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  • Obama gets British backlash

    From NPR's marketplace

    BP could cut dividends to shareholders | Marketplace From American Public Media


    Obama gets British backlash

    As BP investors hang in the balance, there are signs the British business and political communities are rallying to support the battered oil company. This week, President Obama told a Today Show television audience he's figuring out who to call out on the Gulf Oil spill. But the public may be growing resentful of Obama's protests.

    "There is a feeling that perhaps because of Obama's quite precarious position himself on this issue that he's using BP as a bit of a scapegoat," says Caroline Bain of the Economist Intelligence Unit. London Mayor Boris Johnson has gone as far as to call Obama "anti-British", while another politician accused Obama of "a crude, bigoted, xenophobic display of partisan political Presidential petulance."

    Meanwhile, Obama has suggested he would have fired BP CEO Tony Hayward, and that BP should put off its dividend payments to investors. That could be a hard sell in a country where where many people rely on BP stock in their retirement plans.

    British Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday his government might be willing to help BP in some way, and his top economic minister reinforced BP's economic value. Cameron will be contacint Obama over the phone this weekend.
    “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

  • #2
    Sigh, they should grow up and stop whining. We have not even begun to be anti-British/English/UK-ish...

    Gulf of Mexico oil slick: Sarah Palin fuels anti-British sentiment
    Sarah Palin has fuelled growing anti-British sentiment over the Gulf of Mexico oil rig disaster by saying "foreign" oil companies like BP were not to be trusted.


    Nick Allen in Louisiana
    Published: 5:37PM BST 06 May 2010
    Gulf of Mexico oil slick: Sarah Palin fuels anti-British sentiment - Telegraph

    The former Alaska governor and potential 2012 presidential candidate attacked the British oil giant over the recent Deepwater Horizon spill and a previous one in her state in 2006.

    Her comments came despite the fact her husband Todd Palin worked for BP for 18 years, as a production supervisor, and only left the company last year to spend more time with his family.


    Mrs Palin urged those in the Gulf of Mexico to "learn from Alaska's lesson with foreign oil companies." She added: "Don't naively trust – verify." As an oil slick the size of Luxembourg loomed off the US coast her intervention added to growing anger at BP among environmentalists and those who face losing their livelihoods.

    Kristina Johnson, of the Sierra Club, America's largest grassroots environmental group, said: "They're the ones who have profited from oil and from our oceans. They're the ones who put the Gulf Coast at risk so that they could rake in record profits."

    Captain Damon McKnight, a fishing boat captain in Venice, Louisiana, said: "If I was to go and cause a problem I would be expected to clean it up. My biggest beef is BP is really falling behind in the clean up process.

    "There's all this oil out there and virtually nobody cleaning it. It's not getting done."

    A 100-ton "containment dome" has arrived at the spot where the Deepwater Horizon rig sank 50 miles (80km) off the Louisiana coast on April 22.

    BP hopes that by lowering the 40ft high concrete and steel contraption over the leaks, nearly a mile down, it will be able to capture 200,000 gallons of oil a day which is spewing out. The tactic has never been tried before at such a depth.

    Mrs Palin, who promoted the slogan "Drill, baby, drill," said she continues to support offshore drilling but the US should not rely on foreign countries for oil.

    In 2006, shortly before she became governor, a BP pipeline in Alaska spilt 200,000 gallons of oil at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.

    Investigators blamed the spill on corrosion and BP was eventually ordered to pay $20 million (£12 million) in fines and restitution.

    Months before the Deepwater Horizon spill two congressmen raised concerns about BP's operations in Alaska. They said there had been four "significant" incidents in two years and warned proposed budget cuts might compromise safety.

    *
    Attached Files
    Last edited by troung; 12 Jun 10,, 20:38.
    To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

    Comment


    • #3
      See, what really pisses me off here is that the folks at BP aren't really sitting on their asses doing nothing. They're working as hard as they can to get this fixed. After a while, ragging on them just gets boring, petty and vindictive. It's always easy to kick someone that's down.

      I don't see Obama, with all his talk about kicking ass, doing anything to help the situation or help anybody at all, not even himself with his failing numbers. If he somehow managed to stop this his numbers would skyrocket.

