Gulf oil spill

[Easties EL]

I could never give you what you want from me, to this debate. However, I am going to the Gulf of Mexico in to help up with the clear up and assisting the wildlife rescue, which is something more powerful than words and sentences. (this is not true, but you get my point right)?

[HAL9000]

No need to go to the Gulf of Mexico to assist in the clean up - the oil slick is coming to us. Wait until it reaches the English Channel then pour all your detergents down the loo and flush - that'll help disperse it.

[katie1997]

Easties EL Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I could never give you what you want from me, to

> this debate. However, I am going to the Gulf of

> Mexico in to help up with the clear up and

> assisting the wildlife rescue, which is something

> more powerful than words and sentences. (this is

> not true, but you get my point right)?

Easties, yeah I do get your point although isn't this what the forum/drawing room is for? Simply that - discussion.

There may be people on here who are working on environmental projects and trying to do something constructive.

I'm interested to know more about the regulatory changes that will happen as a result of this incident. The shipping industry will suffer too as bookings made far in advance will be cancelled or postponed.

[Easties EL]

Plenty of eco-friendly cleaning products. As is there many options for eco-friendly houses, cars, transport, packaging, etc. But we all work the 9-5 and the powers that be, only give us 90 % un-eco friendly options, well since I've been around anyway. You get a lot of companies claming to be eco-friendly, but (holds breath, let's go).

Countries in the third world who get occupied by massive drinks industries, who ruin their clean water systems, just to provide world with fizzy pop, is a crime. More of crime, then me taking a dump and making sure to kill the germs, after every week or so, by pouring some bleach down the bozz.

[katie1997]

It can take 20 years or more to commercialise a new technology. Where's the investment coming from? What company is prepared to plough money into something at an early stage? There needs to be a mandate for legislative change before things happen on that wider scale.

BP are going to donate the revenue from the oil recovered from the spill to help restore the environment and wildlife habitats.

Looks like the flow of oil being recovered has now increased.

Marmora Man - I'm with you here as I reckon, say Exxon (as US company), would be treated rather differently.

Also, look at how Union Carbide chemicals (a US company) managed to get away with the largest pollution incident in India all those years ago.....disgraceful.

edited for rubbish typing

[vinceayre]

And now Obama is comparing it to 9/11 what a moron.

[katie1997]

Exactly....I think he has conveniently forgotten there were more companies involved than BP here - and crucially - not British either eg. the cementing contractor, drilling contractor.

All the drilling in that area is pretty much in deep-water and was fully authorised by their authorities.

Call my cynical but isn't there an election coming up too ...?

[HAL9000]

I'm wondering how much of the spill BP claims to have captured is actually water/seawater and whether the volume of captured oil has been independently verified?

According to the live video feed a huge plume of oil is still spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. By my reckoning, the plume looks as big as it did before.

[HAL9000]

Apparently, spill capture was suspended yesterday because lightning set fire to the oil tanker - looks like even the gods have shorted BP's stock!

[katie1997]

Anadarko, joint operator for drilling the Deepwater Horizon well, are blaming BP for the accident after being asked to help pay towards the claims. So I think there will be some serious questions asked about knowledge and timing of the failure.

And a US greetings card company has produced Satirical BP Oil Spill Greetings Cards to raise money for clean up costs (!)

No comment....

Is anyone out there developing technology to separate oil from water? Please submit your idea to BP.

edited for spelling etc

[vinceayre]

There are no methods for avoiding what happened to the oil well as it would seem BP has tapped one of the biggest wells yet, the pressure that is coming out off that pipe should have eased by now which is why they were surprised when the top-fill didn't work. The pressure was simply too much for any fail safe. From what I have heard the oil industry is pretty much in awe of what BP are doing at the moment. Not only are they drilling a mile below sea level they are then two more miles into bedrock. They are drilling at a pace unheard of with a pipe about 3" in diameter which is going to meet up with another pipe three miles down. That is some skill!

Obama is just playing the classic schoolboy trick of "its not me Miss I didn't do it, it was him"

Sadly though their CEO is a PR disaster waiting to happen.

[SeanMacGabhann]

what absolute poppycock vince - not drilling until you are sure is a method of avoiding.

But if you are publishing how proud of risk taking you are, chickens will come home to roost

BP are responsible - end of

['bout now]

BP are a global concern, a company with a +40% american ownership, they fit the American dream of capitalism without borders, so successfully that they are the worlds 4th biggest company. They employed multiple companies to effect this risk, Seacrest (owner of the platform) and Halliburton (where have I heard that name before!!!!!!) amongst others. Two months down the line certain engineers are saying that warnings were ignored and that BP are culpable. Two months. I'll say that again, TWO months.

What I am trying to say is that this is a huge embarrassment to the US government, deep sea drilling is a massively risky venture and is going on all round the coast of America, primarily to feed the USA's enormous appetite for the stuff. It ain't coming here.

The fault can be spread fairly around all concerns but I will say, would you allow someone to drill, virtually unchecked for oil, knowing that a mistake could lead to environmental disaster?

Because that's what seems to have happened.

[katie1997]

Hmmm.....the US Government will save a huge amount of time and money in setting up a Presidential Commission to investigate the cause of the accident in full detail if it was as simple as that.

There are more players involved - Halliburton and cement spring to mind. (this is not intended to infer blamelessness on the part of BP btw).

Was interested to read the article Sean, although (IMO) George Monbiot, is certainly not someone I'd expect to provide a balanced, factual view on the behaviour of an oil company.

