Oil Spill

Oil Spill

I find it hard to believe that we have allowed it to go on this long. The entire nation should be boycotting BP until they stop the leak and clean up their mess (I'd bet that the coastal cities and maybe even states are!)! If you listen to them talk about what they are doing, it is always the same. Our last attempt has only recovered 6% of what is leaking [I'm paraphrasing, not quoting]. Their only concern is recovering the oil, not stopping the leak! The majority of Scientists at the onset of this ecological disaster have recommended blasting the leak to stop it (I have no idea how that would work) and I personally would trust Scientists not connected to BP to have the best solution. I think it's time we ALL start worrying about this considering the oceans are the lifeblood of this planet.

Whoever is capable (money, manpower, expertise, etc) should be somewhat obligated to. Naturally those responsible for it in the first place, are "responsible", but playing the blame-game doesn't really go anywhere.

As for "blasting", the idea is basically the same as a needle in your skin, if the needle is still there, the blood will continue to drain, take the needle out, and your body will naturally heal over. However in the case of drilling, there isn't a "needle" really, since the earth itself was forced into creating its own needle, but if you blast inside that hole... it will naturally collapse upon itself under it's own weight.

The problem with blasting, is it depends entirely on the surrounding material, it's possible that blasting would only slow the leak, and not stop it... if blasting fails, you have now screwed up any other options you may have had since it will be leaking from a few places/a whole area rather than a finite spot, so you would have to clear out all the material you blasted/broke to get back to just the original hole.

There are numerous problems with capping, and ultimately are usually only temporary solutions (even if "temporary" is a hundred years). Getting access to it (depth, landscape, etc), surrounding material (and stability of it), the back-pressure, etc are all factors...

However "capping" is almost certainly what they (BP, Government, the rest of the a**holes) would want to do since it would allow them to pretty much resume operating and start pumping oil back out of the well again. (blasting means they would have to drill a new well).

Personally, I lean largely in the direction of "<i>they don't want to</i>" rather than "<i>they don't know how</i>"... by and large, this isn't much of anything from the perspective of the planet, it's one hiccup out of billions (from our perspective it's major, but our viewpoint is small). I'm inclined to believe they are "milking it", and that ultimately they will try and gain something from it, more laws, restrictions, a way to put pressure on other countries, an assortment of other tariffs, and deprivations.

Whoever does finally do it, will probably be touted around as some pseudo-Jesus, Captain Planet super-hero... this could be a company (other than BP and those involved, but never underestimate the propaganda machine), a country, or a technology... whichever one is likely to make the most profit in the end for those that want to make the profit, <i>rather than</i> just anyone who is actually capable of doing it... too much back-scratching involved for them to simply let anyone fix it, thus... why it hasn't been fixed yet.

But... I'm kinda rambling... Don't have too much of a problem with the Coast Guard... but, f**k the rest of them...lol

Originally posted by Smokeater116:

The majority of Scientists at the onset of this ecological disaster have recommended blasting the leak to stop it (I have no idea how that would work) and I personally would trust Scientists not connected to BP to have the best solution.

Not sure if it's what you're referring to but one way I've read about would be to drill a hole nearby, drop some serious explosives in there, fill it up with concrete, wait a bit and then detonate it. The idea is to shift enough dirt sideways to cut off the original hole.

This entire fiasco is just one more illustration of Jaybro's Law: Shit Happens.

Other instances?
Krakatoa
WWII
The Great Influenza Outbreak
The Bush Administration

About the "Fault".

Bleating on about Obama not trying hard enough, BP not trying hard enough, ban BP and so on are pointless without better insight.

I don't know if the US is capable of this, but there should be a wide ranging review of all matters leading to this disaster, for it is in all of our interests (not just the US) to prevent such things. The review should go back to the earliest moment, when the prospect of rilling for oil in that region was first mooted. I would like to know, for example:

Who initiated the project?
What was the process by which the contractor was chosen
What were the requirements that the contractor had to meet
What were the liabilities agreed between the contractor and the US Government
Were other governments involved and what were their liabilities/rights?
What were the criteria for choosing the winning contractor?
What was the management of the project, were US Government Agencies involved and what was their role?
Were there reviews at critical stages to approve the design of the installation?
Who "signed off" the project as being operational (Government or BP?) If only one why not both?
Were requirements and/or designs changed during the programme? Why ? Did they affect reliability/safety?
What inspection processes were in place?
Who was in charge of critical decisions?
What were the relative roles of Government, local authorities, BP, subcontractors?
What are current financial liabilities?
What are the recommendations for the management, control and certification of the next such project?

and on the technical side

What was the cause
What was the history of failure (eg signs of failure)
Had other such failures occurred elsewhere?
Was a safety analysis done? and what was it's conclusions if done?
Was a risk analysis done? and what was it's conclusions if done?
Was a reliability analysis done and what was it's conclusions if done?
Were there other parts of the installation which were vulnerable or had failed?
What are design recommendations for shutting down, continuing or building new installations?

No doubt I've missed things out (I could go on), but hopefully the point is taken that the review has to look inwards as well as outwards and it must be very very thorough and not be per-conditioned towards a set political conclusion.

I think they should leave it to scientists to work out the problem

Originally posted by Museatlantis:

I think they should leave it to scientists to work out the problem

I presume you mean Engineers?

Of course, there is no problem you can't apply yet more engineers to.

We make 'em , we fix 'em.

It's ironical that a company that has already started the move towards BP - Beyond Petroleum will fall due to an oil leak.

How could we even effectively boycott BP? If we stop going to BP gas stations, we are hurting random small business owners who had nothing to do with BP operations. Their only mistake was choosing BP instead of Shell or Texaco, etc. They all do the same crap; go watch Crude.

I'm parking my car! Enough, already.

This evil could lead to a inherent good if it pushes us even faster toward eco-fuels. There isn’t much doubt it’s been handled wrong and will continue to be. And I’m sure FEMA will show up after the fact (as they are so good at) and point out all the things that should have been done. In the end if we take the right steps and heal the wounds we could come out living in a better world… But I know, I’m a hopeless optimist.

Originally posted by Smokeater116:

BP

Contrary to what Obama and other public representatives are saying, they are not "British Petroleum", rather they are "Bungling Petroleum".
Still, there are a lot of people on the coast of Mississippi that are getting quite pissed and are actually teaming up with the Cajuns to protest Bungling Petroleum. (Which is a miracle in itself because generally the Cajuns and the Coastal Mississippians are usually rivals.)

All I can say is that BP better have deep pockets, because there are a lot of fishermen/women in my state and Louisiana that are out of work because of this screw-up up of mass proportions.

oil spill.jpg

Obama talking tough? He is going through the motions but it doesn't seem to resonate too well and he isn't doing himself many favours over here. Didn't this same man put his shoulder behind the exploration? And as Jaybro says such things happen.

Funny..the other day I saw a GMC Yukon with all kinds of anti-BP messages all over it....people don't seem to connect their own choices with environmental catastrophes like this. Reduce demand and their won't be as much need for the drilling in the first place. Therefore: Step 1 is to get rid of your oversized SUV and truck that gets 10 miles to the gallon....

Obama! We have president on the brain here, Rj. The latest gambit is that he doesn't get angry enough. Jesus Lord Muffin!

And I would also point out that you didn't get to vote against him. For better or worse, he's ours.
.........................................
If a nation doubles the number of handguns stored in drawers, it shouldn't be too surprised that more children will be shot. Now what is a likely outcome of a doubling or tripling of nuclear facilities around the world?

I thought so.

The entire nation should be boycotting BP

Okiedokie, just as soon as I get my solar-powered car, maybe with a mini-windfarm under the hood for a little extra power.

Would this disaster have been a little more controllable if it had been on land or a little closer to the coastline?

The only spill that I'm aware it's the pipeline where BP (and all the others) leaks green bills. Directly to politicians, not the sea.
Obama (and the democrats) just didn't have the time to receive enough.

Originally posted by Jaybro:

. The latest gambit is that he doesn't get angry enough. Jesus Lord Muffin!

I dunno..now he's asking whose arse he needs to kick.

Originally posted by fanfaron:

Okiedokie, just as soon as I get my solar-powered car, maybe with a mini-windfarm under the hood for a little extra power.

Or have a brain and stop veering to the most ridiculous extreme of what somebody is saying (like you've done to me), knowing full what that's not what was meant. Boycotting BP means...IDK...not going the BP station and choosing a different one. Why do you do this Fan? You take somebody's simple, common sense statement and turn into some radical dogmatic position that they never proposed in the first place.

Originally posted by fanfaron:

Would this disaster have been a little more controllable if it had been on land or a little closer to the coastline?