      Honestly, this is one of those cases where it's put up or shut up. Come up with something to do, or sit back and let the people whose job it is do their job. Even if it's not working for them, I guarantee you that an oil engineer who isn't getting it right still knows more about oil spills and the like than an idiot of a president that isn't getting anything right.
      Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

      Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

      Comment


      • #4
        BR,

        See, what really pisses me off here is that the folks at BP aren't really sitting on their asses doing nothing. They're working as hard as they can to get this fixed. After a while, ragging on them just gets boring, petty and vindictive. It's always easy to kick someone that's down.
        so you think without outside pressure BP would be going as all out as they are now? this from a company that's committed 97% of worst industry violations found in the refining industry in the past three years?

        Killer Undersea Oil Plumes From BP Spill Lurk in Gulf of Mexico - BusinessWeek

        or how about these tidbits from CEO Hayward?

        "The oil is on the surface...There aren't any plumes."

        "I am sure they were genuinely ill, but whether it was anything to do with dispersants and oil, whether it was food poisoning or some other reason for them being ill, you know, there's a—food poisoning is surely a big issue when you've got a concentration of this number of people in temporary camps, temporary accommodations."
        There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

        Comment


        • #5
          BR,

          See, what really pisses me off here is that the folks at BP aren't really sitting on their asses doing nothing. They're working as hard as they can to get this fixed.
          from a more economic point of view. BP has little incentive to clean things up if the costs of cleaning/dealing with the inevitable lawsuits exceed the benefits of actually getting the oil flow again.

          government criticism is there to ensure that the cost of inaction exceeds the cost of action.
          There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

          Comment


          • #6
            BP messed up badly and destroyed our Gulf Coast and now another nation is mad and our president calling BP out for messing up and totally failing to stop their spill. We are not burning that many more British flags then normal and if peoples stock portfolios suffer because BP screwed up then it is BP's fault for messing up in the first place.

            Coast Guard to BP: Speed it up, stop the spill
            By JAY REEVES and RAY HENRY, Associated Press Writers Jay Reeves And Ray Henry, Associated Press Writers 1 hr 2 mins ago

            ORANGE BEACH, Ala. – The Coast Guard has demanded that BP step up its efforts to contain the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico by the end of the weekend, telling the British oil giant that its slow pace in stopping the spill is becoming increasingly alarming as the disaster fouled the coastline in ugly new ways Saturday.

            The Coast Guard sent a testy letter to BP's chief operating officer that said the company urgently needs to pick up the pace and present a better plan to contain the spill by the time President Barack Obama arrives on Monday for his fourth visit to the beleaguered coast. The letter, released Saturday, follows nearly two months of tense relations between BP and the government and reflects the growing frustration over the company's inability to stop the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.

            The dispute escalated on the same day that ominous new signs of the tragedy emerged on the beaches of Alabama. Waves of unsightly brown surf hit the shores in Orange Beach, leaving stinking, dark piles of oil that dried in the hot sun and extended up to 12 feet from the water's edge for as far as the eye could see.

            It was the worst hit yet to Alabama beaches. Tar-like globs have washed up periodically throughout the disaster, but Saturday's pollution was significantly worse.

            "This is awful," said Shelley Booker of Shreveport, La., who was staying in a condominium with her teenage daughter and her friends near the deserted beach about 100 miles from the site of the spill.

            Scientists have estimated that anywhere between about 40 million gallons to more than 100 million gallons of oil have spewed into the Gulf since a drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers. The latest cap installed on the blown-out well is capturing about 650,000 gallons of oil a day, but large quantities are still spilling into the sea.

            The Coast Guard initially sent a letter to BP on Wednesday asking for more details on its plans to contain the oil. BP responded, saying a new system to trap much more oil should be complete by mid-July. That system's new design is meant to better withstand the force of hurricanes and could capture about 2 million gallons of oil daily when finished, the company said.

            But Coast Guard Rear Adm. James A. Watson said in a follow-up letter Friday he was concerned that BP's plans were inadequate, especially in light of revised estimates this week that indicated the size of the spill could be up to twice as large as previously thought.

