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A US government panel is to question BP's US chief over the Gulf oil disaster amid damning accusations the firm took shortcuts.

Lamar McKay has been called to testify along with heads of other oil companies about the safety of deepwater drilling.

Congressmen have suggested in a letter to BP that the company took decisions which raised the risk of a disaster.


BBC News - US oil firms 'unprepared' for major offshore disaster

Reading down the article, it looks pretty dreadful by BP. Seems Larsmac may have been right about the takeover possibilities!

There was a spill of equivalent dimensions once before in the Gulf of Mexico, there's a good write-up about recovery times for the environment at Mexico's Ixtoc 1 oil spill a distant mirror to BP disaster

I understand that the British Petroleum oil rig that blew up was manned by an American crew, so surely it was that crew that was lax in their safety precautions. Unless, of course, they had strict instructions from higher up to do things in a certain way?

G#Gill;1316068 wrote: I understand that the British Petroleum oil rig that blew up was manned by an American crew, so surely it was that crew that was lax in their safety precautions. Unless, of course, they had strict instructions from higher up to do things in a certain way?


The decisions being criticized were all managerial within BP and I doubt whether the people concerned had ever set foot on the rig. They certainly weren't on it when the events occurred. They were policy decisions which (according to the critics) took cheaper options at the expense of safety issues.

G#Gill;1316068 wrote: I understand that the British Petroleum oil rig that blew up was manned by an American crew, so surely it was that crew that was lax in their safety precautions. Unless, of course, they had strict instructions from higher up to do things in a certain way?
I'm sure there is enough fault to spread it around to all nationalities.

I'm sure there is enough fault to spread it around to all nationalities.


To me the issue isn't nationality. It's out of control big business and lax-to-corrupt government regulation. This is a global issue. BP is just the current case which may or may not bring the issue to a head.

Clodhopper;1316200 wrote: To me the issue isn't nationality. It's out of control big business and lax-to-corrupt government regulation. This is a global issue. BP is just the current case which may or may not bring the issue to a head.
I agree completely. I just found it funny the way Gill tried blaming it on American workers.

YZGI;1316072 wrote: I'm sure there is enough fault to spread it around to all nationalities.


In the early days of this we were even reasonably assured this wasn't a plot carried out by Osamas crew.:rolleyes:

G#Gill;1316068 wrote: I understand that the British Petroleum oil rig that blew up was manned by an American crew, so surely it was that crew that was lax in their safety precautions. Unless, of course, they had strict instructions from higher up to do things in a certain way?


BP refused several advices that were given.

I've been playing a game with myself: How many different words fit BP's anagram?

BP=

Bad People

Busted Polluters

Bragging Predators

Big Punks

Bloody Pinheads

Got anymore?:D

Oh, and this BP thing is nothing next to the disaster that happened when that asteroid hit the Gulf of Mexico and wiped out the dinosaurs....:wah:

Saint_;1316310 wrote: I've been playing a game with myself: How many different words fit BP's anagram?



BP=



Bad People

Busted Polluters

Bragging Predators

Big Punks

Bloody Pinheads



Got anymore?:D
British Petroleum

British people

:D

YZGI;1316312 wrote: British Petroleum

British people

:D


no, no NO! It's supposed to be derogatory! You know, like "Blasted Pencilnecks!!"

Saint_;1316313 wrote: no, no NO! It's supposed to be derogatory! You know, like "Blasted Pencilnecks!!"


:yh_rotfl:yh_rotfl:yh_rotfl

Saint_;1316310 wrote: I've been playing a game with myself: How many different words fit BP's anagram?I quite like Omit Hubrist Leper.

YzGI: I don't take BP's f- up personally. A multinational is a multinational regardless of its country of origin and I've got problems with the lot of them. But some people had a certain amount of national pride invested in BP and for them this is humiliating, especially if they are older folk who have watched Britain's place in the world decline since WW2.

YZGI: I don't take BP's f- up personally. A multinational is a multinational regardless of its country of origin and I've got problems with the lot of them. But some people had a certain amount of national pride invested in BP and for them this is humiliating, especially if they are older folk who have watched Britain's place in the world decline since WW2.

??? How the heck did I do that?

interesting point about national pride. How is it possible to have national pride about a multinational company?

I much prefer the sort of national pride I saw in "Mike Bassett England Manager"

By being misled by the "British" bit in BP, even though BP has been "Beyond Petroleum" officially for some time. Apparently.

I don't care what nationalities are involved, just fix the damn thing and get the crap cleaned up. We can affix blame in due time but now is not the time.

And that is very much the point.

The Oil Drum | Deepwater Oil Spill - A Longer Term Problem, Personnel - and Open Thread 2 is worth a read, followed by the discussion between various commentators on its validity.