Yes and yes.

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

Or have a brain and stop veering to the most ridiculous extreme of what somebody is saying (like you've done to me), knowing full what that's not what was meant. Boycotting BP means...IDK...not going the BP station and choosing a different one. Why do you do this Fan?

Because boycotts are idiotic. Say, let's drive the price of gasoline double in an economic crunch. Great idea.

Originally posted by fanfaron:

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

Or have a brain and stop veering to the most ridiculous extreme of what somebody is saying (like you've done to me), knowing full what that's not what was meant. Boycotting BP means...IDK...not going the BP station and choosing a different one. Why do you do this Fan?

Because boycotts are idiotic. Say, let's drive the price of gasoline double in an economic crunch. Great idea.

Technically that would lower the price of gasoline, since BP would have trouble selling it and would need to lower the price to get rid of it

Originally posted by Muttsfan:

Originally posted by fanfaron:

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

Or have a brain and stop veering to the most ridiculous extreme of what somebody is saying (like you've done to me), knowing full what that's not what was meant. Boycotting BP means...IDK...not going the BP station and choosing a different one. Why do you do this Fan?

Because boycotts are idiotic. Say, let's drive the price of gasoline double in an economic crunch. Great idea.

Technically that would lower the price of gasoline, since BP would have trouble selling it and would need to lower the price to get rid of it

No it wouldn't. It would be doing harm to a major player in oil exploration and extraction. The supply would go down.

Originally posted by fanfaron:

No it wouldn't. It would be doing harm to a major player in oil exploration and extraction. The supply would go down.

Originally posted by Muttsfan:

Originally posted by fanfaron:

No it wouldn't. It would be doing harm to a major player in oil exploration and extraction. The supply would go down.

So you think BP, in the grip of a boycott (assuming it's effective) would just continue delivering the same amount to refineries?

(edit) I didn't think so.

Done editing are we?

Originally posted by fanfaron:

So you think BP, in the grip of a boycott (assuming it's effective) would just continue delivering the same amount to refineries?

DUDE, you're like totally right and stuff. BP will be doooooooomed! It seems your master's degrees in financial economics is much better then mine. Clearly all those lectures I listened to from renowned professors in the past 5 years of studying were all wrong.

Quick, make an anti-boycott boycott. TELL YOUR FRIENDS, THEY NEED TO BUY AS MUCH BP GASOLINE AS THEY CAN. they can rent a storage space and store it in huge barrels. THEY CAN'T SURVIVE WITHOUT YOU MAN!!!!


note:
It's a good thing you rephrased that "answer" you previously posted. Took you a few tries, but you cleverly decided to write it in the form of a question to appear more knowledgeable
note: his semi-original post: No, you're wrong, blah blah blah blah....

Originally posted by Muttsfan:

Done editing are we?

Yeah.

Originally posted by Muttsfan:

Originally posted by fanfaron:

So you think BP, in the grip of a boycott (assuming it's effective) would just continue delivering the same amount to refineries?

DUDE, you're like totally right and stuff. BP will be doooooooomed! It seems your master's degrees in financial economics is much better then mine. Clearly all those lectures I listened to from renowned professors in the past 5 years of studying were all wrong.

Quick, make an anti-boycott boycott. TELL YOUR FRIENDS, THEY NEED TO BUY AS MUCH BP GASOLINE AS THEY CAN. they can rent a storage space and store it in huge barrels. THEY CAN'T SURVIVE WITHOUT YOU MAN!!!!


note:
It's a good thing you rephrased that "answer" you previously posted. Took you a few tries, but you cleverly decided to write it in the form of a question to appear more knowledgeable
note: his semi-original post: No, you're wrong, blah blah blah blah....

Cute, but that doesn't answer the question. The point of a boycott, I assume, would be to hurt BP, right? So if BP is hurt, would they continue delivering the same amount of oil to refineries? And if they don't, what happens to the supply of oil? It's not every backyard whiz who can go out and extract oil from 5,000 feet down. Now, I suppose you could swing all your business to Exxon and have them take up the slack, which would just bring up another corporate bogeyman to boycott if and when some other shit happens.

Originally posted by Muttsfan:

Quick, make an anti-boycott boycott. TELL YOUR FRIENDS, THEY NEED TO BUY AS MUCH BP GASOLINE AS THEY CAN. they can rent a storage space and store it in huge barrels. THEY CAN'T SURVIVE WITHOUT YOU MAN!!!!

By the way, no, that would increase the price of oil as well, on the demand side.

But, ah, what the hell. BOYCOTT THOSE BP BASTARDS!!!!! PUT 'EM OUT OF BUSINESS!!!!! There ya go.

But I love how people think putting local gas stations out of business will somehow hurt BP.

Originally posted by fanfaron:

But I love how people think putting local gas stations out of business will somehow hurt BP.

Originally posted by fanfaron:

Cute, but that doesn't answer the question. The point of a boycott, I assume, would be to hurt BP, right? So if BP is hurt, would they continue delivering the same amount of oil to refineries? And if they don't, what happens to the supply of oil? It's not every backyard whiz who can go out and extract oil from 5,000 feet down. Now, I suppose you could swing all your business to Exxon and have them take up the slack, which would just bring up another corporate bogeyman to boycott if and when some other shit happens.

I love how he manages to debate with himself.

well then, I'll just leave you to it. Have fun

Originally posted by Muttsfan:

I love how he manages to debate with himself.

At least it's honest. I guess the point of the boycott IS to put local gas station owners out of business. Way to go, then.

Originally posted by Muttsfan:

well then, I'll just leave you to it. Have fun

As always.

Originally posted by fanfaron:

Because boycotts are idiotic. Say, let's drive the price of gasoline double in an economic crunch. Great idea

And just how will that double the price of gasoline? Of kind of supply and demand thing your right-wing pundits lied to you about? The pricer of oil had been all but divorced from supply and demand long ago. I'm sure they'll get back together once the oil supply really begings to dwindle, but boycotting BP stations won't cause it. The other producers could pick up the slack.

Oh yeah, your other idiocy. Boycotting BP will harm BP, even if they're locally owned. (probably are, haven't been arsed to check) becuase.....OMG....:gasp:....local BP stations get their gas from where? All together now....BP!

Seriously, brah. Turn off Hannity, Rush, Faux News, etc and think.

Man who dig hole too deep should stop digging.

What the hell is wrong with BP? They didn't do this deliberately..........

Originally posted by ssandman:

What the hell is wrong with BP? They didn't do this deliberately..........

Poor or lack of management or lack of accountability of the oil rig. No one on the rig knew who was in charge of the rig.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/us/06rig.html

Criminal violations. Considering the damage they have done to the environment and the economic damage to the people working in that region, can really be considered terrorism. Of course, the poor response after the spill is also and largely due to White House ineffectiveness (you find out what kind of leaders you really have when there is a real crisis).

The company [BP] consistently understated the spill’s severity, overestimated the progress of the repair operation and low-balled the environmental damage. Yet the White House’s designated point man in the crisis, Adm. Thad Allen of the Coast Guard, was still publicly reaffirming his trust in the BP chief executive, Tony Hayward, as recently as two weeks ago, more than a month after the rig exploded.

This is baffling, and then some, given BP’s atrocious record prior to this catastrophe. In the last three years, according to the Center for Public Integrity, BP accounted for “97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the refining industry by government safety inspectors” — including 760 citations for “egregious, willful” violations (compared with only eight at the two oil companies that tied for second place). Hayward’s predecessor at BP, ousted in a sex-and-blackmail scandal in 2007, had placed cost-cutting (and ever more obscene profits) over safety, culminating in the BP Texas City refinery explosion that killed 15 and injured 170 in 2005. Last October The Times uncovered documents revealing that BP had still failed to address hundreds of safety hazards at that refinery in the four years after the explosion, prompting the largest fine in the history of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (The fine, $87 million, was no doubt regarded as petty cash by a company whose profit reached nearly $17 billion last year.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/opinion/06rich.html

Considering how much the regulators are in bed with industry, it takes a lot, really very serious and blatant issues, to be cited for "willfull egregious" violations.

Originally posted by BernG:

Of course, the poor response after the spill is also and largely due to White House ineffectiveness (you find out what kind of leaders you really have when there is a real crisis).

You'll have to explain what this means. What is it that any president could have done following such an accident that would have mitigated whatever it is that you find lacking?

Any government that has a host of remedies on hand for every eventuality is more government than most people would support. And I'm not a no-government person.

Originally posted by Jaybro:

Originally posted by BernG:

Of course, the poor response after the spill is also and largely due to White House ineffectiveness (you find out what kind of leaders you really have when there is a real crisis).