            "BP must identify in the next 48 hours additional leak containment capacity that could be operationalized and expedited to avoid the continued discharge of oil ... Recognizing the complexity of this challenge, every effort must be expended to speed up the process," Watson said in the letter addressed to chief operating officer Doug Suttles.

            Suttles said the company will respond to the letter by Sunday night.

            "We've got a team of people looking to see, can we accelerate some items that are in that plan and is it possible to do more," Suttles said in a brief interview after speaking to workers at a command center where he thanked BP employees and contractors for their work in cleaning up the spill. "There are some real challenges to do that, including safety."

            Suttles also acknowledged that "there's big frustrations out there. They're out there in the community, they're out there in government, they're out there everywhere. And I think they're all rooted in the fact that none of us want this to happen. And none of us want this to occur, and we all want it to get fixed now."

            The letter and deadline come just before Obama is set to visit the Gulf Coast on Monday and Tuesday. On Saturday, Obama reassured British Prime Minister David Cameron that his frustration over the oil spill in the Gulf was not an attack on Britain.

            The two leaders spoke by phone for 30 minutes Saturday. Cameron also has been under pressure to get Obama to tone down the criticism, fearing it will hurt the millions of British retirees holding BP stock that has taken a beating in recent weeks.

            Cameron's office said the prime minister told Obama of his sadness at the disaster, while Obama said he recognized that BP was a multinational company and that his frustration "had nothing to do with national identity."

            BP is hard at work trying to find new ways to capture more oil, but officials say the only way to permanently stop the spill is a relief well that will drill sideways into the broken well and plug it with cement.

            Right now, a containment cap sitting over a well pipe is siphoning off around 653,100 gallons of oil to a ship the ocean surface. That oil is then unloaded to tankers and taken ashore.

            To boost its capacity, BP also plans to trap oil using lines that earlier shot heavy drilling mud deep into the well during a failed attempt to stop the flow. This time, those lines will work in reverse. Oil and gas from the well will flow up to a semi-submersible drilling rig where it will be burned in a specialized boom that BP estimates can vaporize a maximum 420,000 gallons of oil daily. Another ship should be in place by mid-July to process even more oil.

            News that the federal government had given BP until the end of the weekend to speed up the oil containment was met with raised eyebrows and long sighs as locals gathered to barbecue, drink Budweiser and listen to classic rock at a fishing benefit in Pointe a la Hache, La.

            "I'll believe it when I see it," said Dominic Bazile, a firefighter.

            On a Florida beach about 190 miles from the rig explosion, a stainless steel tank with markings that identified it as having come from the Deepwater Horizon washed up on shore. Bay County Sheriff Deputy Ray Maulbeck was working beach patrol Saturday when he came upon the wreckage. The Coast Guard and state environmental officials took the piece away.

            Meanwhile, Gulf states affected by the disaster are putting the squeeze on BP, seeking to protect their interests amid talk of the possibility that BP may eventually file for bankruptcy.

            The attorney general in Florida and the state treasurer in Louisiana want BP to put a total of $7.5 billion in escrow accounts to compensate the states and their residents for damages now and in the future. Alabama doesn't plan to take such action, while Mississippi and Texas haven't said what they will do.

            As of the end of March, BP had only $6.8 billion in cash and cash equivalents available.

            BP said in a statement that it is considering the Florida request. It didn't address the comments by the state treasurer in Louisiana.

            ____

            Associated Press writers Melissa Nelson in Pensacola Beach, Fla., Tamara Lush in Pointe a la Hache, La., Dave Martin in Orange Beach, Jill Lawless in London and Harry R. Weber in Houston contributed to this report. Henry reported from Schriever, La.
            Copyright © 2010 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
            Last edited by troung; 13 Jun 10,, 00:27.
            To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

            Comment


            • #7
              Two of my favorite tv shows are "Spooks" and "Strike Back". They are British and I believe hit shows. One thing that did shock me was the very negative portrayal of the USA in them. In America we are all anglophiles. We love GB. Hell, Tony Blair was the most popular politican here for years and he's british. If I only watched British TV I'd think I live in the land Of the Great Satan. I laughed when I saw we were being "anti british" because we actually wanted BP to do everything possible.
              Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.”
              ~Ronald Reagan

              Comment


              • #8
                It makes little sense to turn those who produce oil into the enemies of society

                By Vince Cable
                Last updated at 8:27 PM on 12th June 2010
                VINCE CABLE: It makes little sense to turn those who produce oil into the enemies of society | Mail Online

                Vince Cable, Business Secretary (and former MoS columnist), injects some much-needed wisdom into the BP row

                BP has experienced the oil industry’s worst nightmare: a marine environmental disaster, with loss of life and widespread, long-lasting damage.

