things!!!

But I do feel much better knowing that the government is listening closely to the director of the Titanic and Avatar!!


Phaia

[Oniya]

I'm not sure where I saw it other than articles like that one (I want to say that I saw a post that mentioned BP initially turning Cameron's offer away), but the man does have a fleet of submersibles and patents on various underwater equipment.

[Phaia]

yes he does have a fleet of small submarines and knows a great deal about filming at deep depths...but does that make him an expert in how to handle the leak?

I would much rather have people involved [other then BP] that actaully know about things like deep drilling and oil pressure. If James Camerons offers his submarines to help in seeing and guiding things then great but the impression I have gotten is that he has been making suggestion on how to close the leak!

Phaia

[Oniya]

From the article that you posted and the one in Vanity Fair, it looks like he's offering the use of the subs, and contacted a number of scientists and engineers that he's become acquainted with through his various films.

This week, drawing on his contacts in the deep-sea science world, the director convened a meeting of more than 20 scientists and engineers in Washington to brainstorm fixes for the leak.

“I know a lot of smart people who regularly work a whole lot deeper than that well,” says Cameron, referring to BP’s 5,000-foot gusher. “I figured this group of top sub guys and deep-ocean scientists and engineers could maybe come up with something constructive.”

[Sabby]

That confirms it then. There's Unobtainium in the Gulf.

[Trieste]

yes he does have a fleet of small submarines and knows a great deal about filming at deep depths...but does that make him an expert in how to handle the leak?

I would much rather have people involved [other then BP] that actaully know about things like deep drilling and oil pressure. If James Camerons offers his submarines to help in seeing and guiding things then great but the impression I have gotten is that he has been making suggestion on how to close the leak!

Phaia

It's not the handling of the oil they're having trouble with, Phaia.

The discussion was described by the Obama administration as a "listening session", though it is no secret that BP has struggled to find the right technology that can work at one mile below the ocean surface.

This has been the highlight of the failures. The problems they are facing - freezing, pressure - are all problems of deep-sea filming as well. They have dozens of people who know how to handle the oil around, so I don't see why bringing in someone with massive amounts of experience in very deep water is a bad thing.

The director of Avatar, the world's highest-grossing film, and the previous record-holding movie, Titanic, is considered an expert in the technology of deep-sea diving

Assuming the journalist isn't just throwing around the word 'expert', wouldn't that be exactly what BP needs?

In preparation for his 1997 blockbuster, Titanic, he created a new generation of mini remotely operated vessels (ROVs) that were small enough to enter the inside of the sunken ship.

It probably wasn't Cameron himself who designed them, but people working for him. Still, the kind of people who can design working vehicles both agile and small enough to work inside of a 70 (ish, I don't remember the precise year the titanic sank) year old wreck and not destroy it? These are the kind of people you want working with you.

He has filmed at depths of as much as two miles – twice the depth of the Deepwater Horizon well.

Yeah.

In addition to the information provided by your own article, you seem to also be forgetting that one of the dangers for the folks in the Gulf is fading publicity. If people get bored and wander away, if the media stops covering it, if people aren't reminded that a whole shoreline is now devastated by oil, then guess what happens? BP feels the pressure ease, and they start turning down claims and screwing over the locals again. What are they going to do, litigate? That worked so well with Exxon.

So yeah, a little bit of a celebrity expert is really not a bad thing, so long as he acts like an expert and not a Hollywood director, and makes sure to work with the other experts around. And you know what? It sounds like he's pretty good at doing just that, given the various entities he's collaborated with.

[Serephino]

If he has anything at all to offer I say great!  The people of BP are staring at it with their thumbs up their asses. 

[Dashenka]

Okay that video generally annoyed me for two reasons:

One, the voice over thinks she is more usefull than God, which is a totally ridiculous statement and annoyed me from the first line she spoke which resulted in me not taking her serious anymore. If she is more usefull than God, why is she complaining about it and not offering her help to BP or whoever wishes to help out. It's very and safe to be arogant about other's failures sitting at home. Yes BP is being incompetent, but I knew that without the comments of this obviously disgruntled woman. Strong language is good when it serves a purpose, in this case, I miss the purpose other than claiming her right and BP's wrong. (Which has already been proven without this woman.)

Honestly clips with idiot people like this woman only fuel the support for BP and not for the good cause. At least that's how it works on this part of the world. If you claim to be more usefull than God, proof it by deeds, or shut the hell up.

Second, and I know I'm on thin ice with this one. From what I've heard (read: I do not know if this is correct) Mr Obama said that he will hold BP responsible and it is their duty to clean up the oil. Now I understand he will hold them responsible but if this is true I think it's again a great sign of miss placed arogance by a person to let BP on their own with this.

I cannot imagine there is no government institution for this kind of accidents who should help out. It's easy to point the finger at BP and tell them to clean up their mess but their mess is endangering millions and now is not the time to be arogant.
Again I'm not sure what is being said and done about it by the government as we simply don't see that here in Russia but when a company is failing, like BP is now, I think it's the government's duty to help out.


So to summon up, yes BP is very incompetent in cleaning up their mess but as always, the loudest people scream and do not help. If you do not wish to help, shut up and let the people who are their jobs, (good or not) do their work.

[Ket]

Just a note - no where in that video did the person talking about booming state that they weren't helping.  That's an unknown.

[Will]

The woman in the video sounds as if she's been familiar with BP's ineptitude and irresponsibility for a long time.  Her frustration makes sense.  Saying that "Yes, BP screwed up, but you don't have to be mean about it" is really downplaying the magnitude of the situation. 

They fucked up my Gulf, severely.  I don't need to help out to be angry about it.  If someone dumped a bucket of crude oil on my front lawn, I wouldn't have to get out there with a scrub brush to have a right to be upset.