You'll have to explain what this means. What is it that any president could have done following such an accident that would have mitigated whatever it is that you find lacking?

Any government that has a host of remedies on hand for every eventuality is more government than most people would support. And I'm not a no-government person.

Maybe some efficiency and governmental assertiveness instead of kowtowing to BP.

1. Reporters, reported that they were not allowed to visit shore islands near the gulf leak to see how much oil was washed ashore. Our coast guard told them it was by order of BP (I didn't know our coast guard reported tp BP) even though the land was public and visiting would not have affected their operations. It was a story on the NY Times or the Washington Post (I no longer have the link). This "misunderstanding" has now been corrected.

2. The very large low balling of the oil leak. It was obvious to scientific groups who were visiting with their research vessels, that BP's spillage was understated by a magnitude. When the scientists gave their estimates BP poo pooed them. The scientists then said we have tools and the equipment to give us an accurate measure - let us use them. BP then denied them access to the area, with the Fed government backing them up.

3. The blatant corruption of the MMS. Regulators copying reports which were pre-written by on site industry employees and the constant freebies given to the regulators (vacations, sport tickets, dinners).

I thought about this the other day:

Would the US government be happy if BP went under?

If it's because of the US government (or if they can at least spin it that way), then I'd say yes.

Originally posted by TroyMclure:

I thought about this the other day:

Would the US government be happy if BP went under?

Probably not - many senators and congressmen would lose a campaign contributor.

I'm glad our campaign budgets are public and complete peanuts compared to those in the US. What a waste for a load of hooey. There's another bunch of millions that could be spent better.

Originally posted by Frenzie:

I'm glad our campaign budgets are public and complete peanuts compared to those in the US. What a waste for a load of hooey. There's another bunch of millions that could be spent better.

Absolutely. From here it looks a hell of a lot like ritualized bribery.

Has anyone here come across a link to a report on / description of the equipment that failed and caused the leak? It would be nice to know what is at the root of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQur_rsnc0o

Originally posted by TroyMclure:

Would the US government be happy if BP went under?

No, and neither would the UK coalition gov't.
With each passing day that stocks go down in Bungling Petroleum, your UK pensions go down.
I read the other day where BP paid about 10.3 bilion pounds to the UK gov't.

Originally posted by Macallan:

From here it looks a hell of a lot like ritualized bribery.

Yup, the Great Brain Robbery

Should not a major part of the blame go to the public who demand more oil, despite its detrimental global effects.

Isn't an American company involved in this with BP? Why did Obama who kind of bores me wax lyrically about the full name when BP stopped using the full name years ago? Strikes me he wants to appear tough but he doesn't do tough very well does he? It is a bit of a disaster but so was Bopal in India when hundreds of thousands became ill, large numbers dying and still deaths haopen and. No-one in the White House was tough then? No proper compensation for the poor sods out there but Obama has a thing about doing "British" Petroleum. The man is a lightweight in the White House and a lightweight in most things. Trying to talk hard doesn't suit him and is so out of character it is almost funny.

Originally posted by rjhowie:

Why did Obama, who kind of bores me, wax lyrically about the full name when BP stopped using the full name years ago?

(correct sentence structure done free of charge)
Probably because it's current name, Beyond Petroleum, reeks of irony. This spill could well finish BP, or it could be a blessing in disguise for them.
Personally I like the name, Bungling Petroleum.

Originally posted by rjhowie:

Strikes me he wants to appear tough but he doesn't do tough very well does he?

That is the opinion of some, yes.

Originally posted by rjhowie:

No proper compensation for the poor sods out there but Obama has a thing about doing "British" Petroleum.

He's probably been reading your anti-American rants for years, like many of us.
(This is his revenge at you!)

Originally posted by rjhowie:

The man is a lightweight in the White House and a lightweight in most things. Trying to talk hard doesn't suit him and is so out of character it is almost funny.

Can we count on you to run for the GOP nomination in the fall of '12?

Originally posted by leftwing:

Should not a major part of the blame go to the public who demand more oil, despite its detrimental global effects.

Yeah that's what I was saying in my post about the women with a GMC Yukon covered in anti-BP slogans. She drives a huge SUV, pissed as hell at BP and apparently not catching that millions of Americans driving that and similar vehicles (Ford Expedition, Chevy Suburban, etc) are part the problem in the first place

Originally posted by string:

Has anyone here come across a link to a report on / description of the equipment that failed and caused the leak? It would be nice to know what is at the root of this.

A full analysis may be premature pending a more thorough, but...

During the testing phase, some abnormal readings were detected that indicated that the cement cap might not be sealing the well correctly. Apparently further testing lead the BP supervisor to determine that the well was sealed and the mud was pumped out of the well. As the mud was pumped out, gas from the well was allowed to escape up the well causing a blow-out with resulting explosion and fire.

The blowout preventer did not work as expected resulting in the spill we see today.

There appears to be more than one event that led to the spill. It was a combination of procedures and equipment failures that led to the spill.

More study and evaluation will be done on this spill. The blowout preventer will be studied to try to determine why it was unable to shut down the well.
..........
http://www.examiner.com/x-325-Global-Warming-Examiner~y2010m5d26-Congressional-inquiry-into-BP-oil-spill-releases-preliminary-report

It would not suprise me at all if this whole thing was a setup.

It doesn't smell right.

shame on humankind

Originally posted by Jaybro:

http://www.examiner.com/x-325-Global-Warming-Examiner~y2010m5d26-Congressional-inquiry-into-BP-oil-spill-releases-preliminary-report

Thanks, Jaybro - that helps.

Regarding TroyMclure's remark on something smelly / setup, I don't think so myself, but I do think, as I mentioned before, that a review of the spill to obtain lessons on the whole affair should take into account the whole process of procurement and requirements and design approval. That's a longer term affair of course the priority now is to contain and repair the damage and plug that leak good and proper.

But there is certainly more to this than the event itself, in man's quest for more and more oil, it has to be determined whether such risks are worthwhile. It needs little brain to understand that this sort of accident was simply waiting to happen somewhere and will happen again if this type of deep water drilling is continued. What next, the South Atlantic.

EstonianGirl's remark is apt. If people allow this type of drilling for oil to happen on their territory then they should understand that this type of incident will happen sooner or later. Responsibility starts from the beginning.

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

Oh yeah, your other idiocy. Boycotting BP will harm BP,

No. I said the AIM is to hurt BP. But it won't, because...

Originally posted by Sanguinmoon:

even if they're locally owned. (probably are, haven't been arsed to check) becuase.....OMG....:gasp:....local BP stations get their gas from where? All together now....BP!

To understand why boycotting BP stations won't really work, you have to understand how the oil industry works.

The stores that sell fuel are simply franchise owners, people who have paid BP for the right to use the name. The fuel they sell may or may not come from BP. Similarly, other gas stations that you may now be going to in your efforts to bypass BP may carry some BP fuel.

"When one producer has a glut, they sell to the other producer," says Fred Taub, a business consultant who studies boycotts and writes about them.

The only way to harm BP is to actually know exactly where all its fuel is going and boycott those stations, too.

Rao said the success of BP long-term will be determined by its stock price. It has dropped about 38 percent since the spill and continues to fall.

But he's not sure Americans want BP to suffer so much that the company goes out of business. Who would pay to clean up the spill?

BP is the second largest oil company in the world, second only to Shell. It has more than 9,000 stations in the United States. None of those retail stations are owned by BP, says Hejdi Feick, a BP spokeswoman.

She said BP has suffered no significant impact on its gasoline sales since the spill.

Get your nose out of Mother Jones every now and then and join us in the real world. Source.

What this reminds me of was all that "let's boycott oil companies!!!!!" idiocy back when gas prices hit $4 per gallon here.

Originally posted by fanfaron:

What this reminds me of was all that "let's boycott oil companies!!!!!" idiocy back when gas prices hit $4 per gallon here.

So how will boyic

Originally posted by fanfaron:

The stores that sell fuel are simply franchise owners, people who have paid BP for the right to use the name. The fuel they sell may or may not come from BP.

Likely they will. Oh my god

Originally posted by fanfaron:

Rao said the success of BP long-term will be determined by its stock price. It has dropped about 38 percent since the spill and continues to fall.

Yup, boycott BP and lower the demand for its product and increase bad PR for them, watch the stock fall more We always knew you'd come around

Originally posted by fanfaron:

What this reminds me of was all that "let's boycott oil companies!!!!!" idiocy back when gas prices hit $4 per gallon here.