                I recall that after I joined Shell, 20 years ago, the chief executive, Loew van Wachem, gave us an insight into what ‘kept him awake at night’.

                It was the danger of an environ*mental disaster like Exxon Valdez that had done serious damage to the world’s largest oil company Exxon (Esso to British motorists) a few years earlier. We now have another.

                The growing focus on the politics and economics of the crisis is detracting from what is, in the first instance, an engineering problem.
                oil birds

                Nightmare: It is the petroleum engineers, not the politicians and market analysts, who will stop the leak. Pictured, oil-covered pelicans rescued from the Gulf of Mexico spill

                Deepwater drilling, in water a mile deep, is a remarkable technological feat and it is the petroleum engineers, not the politicians and market analysts, who will stop the leak and end this disaster.

                BP engineers are among the best in the world and other companies are contributing specialists.

                Emergency work to stop the leak of up to 40,000 barrels of oil a day has led to 15,000 barrels being collected and there is a good prospect of another major step forward this week.

                But the damage already caused is massive, and we need to remember that 11 people died in the original explosion.

                All of this is causing greater anger in the United States. Some of that anger has been expressed in strong language. But some is justified.

                If a big American oil company had perpetrated the country’s biggest environmental disaster, polluting the beaches from Cornwall to Brighton, you can be sure that the British Parliament and Press would be giving them a seriously hard time.

                There would be a fair bit of anti-American rhetoric. And if American politicians then waded in on the side of ‘their’ company, it would make matters worse.That is why the British Government is approaching the issue with tact and care.


                The Prime Minister has spoken to President Obama about the disaster and to BP, offered help where we can give it, and will have tried to reduce the political temperature. That is exactly the right approach and it is an approach that is fully supported by BP.

                Some of the flag-waving interventions on the British side, like that of former Labour Trade Minister Lord Jones – who should know better – seem calculated to make matters worse.

                BP is not in public ownership. It is a genuine multinational company, albeit with headquarters in the UK. It has more American than UK employees. Over half its refining capacity and petrol stations are in the US.
                oil spill

                Concern: Crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill line Orange Beach, Alabama. This disaster will hopefully concentrate minds on long-term oil supply, and alternatives

                It has as many US shareholders as British and a substantial chunk of its shares owned by Asian and Arab sovereign wealth funds.

                It is still in many ways ‘British’ but it could just as accurately be called an American company.

                It is, of course, important to the British economy. It makes a substantial contribution to tax revenue through corporation tax on its group operations as well as from its North Sea activities.

                BP is important too for institutional investors, currently accounting for 12 to 13 per cent of dividend payments accruing to UK pension funds.

                So I appreciate the concern of British investors that they could take a big hit at a time when the UK economy is struggling to recover.

                A more serious, long-term concern is that claims on BP for damages could escalate to unreasonable levels under political pressure.

                BP is, however, very strong, with expected cash flow after investment and before div*idends expected in 2010 of around $12 billion (£8.24bn) and $20 billion (£13.7bn) expected next year.

                The short-term clean-up costs are around $1 billion and most analysts expect future payouts will be around $25billion spread over quite a number of years – providing compensation relates to the costs for which BP is genuinely responsible.

                The company also has a healthy balance sheet and can borrow to support its long-term investment if necessary.

                Investors should not be panicked by over-excited commentaries which have no regard to the strength of the underlying financial position.

                Oil companies are also producing a product which, in Britain and the US, is used by almost everyone and is regarded as one of the essentials of modern living.