[katie1997]

Exactly - the US regulator is likely to face some tough questions during the investigation of the cause of the accident.

[SeanMacGabhann]

well there is THAT of course - but factually I can't fault anything I read in the article

But I don't get the US v UK angle on this. If something similar happened here in 2010, the British government would be equally agitated. No government can manage every company to the level of "would you allow someone to drill, virtually unchecked for oil, knowing that a mistake could lead to environmental disaster?"

The US government are culpable for a whole shedload of things but if they want to get antsy with a company about this then they have every right to. And would they have gotten so antsy if back in the early days of the leak, BP weren't so busy telling everyone it was all under control. We even had people on this thread saying on page 1

"To put the current oil spill into perspective, during the Gulf War in 1991 a much larger quantity of the same light sweet crude spilled into the Persian Gulf where the temperature of the sea is similar to that in the Gulf of Mexico. Most of that oil dispersed naturally causing minimal long-term environmental damage. See Gulf War oil spill.

According to CNN this morning, by Wednesday BP hopes to have up to 85% of the gusher confined within a spill capture dome presently under construction."

This isn't REALLY the US governments fault. Monbiot and a whole bunch of others would say we are all to blame with our dependence on oil and there is something in that, but in the day to day operations of this thing there is a clear smoking gun. That area could be drilled in due course if warnings were heeded. If you want to risk it, then don't say it's anyone elses fault if it goes tits up. If you don't have a plan B, tell people before you drill

[katie1997]

I hear what you're saying about the US v UK angle and I think you're mistaken to say that it isn't (partly) the fault of the US government. They (the Government) are the regulatory body and in the US its remit and responsibility is for promoting and maximising recovery potential of the oil AND happens to be the SAME body that holds responsibility for safety.

(IMO) this is an issue of complacency on the part of the US regulator and that of the various companies concerned. The US regulator issued consent for the joint operating agreement of these companies (BP, Anadarko, Halliburton).

I DO think that governments can 'manage companies to mitigate for disasters'. Oil spill continency plans can be written into their licences to operate. Bitter lessons were learnt here in the UK following the tragic accident of the Piper Alpha disaster in the North Sea in the 1980s. (and the UK has still allowed deep drilling operations in certain areas).

Any oil company operating in those difficult conditions (high temperature and high pressures, such as deepwater wells) will I imagine be seriously checking their safety equipment e.g. BOP (blow out preventor - a safety valve device that seals the hole of the well).

In the GoM case it was compounded by several things going wrong at the same time eg. the BOP failed as well as the cement casing.

Key point - the flow rate of the well was underestimated in the GoM. So even if there HAD been a tanker in place it wouldn't have captured it (if the well hadn't ruptured in the first place).

As someone has already mentioned on here, the GoM well is HUGE.....it is estimated now at 40-60,000 barrels of oil per day (compare this with what is considered a good well in the North Sea = lets say around 20, 000).

[vinceayre]

Sean your naivety of the real world is shown with your comment on not drilling because we don't understand all the risks.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Not sure I follow you vince. I'm naive how exactly? You seem to be saying I "comment on not drilling because we don't understand all the risks"

It's not a binary world. Risk needs to be assessed all the time. It's not a case of "there is some risk so we shouldn't do it". It should be a case of risk probability - eg the risk of something going wrong here exceeeds 90% (or whatever) based on the reports available to us. We are going to go ahead anyway but here are mitigation plans a, b and c

that isn't naievety - that's good planning and seperates succesful companies from ones that break (Enron, Northern Rock, BP?)

Not only did BP not do this (from where I'm standing) but when it did go horribly wrong their attitude was complacent to the point of criminality. They could have been transparent and said here is what we expected to do in this eventuality but because it's x times the size of our forecasts we need to call on anyone who can help to join forces. Instead they did a "nothing to see here, move along" job.

[katie1997]

Its complacency all round - BP submitted drilling plans, including risks and estimated reserves to the administration, who have clearly failed to police the industry.

Yes, CEO Tony Hayward has been heavily criticised for the actions during the aftermath; MD Bod Dudley now responsible for everyday handling of the crisis. BP will, quite rightly, suffer.

Obama supported expansion of offshore drilling - including deepwater wells below 152 meters - in his revised energy policy. There is a huge fear in the US that companies in the GoM will leave for elsewhere (Brazil).

Elections in November is it? ... and most Americans still support offshore drilling!

[HAL9000]

Monday's Panorama accused BP of knowingly ignoring several serious safely issues - for example - the defective/broken BOP, an insufficient number of pipe spacers (6 instead of a recommended 21) and failure to confirm the integrity of the 'cement job' - amongst others.

If true, the allegations represent a strong case for arguing that BP is primarily responsible for the blowout.

AFAIK, no one has claimed that a functional BOP would have failed to withstand the pressure in this case.

[expat]

Looks like Tony Hayward is passing over to Bod Dudley to tackle the oilspill.

Also apparrently a judge has ruled that the moratorium on deep sea drilling is illegal.

[vinceayre]

not drilling until you are sure is a method of avoiding

You cant ever be sure that's my point.

It's not a binary world

Decisions are binary, its either a yes or a no. At some point someone has to make a call. If we try to mitigate the risk away we will never move forward.

[katie1997]

Oh-kay. In my non-professional opinion, I think this incident could see BP go bust.

I mean, imagine trying to control a fire hose at full pressure by remote control robots, several miles underwater.

That is what they are effectively trying to do here.

[expat]

BP could go bust especially if they revoke their permission to operate in the States. So far the money they have

spend does not even begin to make a real dent in their profits....