Who did that? To do that, you'd need sell your car and by a bicycle...oh wait the new owner of your car would be an oil company consumer. However, what's being suggested to reduce consumption of oil. Driving less, getting more fuel effect car if you can, etc. Common sense things that isn't anywhere near extremism of the Left or Right.

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

you'd need sell your car and by a bicycle...

I'm sure fanfaron could easily spinscream that into commie terror stalinism.
I bet Hitler had a bicyle too.

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

even if they're locally owned. (probably are, haven't been arsed to check) becuase.....OMG....:gasp:....local BP stations get their gas from where? All together now....BP!

Originally posted by reality:

The stores that sell fuel are simply franchise owners, people who have paid BP for the right to use the name. The fuel they sell may or may not come from BP. Similarly, other gas stations that you may now be going to in your efforts to bypass BP may carry some BP fuel.

Just admit that you were talking out of your ass, and move on.

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

Yup, boycott BP and lower the demand for its product and increase bad PR for them, watch the stock fall more We always knew you'd come around

Yeah, you could even drive them out of business. Wouldn't that be grand.

Originally posted by Macallan:

I'm sure fanfaron could easily spinscream that into commie terror stalinism.

What's wrong with Stalinism? Rapid economic development and social equality...what more could you want?

Regarding earlier comment especially from thedawgfan about the possible finish of BP that would not please even many ex-Colonists. I understand there are more Americans depended on a BP pay cheque than Britons? Some 20,000 over there according to a tv news report

As for the President he hardly acts like one does he? He is not only ridiculous as a figure in all this but he has been extremely personal and very vindictive in is vitriolic mouthings. Hardly the speech style for a Head of State but more like a grubby politician with poor poll reviews and mid term elections coming up. Talk about an amateur in a professional's job. He has a lot to say and n particular using the British word that BP has not used as a corporate label for nearly 18 years. If however he is unaware of this he is even dumber than I reckoned. Seems he likes to bait and act like a clown and conveniently forgets that America is no angel. In whipping up things with this oil spill he conveniently sidesteps the glaring fact that the world is in financial disaster due to what started in the great US of A. That is even worse as it effects globally. The man is not going down to well here at all.

Originally posted by fanfaron:

Yeah, you could even drive them out of business. Wouldn't that be grand.

No. If nothing else, BP would get acquired by somebody else. The oil production they would have made wouild continue, even if the name BP disappeared. What happened, some rightwing-nut pundit got your scared if BP going under or something?

Originally posted by fantasy:

If you own a BP station, it means you're probably buying your gas from Chevron

Come now Fan. How a franschise works is you get to use the name and usually the main company is your supplier, regardless of what a minor newspaper tells you.

So defending BP is the "conservative" position now, despite the colossal failures on their part?

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

So defending BP is the "conservative" position now, despite the colossal failures on their part?

What colossal failure(s) Sang? As I have tried to point out, albeit obliquely, there are, potentially, a lot of failures that could have led to this situation, right from the decision to allow drilling in the first place. Is it not self evident that such activities carry with them the risk of just such a disaster? What standards were imposed on BP and how were they regulated? I suspect that too few were imposed and that they were not regulated.

One has to look at the whole beginning-to-end process to find out what went wrong (see my little list that I posted earlier).

On the matter of boycotting - to take a parallel, should everyone boycott Boeing and their aircraft? There have been a number of crashes involving Boeing Aircraft, mostly complex but all, by the same restricted logic being used by those that call for boycotting BP in this case, caused by some failure in equipment or procedures on Boeing aircraft. There is an equally silly case to be made there.

In the light of what happened, it is not surprising that people vent their anger at BP in a knee jerk fashion, and they certainly deserve some flack. But a lot of the stuff seems to be invoking wise-after-the-event mouthings and even what amounts to retrospective legislation.

edit - on a somewhat different facet, see this article: BP's financial pain is America's pain

This one loses in translation, but never mind, Norwegian oil company guarantees superior technology to clean sea birds (Opplysningskontoret is kind of a Norwegian Onion).

On a related note, this is a man-made unintentional disaster like, as string said, a plane crash or anything by Roland Emmerich. Finding out what happened and reassessing risks and routines would have global consequences. It would be interesting to read the abstract of a report commissioned by the Norwegian oil industry comparing conditions in the Gulf and the North Sea. Similar reports are presumably being made elsewhere as well.

Originally posted by string:

What colossal failure(s) Sang?

How about their inability to top the leak, using measures to block the oil they were told wouldn't work, etc

The situation with BP is nothing like Boeing. Our local economy is already being badly damaged. We rely heavily on tourism in Perdido Key and others tourist areas as well as fishing. Two industries are destroyed here. The lives of hundreds of thousands of people are being effected in that and other ways, such as the value of my mother's house that she's trying to sell dropping by tens of thousands of dollars.

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

Originally posted by string:

What colossal failure(s) Sang?

How about their inability to top the leak, using measures to block the oil they were told wouldn't work, etc

The situation with BP is nothing like Boeing. Our local economy is already being badly damaged. We rely heavily on tourism in Perdido Key and others tourist areas as well as fishing. Two industries are destroyed here. The lives of hundreds of thousands of people are being effected in that and other ways, such as the value of my mother's house that she's trying to sell dropping by tens of thousands of dollars.

Apparently stopping such a leak is very difficult and it is no surprise, although regrettable, that early attempts were not successful. Someone else has a miracle cure?

While of course I would agree that no disaster can be the same, it has the same elements of failure within it that I pointed out. More people have died in plane crashes; a failure in process and a failure in equipment.

What I am reacting to is the knee jerk approach to the situation which I had imagined would be beneath the more aware. But then I guess people felt much the same when the Exxon Valdez went down, not to mention the Piper Valdez, although I don't recall such rhetoric in those times. It seems that Obama has lost his balance somewhat.

Of relevance is the recent open letter sent by RSA boss John Napier to Obama:

RSA Boss Slams Barack Obama In BP Row

Originally posted by string:

What I am reacting to is the knee jerk approach to the situation which I had imagined would be beneath the more aware

If the local economy of Wessex was ruined, you'd be pissed too.

People are furious not for some general hippy, liberal save the planet reason. People's business are ruined, their houses of lost tens of thousands of dollars. BP has written some checks, but in general not enough to cover the damage. For those that like articles:


Florida Officials Want to Run Cleanup With BP’s Funds (Update1)

By Kim Chipman and Mary Jane Credeur

June 7 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc should hand over the effort to clean up its oil washing onto Florida beaches because the company is failing to take forceful enough action, local government officials said.

“They can write the checks,” Gene Valentino, a commissioner for Escambia County, which includes Pensacola Beach, told reporters at a briefing yesterday. “In the meantime, we need action. We need boots on the ground. We need specific remedies and solutions to respond to the impacts as they occur.”

Floridians are preparing for the worst as oil spilling from a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico threatens the state’s $60 billion tourism industry. Officials of Escambia County in Florida’s northwest Panhandle, where tar balls and clumps of oil began soiling white-sand beaches last week, said hundreds of residents have called and sent e-mails asking how they can help, with little response from BP on what to do...


etc

This is very real and economic as well as environmental disaster. Mean people like Fanfaron here defend BP on ideological grounds

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

Originally posted by string:

What I am reacting to is the knee jerk approach to the situation which I had imagined would be beneath the more aware

String, you're overly optimistic.
If the local economy of Wessex was ruined, you'd be pissed too.

Is anybody here or anywhere happy about this? I didn't think so.

And not just the local economy of Wessex but that of millions here. Many of the leading Pension Funds get up to 20% of their income from BP so it effects hordes of pensioners here. I note that half the BP directors are Americans and half British although you wouldn't think so the way that eejit in the White House goes on.

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

Originally posted by string:

What I am reacting to is the knee jerk approach to the situation which I had imagined would be beneath the more aware

If the local economy of Wessex was ruined, you'd be pissed too.

If that were the case of course I would get pissed ; but I would try to remain rational.
We have oil wells here too by the way.

In Wessex?

Originally posted by jax:

In Wessex?

http://www.google.com/search?q=Wessex+Basin+oil
http://maps.ihs.com/basin-monitor-ordering-service/europe/images/205000oil-and-gas-wessex-basin.jpg

Thank you Vectronic, good of you to check.

Yes the presence of oil has been known for generations, if not the significance of it. I remember as a kid going to the rocky beach at Kimmeridge and grumbling about the oily rocks there.

But eventually the large deposits came to light and drilling happened, although on a scale which was carefully controlled by the local communities. see here for some more information from the Purbeck Marine Wildlife Reserve.. The current field at Wytch Farm gets about 80,000 barrels a day, but there is more, also off shore.