                Americans, in particular, expect a plentiful supply of affordable oil for their cars and aeroplanes. It makes little sense to turn these who produce it into enemies of society.

                What this disaster will – hopefully – do is to concentrate minds on long-term oil supply, and alternatives.

                It was only a few months ago that climate change and the need to move to a low-carbon economy was at the centre of political concerns. These issues have not gone away.

                BP were once leaders among oil companies in pointing the way to an era Beyond Petroleum.

                They will do us all a favour if they start to turn that slogan into reality.

                As for the politicians, on both sides of the Atlantic, we should save the flag-waving for the World Cup.

                Read more: VINCE CABLE: It makes little sense to turn those who produce oil into the enemies of society | Mail Online
                To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by astralis View Post
                  BR,



                  so you think without outside pressure BP would be going as all out as they are now? this from a company that's committed 97% of worst industry violations found in the refining industry in the past three years?

                  Killer Undersea Oil Plumes From BP Spill Lurk in Gulf of Mexico - BusinessWeek

                  or how about these tidbits from CEO Hayward?

                  "The oil is on the surface...There aren't any plumes."

                  "I am sure they were genuinely ill, but whether it was anything to do with dispersants and oil, whether it was food poisoning or some other reason for them being ill, you know, there's a—food poisoning is surely a big issue when you've got a concentration of this number of people in temporary camps, temporary accommodations."
                  Astralis,

                  Shit will happen when you are trying to drill to the deepest parts of the ocean under conditions never encountered before.

                  No one has proven that any amount of regulation on the books would have saved that oil platform when that gigantic high pressure bubble of methane gas screwed them.

                  Those working on the derrick had the ultimate incentive to keep things safe: their lives.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by citanon View Post
                    Astralis,

                    Shit will happen when you are trying to drill to the deepest parts of the ocean under conditions never encountered before.

                    No one has proven that any amount of regulation on the books would have saved that oil platform when that gigantic high pressure bubble of methane gas screwed them.

                    Those working on the derrick had the ultimate incentive to keep things safe: their lives.

                    There is experience drilling in deep water & there are backup devices that exist for just such a situation. I doubt we will ever be able to 'prove' if they would have worked - not least because the organisation with the best data also has the best incentive to argue that it was unavoidable. There were, however, options & the regulators bowed to industry lobbying not to compel them to take those options.

                    The guys on the rig don't get to make those choices - the guys in nice offices who don't risk their lives do.

                    As details began to unfold as to how this eco-disaster occurred, investigators have noted that the oil rig that exploded, caught fire and eventually sank, "The Deepwater Horizon", didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch that is used in two other major oil-producing nations as a last-resort protection against underwater spills.

                    The oil rig not being equipped with the "game changing" shut-off switch, called an acoustic switch, could magnify concerns over the environmental impact of offshore drilling.

                    Currently, U.S. regulators do not mandate the use of the remote-control device on offshore rigs, and The Deepwater Horizon, hired by British Petroleum, didn't have one. In theory, with the remote control, a crewmember can attempt to trigger an underwater valve that shuts down the well even if the oil rig itself is damaged or evacuated.

                    When oil wells rupture and surge out of control, the primary shut-off systems almost always work. In the case of The Deepwater Horizon, the primary shut-off system failed to work. Indeed, remote control systems such as the acoustic switch, which have been tested in simulations, are intended as a last resort.

                    Nonetheless, Norway and Brazil, two major oil producing countries, require them. Production records indicate that Norway has had acoustic triggers on almost every offshore rig since 1993.

                    The U.S. did consider requiring a remote-controlled shut-off mechanism several years ago, however, drilling company executives questioned the apparatus' cost and effectiveness; according to the agency overseeing U.S. offshore drilling. The agency, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, stated that it decided the remote device wasn't needed because in their opinion, oil rigs had other back-up plans to cut off surging crude from a ruptured well.

                    British Petroleum reportedly is spending 6 million dollars a day to combat the oil spill that threatens so much of the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida coastline and fisheries and wildlife. In hind sight one must question if indeed the cost of installing The Deepwater Horizon with an acoustic switch would have cost BP a considerable amount less amount of money than what they are now forced to pay in cleanup after opting not to have the device.