Thanks, spot. I got a bit lost, but if I got the gist right:

1) The whole system is being battered to bits and we are looking at a potential bleed out of the whole well into the gulf. Something like 200,000 barrels a day for five years.

2) Lack of experienced middle management in the oil industry is a systemic problem caused by boom and bust cycles which means the industry is constantly laying off the young graduates who ought to be the next generation of managers when things slow down and has to start again with new ones when they pick up again.

3) Lack of Inspectors, lack of resources in the whole area of Inspection.

There were a few informed comments saying it wasn't so, but on the other hand it did sound convincing. To the extent of carrying on until the relief wells take the pressure down to nothing anyway.

On the other hand, nobody seems to have grasped that in two years time all of the oil so far will be nothing. Two years from maybe October there won't be anything left of significance in terms of environmental effects. People have lost their perspective talking about the Gulf Of Mexico Is Destroyed. Just go back and re-read the Ixtoc 1 event and how long it hung around.

People have lost their perspective talking about the Gulf Of Mexico Is Destroyed. Just go back and re-read the Ixtoc 1 event and how long it hung around.


Must admit it's something I've wondered about in the past - when the US entered WW2 the U boats sank tankers by the dozen from the Gulf to the St Lawrence before the US got convoys going. Never heard anything about any effects, and there weren't modern clean-up techniques around at that time. That's not to say this should be taken likely. If it does bleed out, well, quantity can have a quality all its own and might take us across some sort of tipping point...

Oh yes - ownership of BP is subject to the usual smoke and mirrors, but appears to be anglo-american. No idea whether the anglo or the american bit is bigger. Don't care.

There's a simple test. Where in the world has there ever been an oil spill whose environmental effects were still bothering people more than two years later. I can't find one.

spot;1316797 wrote: There were a few informed comments saying it wasn't so, but on the other hand it did sound convincing. To the extent of carrying on until the relief wells take the pressure down to nothing anyway.

On the other hand, nobody seems to have grasped that in two years time all of the oil so far will be nothing. Two years from maybe October there won't be anything left of significance in terms of environmental effects. People have lost their perspective talking about the Gulf Of Mexico Is Destroyed. Just go back and re-read the Ixtoc 1 event and how long it hung around.I think changing that sentence to: On the other hand, nobody seems to give a sh!t that in two years time all of the oil so far will be nothing." Which would be true, at least for most Americans.

All most Americans care about, in my view, is being on the winning side of an argument, substance be damned. Its all political posturing for sport, even down to the common citizen. But I'm thinking you already know that.

I doubt I need to expound on it any further.

If it's an American view then it's been exported because I see it here every day.

Thats not surprising. I can only comment on American culture because its all I know.

Hey, Texas Joe Barton apologized. He was just following Obama's lead in apologizing to everyone for everything. Now joe's apologizing for apologizing. It just gets worser and worser. I know, worser ain't a word.:yh_rotfl

spot;1316805 wrote: There's a simple test. Where in the world has there ever been an oil spill whose environmental effects were still bothering people more than two years later. I can't find one.
Try this one:-

Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it | Environment | The Observer

Ahso!;1316815 wrote: Thats not surprising. I can only comment on American culture because its all I know.


We can comment on American culture because it's all-pervading nowadays

Chookie;1316942 wrote: Try this one:-

Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it | Environment | The Observer


Totally ignored - apparently - in the Aussie media. We're apparently fascinated with anything that happens in the States but the rest of the world, unless there are bombs going off, seems to be largely ignored. Oh the World Cup, our media is going bloody stupid over it, but that's our media for you.

Chookie;1316942 wrote: Try this one:-

Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill.


Perhaps I should have qualified my question with "at sea". Oil on land has little tendency to degrade, microbes can't easily get at it.

Natural oil leakage within the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico, irrespective of drilling, has always amounted to two supertankers full each year, the environment's good at mopping the stuff up.

40% of the material entering the Gulf from the BP drill zone is now methane from surface clathrate deposits[1]. That's a startling new detail.While showing great concern about the environmental disaster to at least 65 miles of shoreline already affected by oil making landfall in the marshes and wetlands, Dr. Kessler believes that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico provides an once-in-a-lifetime window of research on many levels.

"No one would never ever be allowed to 'dump' this much methane and oil into the Gulf to replicate any scientific experiment," he noted. "So this oil spill gives us a very rare opportunity to study what has happened in the past, and perhaps to give us some good clues about what might happen in the future."

U.S. scientist warns impact of methane gas as result of Gulf oil spill







[1] Unless, I suppose, this particular well is an atypical oil well. Typical Gulf ratios of methane to oil are 5%. I've not seen any previous suggestion that the Deepwater Horizon well was producing 40% natural gas.