The current crisis in the US underlines the need for effective regulation.

Going by presumptions, the U.K. unto itself is screwed for oil though, given the amount of time it takes society to transition, how much oil you potentially have, and how much you use... around the time you got your usage low enough, is about the time you'd run out... although worth noting is that the UK population is about twice Canada, but we use about 30% more oil... coal is about equal...

However, if we told everyone else to f*off... we'd have about 220 years before we ran out, at current consumption... that's assuming the statistics are anywhere near accurate. Naturally this won't happen, and by about 2025 we'll probably be invaded by everyone and their robotic dog, and we'll be called <i>New Chinada</i> or something.

Originally posted by Vectronic:

However, if we told everyone else to f*off... we'd have about 220 years before we ran out, at current consumption

You're our friends. We need your oil. Now! The UK's, too. Now.

It's nice to have good friends.

New Chinada - it's already happened in Vancouver!

If you look here and scroll to the pie charts in the article and you will get an idea of how thinking goes here. I can't find, as yet, a suitable up-to-date information giving the same sort of over-view. the 2020 pie chart is misleading because of the fairly recent massive investment in wind-power generation in the UK, the growing interest in wave power generation and tidal power generation, and the imminent resuscitation of the nuclear power industry, so one could expect those sectors to grow in importance.

It looks promising here from that aspect and I think we are well on the way to less oil dependence; not none, but less.

Originally posted by Jaybro:

It's nice to have good friends.

It is indeed!

But I digress I have a football match to watch.

(damned foreigners!)
Enjoy.

This oil spill is definitely an example of if it can go wrong it will. The mile deep ocean depth is fairly new territory, unfortunately the pioneers take the arrows. Basically all the oil companies are learning from this, and what is learned will be applied elsewhere. Due to the depth there was at the no way to gage the amount of oil leaking, all the estimates were low and perhaps self serving.

As for the boycotts it does not make much sense. Most of the major markets are served by a few companies. Especially inland markets often have only one gas (petrol) pipeline serving it. Dozens of companies get their products from a few distributors in the various markets and add their proprietary chemicals to the tanker truck. For example to boycott BP you would have to boycott all the various brands in a given market. While in other, markets boycotting BP stations in markets not hooked into the BP distribution would hurt oil companies other than BP.

@grysmn - yes a key issue is to learn the lessons.

In what I've posted so far I have brought stress to the fact that it is not just the oil company involved in this thing, the chain of events include all sorts of influences, most notably government involvement in the approval of the project at the beginning and (it should if not) the approval of the eventually design and operations taking into account the risks involved.

Concentrating on the oil company alone, which seems to be the case at the moment in much of the political rhetoric, and demanding of BP remuneration of all costs which have, will, might be or might not be attributed to the oil leak may all be great political fun but it is not axiomatically the correct way to go.

It is important to learn those lessons and concentrating on BP's responsibility alone risks ignoring those other factors which have led to this disaster. Lessons from all mistakes must be learnt, not just those of the most visible villain.

"if it can go wrong it will" - exactly. Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to have adopted an approach for California which amounts to "don't drill for off-shore oil". Maybe that (self-evident) conclusion should have been considered at the very onset of deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico so that people could decide that they were not prepared to accept the consequences of a major leak.

See here - Oil spill casts doubts on deep water exploration.

There is more information, by the way, here on the events.

Originally posted by string:

It is important to learn those lessons and concentrating on BP's responsibility alone risks ignoring those other factors which have led to this disaster.

In the immediate aftermath of a disaster, one of the worst things that can happen is to set new policies in concrete. Politically, the Republicans took to Obama with hammer and tong for "not doing enough." Let me suggest that the same thing would have happened if a Republican president were in office. It's the nature of the beast.

Norway has instituted a moratorium on new drilling and the UK is moving ahead on new drilling. Understandable on both counts, as is Obama's moratorium. The long-term reality is quite otherwise:

Jim Kunstler’s view is that sooner or later, the citizens will awaken and wonder how the energy situation could get so out of hand, or “stealing of their future,” as he phrases it. “Whatever else one might say about American culture,” adds Kunstler, “it is keenly attuned to a sense of heroes and villains. We take great pride in our ability to blow away the bad guys.”
.........................................
Venezuelan economist Carlos Rossi stated to ASPO his analysis of oil trends in the U.S. “You are worried about your foreign oil imports now,” he said. “You in the U.S. import about 65% of your oil today. You don’t like it. But if you follow the clear trends, by 2025, you’ll be importing about 92% of your oil. You’ll like that even less.”
http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/deep-water-oil-wont-cure-peak-oil/

The above was published pre-Gulf episode.
The idea that modern nations will abandon or cut back substantially on petroleum consumption is foolhardy. It ain't gonna happen.

Lest we worry too much about the damage to BP, we should reflect briefly on the company's first quarter profits of $5.6 billion. No I didn't get that wrong. Billion.

Still, nearby states shouldn't get greedy.

I predict Obama will buy BP, for 20 cents.

String ask me how BP failed, well in the opinion page of my local paper there was some of the more ridiculous ones, such as getting experts that had been dead for 4 years......

http://www.pnj.com/article/20100614/OPINION/6140301/1020/Editorial--The-joke-s-on-us

Editorial: The joke's on us

The case for the failure of regulatory oversight as a prime culprit in the growing oil spill disaster is now, to grab an unfortunate government phrase, a slam dunk.


Yes, we need strong government regulation.

But it must be exercised. It has to be active regulation, not sat on a shelf somewhere while corporations go their own way.

The Associated Press last week "capped" the gushing spill of information confirming the failure of regulation in an examination of BP's oil spill response plans. They included a 582-page regional plan for the Gulf and a 52-page "site specific" plan for responding to a spill from the Deepwater Horizon, the source of the current mess.

To pit it simply, the plans were a joke.

The AP politely reported that the plans "vastly understate the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and vastly overstate the company's preparedness. ..."

Among the less funny jokes in the plans:

A professor listed to be contacted as a wildlife expert has been dead since 2005; the plans were filed in 2009.

Among the wildlife BP says could be affected by a Gulf spill are walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals — none of which live in or even near the Gulf.

Names and phone numbers for other experts and agencies are wrong.

BP said it was capable of collecting 20 million gallons of spilled oil a day ... about what experts say had spilled as of last week, leaving a slick covering 3,300 square miles.

BP said there would be "no adverse impacts" to birds, turtles and other marine life.

But here are the ultimate knee-slappers: BP said its response would be so effective that there was only a 21 percent chance that oil would reach Louisiana beaches within 30 days of a spill (it took nine days); beaches BP said were out of danger were hit within weeks of the start of the spill; and in the case of the Deepwater Horizon operation, "Due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts (to the coast) are expected."

It's a bad joke — and we're the punchline.

Obama Compares Gulf Oil Spill To 9/11 Tragedy

http://www.infowars.com/obama-compares-gulf-oil-spill-to-911-tragedy/

Is Alex Jones "off key"?

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

"Due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts (to the coast) are expected."

It all depends on how loose you are with "adverse".

Is anybody surprised that regulators often get cozy with regulees?

US President Barack Obama has called on his party and supporters to back a "new future" of clean energy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/us_and_canada/10313921.stm

Originally posted by grysmn:

This oil spill is definitely an example of if it can go wrong it will. The mile deep ocean depth is fairly new territory, unfortunately the pioneers take the arrows. Basically all the oil companies are learning from this, and what is learned will be applied elsewhere. Due to the depth there was at the no way to gage the amount of oil leaking, all the estimates were low and perhaps self serving.

But if negligence is a factor then nothing learned of the technological problems will matter.

The following reveals some details of what might have helped. That is, if corners hadn't been cut.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/science/earth/15rig.html

Boycot British Petroleum / ARCO... their fuel is shit anyhow.

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/congress_confirms_wsjs_story_o.php

The evidence keeps stacking up that BP cut all kinds of corners to save time and money at the expense of safety while drilling the Deepwater Horizon well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/why-obama-should-put-bp-u_b_595346.html

It's time for the federal government to put BP under temporary receivership, which gives the government authority to take over BP's operations in the Gulf of Mexico until the gusher is stopped. This is the only way the public will know what's going on, be confident enough resources are being put to stopping the gusher, ensure BP's strategy is correct, know the government has enough clout to force BP to use a different one if necessary, and be sure the president is ultimately in charge.

All British Petroleums assets should be seized until this shit is cleaned up and all affected compensated.

All British Petroleums assets should be seized until this shit is cleaned up and all affected compensated.

It has been called 'Beyond Petroleum' for years. Its a multinational company anyway. Just because the CEO is an English person doesn't mean its British any more.