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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                      There is experience drilling in deep water & there are backup devices that exist for just such a situation. I doubt we will ever be able to 'prove' if they would have worked - not least because the organisation with the best data also has the best incentive to argue that it was unavoidable. There were, however, options & the regulators bowed to industry lobbying not to compel them to take those options.

                      The guys on the rig don't get to make those choices - the guys in nice offices who don't risk their lives do.


                      Allvoices.com - External Link
                      Bigfella,

                      They had the BOP which was supposed to automatically shear off and crimp up the pipe at its base.... that didn't work, and I don't think people are proposing that this mechanism would have worked either.

                      In any case, those guys on the derrick might have still been blown to smithereens by that time: the disaster was caused by a high pressure methane bubble that went up the derrick, flooded the entire place with methane gas, and then exploded after coming in contact with an ignition source.

                      The way that they might have been able to save themselves was by shutting down all machinery around the derrick, shutting off all the valves on the line, and then praying real hard.

                      Unfortunately the two people on the rig who had the authority to do that, had to jointly make that decision, and there just wasn't the time. It turns out one guy was actually in the shower when this happened but even if the two of them were both on the bridge it wasn't clear whether there was time for them to realize what was happening and make the call.

                      IMO the best way to guard against this type of disaster in the future is to have one guy on station at the derrick 24/7 who has the authority to shut down everything. To do that you need to push that authority further down the chain of command. Unfortunately the SOP for BP at the time was to only entrust the two top managers with shut down authority. If any changes need to be made I'd start there with the management structure, which was just too slow and cumbersome to respond to this type of fast and sudden disaster.

                      Also, I believe Deepwater Horizon is probably the deepest drilling disaster on the record books. In the last 5 years the oil companies have been pushing much deeper than they have before due to rising energy prices making such ventures profitable, and that has apparently taken them into unknown territory.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Here's what I want to know, what was the violation record like before BP bought Amoco.
                        F/A-18E/F Super Hornet: The Honda Accord of fighters.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by BenRoethig View Post
                          Here's what I want to know, what was the violation record like before BP bought Amoco.
                          It was 12 years ago is it really pertinent?
                          Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.”
                          ~Ronald Reagan

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by citanon View Post
                            Astralis,

                            Shit will happen when you are trying to drill to the deepest parts of the ocean under conditions never encountered before.

                            No one has proven that any amount of regulation on the books would have saved that oil platform when that gigantic high pressure bubble of methane gas screwed them.

                            Those working on the derrick had the ultimate incentive to keep things safe: their lives.
                            Well, looks like BP DID make a bunch of bad/irresponsible decisions during the drilling.

                            Documents reveal BP's missteps before blowout
                            Oil giant engineer describes 'nightmare well' six days before rig explosion
                            By MATTHEW DALY, RAY HENRY
                            Associated Press Writers
                            The Associated Press
                            updated 4:15 p.m. PT, Mon., June 14, 2010

                            NEW ORLEANS - BP made a series of money-saving shortcuts and blunders that dramatically increased the danger of a destructive oil spill in a well that an engineer ominously described as a "nightmare" just six days before the blowout, according to documents released Monday that provide new insight into the causes of the disaster.

                            The House Energy and Commerce Committee released dozens of internal documents that outline several problems on the deepsea rig in the days and weeks before the April 20 explosion that set in motion the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history. The committee has been investigating the explosion and its aftermath.

                            "Time after time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense. If this is what happened, BP's carelessness and complacency have inflicted a heavy toll on the Gulf, its inhabitants, and the workers on the rig," said Democratic Reps. Henry A. Waxman and Bart Stupak.

                            The missteps emerged on the same day that President Barack Obama made his fourth visit to the Gulf, where he sought to assure beleaguered residents that the government will "leave the Gulf Coast in better shape than it was before."

                            The breached well has dumped as much as 114 million gallons of oil into the Gulf under the worst-case scenario described by scientists — a rate of more than 2 million a day. BP has collected 5.6 million gallons of oil through its latest containment cap on top of the well, or about 630,000 gallons per day.