I just wish some Americans would realise that the mess is not just BP, nor is a British event, the people of the Britain have nothing to do with it, nor does Britain (England as the US calls our country); it is a multinational firm ? both British and US, and some other countries who have a share of the company are involved in this spill, no one else. The rig was US built and maintained, and BP only leased it. Nor can the US government Mineral Management Services be free from blame as they played fast and loose with the plan for this off shore drilling.

I don't think this was an accident anyway. I think your president has got a hand in this mess.

What a stupid comment that is about seizing all BP's assets until this is cleared. So to compound things our Pensioner Funds are to be additionally made worse too are they? There are two other American companies very much involved here. The rig when it went down only had less that 1I think it was 6 or 8 BP workers on it. Both Haliburton and the other lot only got passing knocks from Obama. Indeed Haliburton (Cheney's mob) was responsible for the cementing of the line on the sea bed not BP for example. He is letting them off remarkably lightly here while shoving everything totally on to BP which is unfair and wrong. The other two firms are getting off rather lightly here so begs the question why?

Originally posted by TroyMclure:

I think your president has got a hand in this mess.

And a quarter of the US believes in a New World Order, so.....

Originally posted by TroyMclure:

'Beyond Petroleum'

I still like 'Bungling Petroleum' as the name better.

Goes with their pals in Hiding Haliburton (if I am not offending the ex-VP?).

FACT CHECK: Obama left blanks in oil spill speech.

Washington (AP) In assuring Americans that BP won't control the compensation fund for Gulf oil spill recovery, President Barack Obama failed to mention that the government won't control it, either.

That means it's anyone's guess whether the government can, in fact, make BP pay all costs related to the spill.

Obama aimed high in his prime-time Oval Office address Tuesday night — perhaps higher than the facts support and history teaches — as he vowed to restore livelihoods and nature from the still-unfolding calamity in the Gulf of Mexico.

A look at some of his statements and how they compare with those facts:



OBAMA: "We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused and we will do whatever's necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy. ... Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness. And this fund will not be controlled by BP. In order to ensure that all legitimate claims are paid out in a fair and timely manner, the account must and will be administered by an independent, third party."

THE FACTS: An independent arbiter is no more bound to the government's wishes than an oil company's. In that sense, there is no certainty BP will be forced to make the Gulf economy whole again or that taxpayers are off the hook for the myriad costs associated with the spill or cleanup. The government can certainly press for that, using legislative and legal tools. But there are no guarantees and the past is not reassuring.

It took 20 years to sort through liability after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, and in the end, punitive damages were slashed by the courts to about $500 million from $2.5 billion. Many people who had lost their livelihoods in the spill died without ever seeing a check.

___

OBAMA: "In the coming days and weeks, these efforts should capture up to 90 percent of the oil leaking out of the well."

THE FACTS: BP and the administration contend that if all goes as planned, they should be able to contain nearly 90 percent of the worst-case oil flow. But that's a big "if." So far, little has gone as planned in the various remedies attempted to shut off or contain the flow. Possibly as much as 60,000 barrels a day is escaping. BP would need to nearly triple its recovery rate to reach the target.

___

OBAMA: Temporary measures will capture leaking oil "until the company finishes drilling a relief well later in the summer that is expected to stop the leak completely."

THE FACTS: That's the hope, but experts say the relief well runs the same risks that caused the original well to blow out. It potentially could create a worse spill if engineers were to accidentally damage the existing well or tear a hole in the undersea oil reservoir.

___

OBAMA: "From the very beginning of this crisis, the federal government has been in charge of the largest environmental cleanup effort in our nation's history."

THE FACTS: Early on, the government established a command center and put Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen in charge of coordinating the overall spill response. But officials also repeatedly have emphasized that BP was "responsible" and they have relied heavily on BP in making decisions from hiring cleanup workers to what oil dispersing chemicals to use. Local officials in the Gulf region have complained that often they don't know who's in charge — the government or BP.

___

OBAMA: "We have approved the construction of new barrier islands in Louisiana to try and stop the oil before it reaches the shore."

THE FACTS: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and local officials pleaded for weeks with the Army Corps of Engineers and the spill response command for permission to build about 40 miles of sand berms along the barrier islands.

State officials applied for an emergency permit to build the berms May 11, but as days went by Jindal became increasingly angry at federal inaction. The White House finally agreed to a portion of the berm plan on June 2. BP then agreed to pay for the project.

The corps was worried that in some cases such a move would alter tides and drive oil into new areas and produce more harm than good.

___

OBAMA: "Already, I have issued a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. I know this creates difficulty for the people who work on these rigs, but for the sake of their safety and for the sake of the entire region, we need to know the facts before we allow deepwater drilling to continue."

THE FACTS: Obama issued a six-month moratorium on new permits for deepwater drilling but production continues from existing deepwater wells.

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, H. Josef Hebert and Jim Drinkard in Washington, Brian Schwaner in New Orleans and Carol Druga in Atlanta contributed to this report

Source

Many questions are yet to be answered.











This question begs to be answered.

Is The President of the United States of America, the most powerful man on the planet, with the world's resources & outpouring of offers of help from all points on the globe, any closer to "Pluggin' up the hole" ?

Does Obama seem to care like his life depended on stopping it, just like the lives that actually do depend on him taking decisive action seem to care?

If you think YES, what in his speech, pray tell, tipped you to that conclusion?

If your answer is NO, where on his priority list does this project fall---before or after 'Cap & Trade'?

Which do you think Obama will push for harder?

Will he cop to the tune of the fifth 'Prefect of Judaea'?

What other reason(s), if any, support(s) your claim?

Originally posted by TroyMclure:

It has been called 'Beyond Petroleum' for years. Its a multinational company anyway. Just because the CEO is an English person doesn't mean its British any more.

For whatever it's worth, BP is a British corporation with corporate headquarters in London.
.........................................
What is all of this nationalistic business about? We're talking about politicians, boys...politicians.

The technical details of this mess will surface anon. Give it a moment.

Originally posted by Jaybro:

Originally posted by TroyMclure:

It has been called 'Beyond Petroleum' for years. Its a multinational company anyway. Just because the CEO is an English person doesn't mean its British any more.

For whatever it's worth, BP is a British corporation with corporate headquarters in London.

Some professor of legal law argued that liability will be limited to BP's US subsidiary, BP Holdings North America Inc. That's just the ways the laws are written.
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/bps-options-to-limit-liability-from-the-oil-spill/

Even if not, BP shares are now going up because of the deal with the Obama admin. Effectively, it looks like the liability will be capped at the escrow fund level, 20 billion.

Its a win for the Obama admin which looks tough and BP which escapes major liability. Nudge, wink, nudge, wink.

Originally posted by BernG:

Even if not, BP shares are now going up because of the deal with the Obama admin. Effectively, it looks like the liability will be capped at the escrow fund level, 20 billion.

Its a win for the Obama admin which looks tough and BP which escapes major liability. Nudge, wink, nudge, wink.

I'd figured this one out before any announcements. Obviously, BP can't be milked beyond the breaking point.

As for the politics of the mess, it has more to do with the view here of the president as "Daddy can do anything!" Utter bunkum.

Originally posted by rjhowie:

Indeed Haliburton (Cheney's mob) was responsible for the cementing of the line on the sea bed not BP for example

Yes, Haliburton was the cement contractor. I'm not a fan of that firm either. However

Originally posted by Halliburton, the contractor hired by BP to cement the well, warned BP that the well could have a "SEVERE gas flow problem" if BP lowered the final string of casing with only six centralizers instead of the 21 recommended by Halliburton. BP rejected Halliburton's advice to use additional centralizers. [/quote:

source There's little way to get around the fact that this is BP's fault. If you're a contractor, you can make recommendations, but ultimately have to follow the specifications you're given. Why weren't Halliburton's recommendations followed? Because it would take 10 hours.

Cement Bond Log. BP's mid-April plan review predicted cement failure, stating "Cement simulations indicate it is unlikely to be a successful cement job due to formation breakdown." Despite this warning and Halliburton's prediction of severe gas flow problems, BP did not run a 9 to 12 hour procedure called a cement bond log to assess the integrity of the cement seal.

"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."

Pretty well says it all, doesn't it?

It is all very well Jaybro to sneak in that the HQ is on London but it IS a world corporation and is just as much American ans British so a pointless bit of snidey comment. Some 40% of it is British and 40% American there are also more Americans working for it than us. So don't land that one at our door please.

Obama has a poll rating as low as President "W" and the committee on the Hill all jumped on the Obama bandwagon with one eye on the election. Was it Obama who made the rather un-statesman-like comment that the Chief Exec could always go home to England (meaning Britain) with his golden handshake? His comments have been less that respectable for his position as President indeed vitriol nearer the mark. And he seems to be distancing himself to the utterly stupid comparison with 9-11. I can understand that he needs to be seen to be acting tough but he really needs to slow down and be more circumspect in his language which has demeaned him so far. He and the White House don't seem comparable. It is also my understanding that the rig didn't actually belong to BP either. It is in fact US owned and there needs to be a proper enquiry as to how it was run locally over there before we get any more smart arse people on Capitol Hill thinking they are it. There really needs to be some blame accorded to both Haliburton and the other lot who seem to be remarkably getting off very lightly here while BP gets it all? Between 1992 - 2006 18 out of 39 blow outs in the US have been due to dodgy cement work. So the problem is also nearer home.

By all means BP has a big responsibility but so too do the two home firms Haliburton and Transocean.

Originally posted by rjhowie:

Obama has a poll rating as low as President "W"

Not quite yet, his approval rating is at 50% and dropping.

Is BP technically a British Company?---who gives a flyin' farruk!
Is the Obama Administration at fault for the well explosion?---who TF cares!
Did the present Administration inherit this problem from the Bush Administration?---who gives a rats ass!


Well, I think enough blame has been thrown around to last a lifetime. In the end some high priced lawyers & a jury will make the 'final' decision on where the blame lies.

The problem exists, is not going away, & must be attended to immediately!

In the mean time, who is going to step up to the plate & take control of decisively directing those that are capable of stopping the flow ('Pluggin' the Hole'), & at the same time show some leadership on cleaning up the mess that has already come ashore while stopping more that has yet to come ashore?

I thought that should have been the President of the United States of America, President Barrak Obama.
Unfortunately, to date President Obama has only proven himself a bad liar, a poor communicator, a completely ineffectual administrator, & to sum it all up, he has proven himself grossly incompetent.
Forget about being the most powerful man on the planet Earth, he can't even properly direct his own hand picked administration!

Political posturing , & speech making never actually solves anything.
The blame game looks only to the past. Our problem lies in the present & into the future.
We need someone with guts, grit, & true determination---someone with a clear unobstructed vision of the present & future to tackle this monumental task.
That's the only way things will ever get accomplished, for the sake of the Gulf Coast inhabitants, workers, & most importantly,

the animal life---the real forgotten ones.

They don't vote--they just die in uncountable numbers as we see to our self-serving political follies.

They don't care who is to blame, they just want a place to live & enjoy a simple life--short enough as it was before we came along.

It is our responsibility (all our responsibility) to safeguard these defenseless creatures from this man-made disaster!

Sarah, where are you now that we need you?

Originally posted by rjhowie:

It is all very well Jaybro to sneak in that the HQ is on London but it IS a world corporation and is just as much American ans British so a pointless bit of snidey comment. Some 40% of it is British and 40% American there are also more Americans working for it than us. So don't land that one at our door please.

Every corporation is incorporated somewhere. BP is incorporated in the UK. That fact doesn't make the problem land on anybodies doorstep. The problem is in the Gulf. The 40/40 that you mention has to do with stockholders, not incorporation.

Somebody screwed up royally, but those somebodies are corporate officers, not the British people. Relax.

Originally posted by Jaybro:

Somebody screwed up royally, but those somebodies are corporate officers, not the British people. Relax.

Like BP and our government

But when it comes to the oil companies, BP is in a class by itself

British Petroleum will bear the heaviest responsibility for the unnatural disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. During the last three years, BP has committed 829 of the 851 willful health and safety violations among all the refiners cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. After a series of deadly incidents and smaller ecological accidents, BP’s record of irresponsibility makes the case that Deepwater Horizon was simply an accident waiting to happen. The company placed profit over safety and in its arrogance chased oil into the depths without a clear, practiced and reliable recovery plan in the event of disaster. We are all living with the predictable outcome of its monumental carelessness. It would be a disservice, however, to the survivors of the 11 men who lost their lives on April 20 and to the suffering of the people, wildlife and ecology of the Gulf states if the shame and the culpability ended with BP.

Our government performed badly long before the blowout and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon when it abdicated its appropriate oversight role. Staff members of the Minerals Management Service were caught accepting gifts from oil industry executives, snorting cocaine and bed-hopping with industry employees. And government reliance on BP for expertise, which the company lacked, and rapid response, which it failed to achieve, indicates that the United States, in its eagerness to promote a dependable energy supply, has for decades ceded too much authority to powerful multinational corporations. The scale of this disaster might have been hard to predict, but the possibility of it certainly was not. Where were the back-ups to the back-up plan? Why, after years of deep-water oil exploration, should this one event prove so confounding? More to the point, if the scale of the Deepwater Horizon disaster truly exceeds the capacity of all industry and federal agencies to respond, then why is this method of resource extraction allowed in the first place?

http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=12356

Originally posted by thedawgfan:

Not quite yet, his approval rating is at 50% and dropping.

Statistics on this scale are bulls**t at best... but, <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll">this</a> says 41% Approval, 58% Disapproval... along with some other fun numbers...

<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20001629-503544.html">This</a> one, from 2 months ago says 44% Approval, but another one like a week later from the same <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20004035-503544.html">source</a> says 53%... etc...etc...

I have to agree with Smileyfaze about Obama. Not impressive at all. It is sad of course that there is so much pollution and the US itself is guilty of such - Exon and the India situ are massive examples. The need to get oil as more and more developing nations want to be modern is leading to such great depth explorations. I still say however and it has been essentially sidestepped here that the other 2 companies one of which owned the damn rig should be in the dock. The Committee on the Hill which rightly pushed the case spoiled it by going on and on for what was it? - over four hours. In that time they started running out of constructive points and drifted into the same vitriol as that lame duck in the White House. They all had to join in individually like a discordant chorus. Kind of demeaned the Hill investigation somewhat.

I have to agree with Smileyfaze about Obama. Not impressive at all. It is sad of course that there is so much pollution and the US itself is guilty of such - Exon and the India situ are massive examples. The need to get oil as more and more developing nations want to be modern is leading to such great depth explorations. I still say however and it has been essentially sidestepped here that the other 2 companies one of which owned the damn rig should be in the dock. The Committee on the Hill which rightly pushed the case spoiled it by going on and on for what was it? - over four hours. In that time they started running out of constructive points and drifted into the same vitriol as that lame duck in the White House. They all had to join in individually like a discordant chorus. Kind of demeaned the Hill investigation somewhat.

Originally posted by rjhowie:

The need to get oil as more and more developing nations want to be modern is leading to such great depth explorations.

Actually, it is the Environmentalists that forced the oil companies into 'deep ocean' exploration. There are many places that are proven to hold vast amounts of oil (shallow water & on dry land) but the Environmentalists have blocked drilling there through sponsored legislation & court orders at every turn. Now it's those same Environmentalists that are crying crocodile tears because they got what they wanted, but it backfired on them (actually I wished it was them that were getting killed by the oil rather than the defenseless animals they were supposedly protecting).

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

Actually, it is the Environmentalists that forced the oil companies into 'deep ocean' exploration.

They did not. In fact that's one of the more retarded fallacies right-wingers have. BP drilled there, because...ta-da that's where the oil is .


BP PLC announced a major new oil find in the Gulf of Mexico, the latest in a string of discoveries there that cements the offshore waters of the southern U.S. as one of the oil world's most promising exploration regions.

BP said its Tiber prospect, about 200 miles due south of Lake Charles, La., is a "giant." The field is estimated to contain three billion barrels of oil, although only a fraction of that may ever be extracted, spokesman Daren Beaudo said.

BP is already the biggest producer in the Gulf, pumping the oil and natural gas equivalent of 400,000 ... The fact that BP is drilling so deep has nothing to do with environmentalist, regardless of what Sarah Failin might tell you. Yes, I have heard this idiocy before from Sarah herself.

The blame is on BP. They failed to follow industry standards, cut corners to save time and money

Need another reference, here Results from a deep-water test well in the Gulf of Mexico suggest a new pool of oil and gas that could boost U.S. reserves by as much as 50 percent.

Chevron Corp. on Tuesday estimated the 300-square-mile region where its test well sits could hold between 3 billion and 15 billion barrels of oil and natural gas liquids. Analysts are calling it the most significant domestic discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay more than a generation ago.

Stop the BS

The only reason they are finding oil there is because they don't even bother to look closer to shore anymore knowing they won't be able to drill there.