                            But BP believes it will see considerable improvements in the next two weeks. The company said Monday that it could trap a maximum of roughly 2.2 million gallons of oil each day by the end of June as it deploys additional containment efforts, including a system that could start burning off vast quantities as early as Tuesday. That would more than triple the amount of oil it is currently capturing — and be a huge relief for those trying to keep it from hitting the shore.

                            Possible 'game changer'
                            "It would be a game changer," said Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Mark Boivin, deputy director for near-shore operations at a command center in Mobile. He works with a team that coordinates the efforts of roughly 80 skimming boats gathering oil off the coast.

                            Still, BP warned its containment efforts could face problems if hoses or pipes clog and engineers struggle to run the complicated collection system. Early efforts at the bottom of the Gulf failed to capture oil.

                            Meanwhile, congressional investigators have identified several mistakes by BP in the weeks leading up to the disaster as it fell way behind on drilling the well.

                            BP started drilling in October, only to have the rig damaged by Hurricane Ida a month later. The company switched to the Deepwater Horizon rig and resumed drilling on Feb. 6. The rig was 43 days late for its next drilling location by the time it exploded April 20, costing BP at least $500,000 each day it was overdue, congressional documents show.

                            As BP found itself in a frantic race against time to get the job done, engineers cut corners in the well design, cementing and drilling mud efforts and the installation of safety devices known as "lockdown sleeves" and "centralizers," according to congressional investigators.

                            In the design of the well, the company apparently chose a riskier option among two possibilities to provide a barrier to the flow of gas in space surrounding steel tubes in the well, documents and internal e-mails show. The decision saved BP $7 million to $10 million; the original cost estimate for the well was about $96 million.

                            'Crazy well'
                            In an e-mail, BP engineer Brian Morel told a fellow employee that the company is likely to make last-minute changes in the well.

                            "We could be running it in 2-3 days, so need a relative quick response. Sorry for the late notice, this has been nightmare well which has everyone all over the place," Morel wrote.

                            The e-mail chain culminated with the following message by another worker: "This has been a crazy well for sure."

                            BP also apparently rejected advice of a subcontractor, Halliburton Inc., in preparing for a cementing job to close up the well. BP rejected Halliburton's recommendation to use 21 "centralizers" to make sure the casing ran down the center of the well bore. Instead, BP used six centralizers.

                            In an e-mail on April 16, a BP official involved in the decision explained: "It will take 10 hours to install them. I do not like this." Later that day, another official recognized the risks of proceeding with insufficient centralizers but commented: "Who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine."

                            The lawmakers also said BP also decided against a nine- to 12-hour procedure known as a "cement bond log" that would have tested the integrity of the cement. A team from Schlumberger, an oil services firm, was on board the rig, but BP sent the team home on a regularly scheduled helicopter flight the morning of April 20.

                            Less than 12 hours later, the rig exploded.

                            BP also failed to fully circulate drilling mud, a 12-hour procedure that could have helped detect gas pockets that later shot up the well and exploded on the drilling rig.

                            A spokesman for BP could not immediately reached for comment on the findings, but executives including CEO Tony Hayward will be questioned by Congress on Thursday.

                            The letter from Waxman and Stupak noted at least five questionable decisions BP made before the explosion, and was supplemented by 61 footnotes and dozens of documents.

                            "The common feature of these five decisions is that they posed a trade-off between cost and well safety," said Waxman and Stupak. Waxman chairs the energy panel while Stupak heads a subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

                            Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

                            URL: Documents reveal BP's missteps before blowout - Disaster in the Gulf- msnbc.com

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                            • #15
                              One of the most admirable things about the US is it's laissez-faire approach. BP has exploited this to the full and turned into a slick-production.

                              We in the UK had a similar situation in the 'Eighties - Piper-Alpha (owned by Occidental, now part of BP) - and changed the regulations accordingly. America did not follow our lead.

                              Let BP clean-up the mess with the support (not crowing) of America's politicians. As long as BP pays for the cost - all of which it is not required to do under US law - then America can continue guzzling oil.

                              As for appropriating BP assets, Chavas would have a chuckle. Would he see this as a further green-light for nationalising US-assets in the name of socialism...?

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