Many of the ample deposits 'close to shore--in shallow water' have already been found, noted, & claimed, but are not even discussed further due to legal maneuvers taken by the rat environmentalist movements---who now can't even accept the blame that it is they that actually caused the 'worst environmental disaster known to mankind' through their phony 'protectionism' agenda.

The jokes on them, & they can't stand it! Unfortunately, it's the host of defenseless creatures that call that area 'Home', that will be paying for it with their lives for countless years to come. All because of the phony environmental 'do-gooders' that swore to protect them, let them down.

A class action lawsuit against the Sierra Club and all of the Environmental groups opposed to drilling on the Continental United States should be called for, for it is their stupidity that forced this disaster upon us. If they were not opposed to drilling within our natural boundaries we would not be drilling 100 miles offshore and 4-5 miles deep. If this accident happened in ANWR it would have been stopped in a day.

Now that this destructive oil flow is a fact, there is actually a disaster taking place (if you haven't noticed), & the oil is flowing into the Gulf at an ever increasing & alarming rate, what do all the environmental groups plan to do to stop it?

After all at this very moment stopping the flowing oil is actually more important that how it got started in the first place, or do these blow hard environmentalists think that the more they bellow & blame everyone but themselves a miracle will take place & the oil will somehow miraculously stop flowing?

Time to fess up, shut up, & actually resolve a problem for once, rather than spending all their time complaining about where the finger of blame should be pointed.

That's where the energy should be directed, toward resolution of this great man-made disaster, not flapping your gums about it in hopes of some imaginary political high ground & advantage!

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

toward resolution of this great man-made disaster,

One thing to be learned from this man-made disaster is that the faith put into technology as a panacea of the 21st modern era is not only misguided, its suicidal.

Now the US has experienced the effects of a multinational company's disaster and have realised the need for redress, isn't it time they reflected on Union Carbide's Bophal disaster and demand that Union Carbide should take responsibility for it's crime which it ran away from all those years ago?

With reference to the Tony Hayward 'thing'.

I think that the US politicians made themselves look like a bunch of slack jawed yokels!!
It was like a dodgy community leaders meeting.

I was quite shocked at the way they came across.
Other countries will look at that performance and ask questions.
It doesn't do much for British/American business relations. Just the 'general vibe'.

Jon Stewart doesn't even need to write his own scripts anymore, surely?

Originally posted by Rainspa:

Now the US has experienced the effects of a multinational company's disaster and have realised the need for redress, isn't it time they reflected on Union Carbide's Bophal disaster and demand that Union Carbide should take responsibility for it's crime which it ran away from all those years ago?

Is that even an issue? U.C. spent hundreds of millions in compensations, woefully inadequate. India hasn't even adequately punished the heads of U.C. India Limited. At any rate, can the federal gov't "demand" that U.C. "take responsibility." I doubt it. Nor do I see what that would accomplish if it were possible.

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

The only reason they are finding oil there is because they don't even bother to look closer to shore anymore knowing they won't be able to drill there.

You can't get around the actual geological data, mate. There was a huge debate debate in Florida and the momentum was towards giving off shore drilling on the continental shelf the go, until it turned there wasn't enough oil in there to bother with. Very cute crying crocodile tears for the wildlife and blaming enviromentalists..no one's fooled. If BP had followed guildlines and recommendations this would not have happened. No, they choose to skimp on the cement, not even to save money, but to save a few hours of work and you blame the Sierra Club? Listen to yourself,guy.

Time to fess up, shut up, & actually resolve a problem for once, rather than spending all their time complaining about where the finger of blame should be pointed.

So, the Sierra Club is meant to go down there in aremote controlled sub or whatever and stop the leak that BP caused by repeated failures to stop follow guildlines and recommendatios? Nice strong language you use, but otherwise nonsensical.

Oh wait, I change my mind. It clearly is the enviromentalists who:

Caused malfunction of the mechanism designed to prevent a blowout that ignored just weeks prior to the calamady by an official representing the Transocean. The Sierra Club made the decision to not ever make use of or demand an acoustic switch to be a back-up to the blowout prevent malfunction.

Yup, all fessed up now. It was clearly not BP, Transocean or failure on the part MMS to regulate. It was the Sierra Club this whole time. The Sierra Club has to take better care of its deepwater oil plateforms

Oh well, enough being a smartass, 90% of the people know Environmentalists Didn't Cause The Gulf Oil Spill ... Peak Oil Did Energy and oil expert Byron King explains in a new interview:
[Interviewer] We know about peak oil already. But… is it really THAT bad that we’re having to search for oil buried beneath 12,000 feet of water? And after the water, another 10,000 feet of dense rock? That’s a lot of risk to take. Seems to be proof for the end of cheap oil theory, right?

[Byron King] Exactly. The days of drilling a hole beneath the soil in Texas, inserting a pipe and watching oil gush out are gone. We’re never going back to those days.

It gets into what we’re dealing with here in the search for deep sea oil… The energy industry has to go deeper and deeper to make things work. Risking more and more capital – and unfortunately, lives – along the way.

Look at what we’ve seen in the last 20 years or so, since 1990, when the oil industry really started to go deep. There was something like an “arms race” to develop better and better deepwater technology, to go for the next levels down. We’ve seen this race to deeper and deeper water. And it’s all because the so called “cheap oil” is gone.

It used to be that drilling at 1,000 feet water depth was the edge of technology! You know, back then in the early 1990s it was 1,500 feet, then it was 2,500 feet, then it was 5,000 feet…7,500, 10,000. Now they’re drilling at 12,000 feet of water.
***

Offshore development is the future of oil. The oil industry wouldn’t be taking these risks if cheap oil was still with us. We’re just starting to scratch the surface of this deep-sea stuff. The cheap stuff’s gone. Gotta go offshore…

The cheap stuff - and the less dangerous to get stuff - is gone.

Because oil companies will go to more extreme measures and operate in more dangerous conditions to extract oil, there will be more accidents. As the Guardian reports:
One industry insider, who asked not to be named, said: "Major spills are likely to increase in the coming years as the industry strives to extract oil from increasingly remote and difficult terrains. Future supplies will be offshore, deeper and harder to work. When things go wrong, it will be harder to respond."
And because it will be so expensive to produce, companies will try to cut corners - just as BP did with the Deepwater Horizon drilling operation. Note to SF..hear that, or is Sarah Palin all you can hear now? They've been going deeper and deeper since 1990 because...that's where the oil is!

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

Stop the BS

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

Many of the ample deposits 'close to shore--in shallow water' have already been found, noted, & claimed, but are not even discussed further due to legal maneuvers taken by the rat environmentalist movements

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

Unfortunately, it's the host of defenseless creatures that call that area 'Home', that will be paying for it with their lives for countless years to come.

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

A class action lawsuit against the Sierra Club and all of the Environmental groups opposed to drilling on the Continental United States should be called for

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

Time to fess up, shut up, & actually resolve a problem for once, rather than spending all their time complaining about where the finger of blame should be pointed.
That's where the energy should be directed, toward resolution of this great man-made disaster, not flapping your gums about it in hopes of some imaginary political high ground & advantage!

Hmm, so let me get this straight: you want to bash environmentalists for trying to conserve specific places that oil companies have in mind for drilling, yet you then post a sentence lamenting the poor creatures that will die because of the massive spill, so that, in your opinion, should lead to a lawsuit against the environmentalists who try to conserve land from the great wounds caused by drilling for oil because we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but, because Sanguinemoon, is directly affected by this disaster and pissed as hell (quite as pissed as a certain "movement" is at the Dems, I might add ) and has chosen to defend the environmentalists, you then accuse him of taking a "political high ground"?
The logic in that argument is stunning to say the least.

Originally posted by thedawgfan:

"political high ground"

General statement, directed toward environmentalists & their candy boys in Congress, not solely at the 'coon! Yer imagination is driftin' again lad!

My beef with the 'Environmentalists' is when they are against just about anyone & anything that isn't made of or for natural productions. Also, the 'not in my backyard' approach. In this case they figured (wrongly) that the further out to sea the better, so if your going to drill do it far away & that would be better/safer. Wrong! In this case, far away from shore is deeper than closer to shore. Technology is far away from being able to rapidly respond to & avert disaster like we've already seen. There are vast natural liquid gas & oil reserves located just off shore (within miles) in the gulf, but due to environmental legislation ALL companies were forced to drill in deeper water (further from shore). Spin any denial you/they please, but that's a fact.

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

Also, the 'not in my backyard' approach. In this case they figured (wrongly) that the further out to sea the better, so if your going to drill do it far away; that would be better/safer.

So, "environmentalists" supported deep water drilling? And said that it "would be better/safer"?

And you can document these claims? I can't wait to see your citations. (clock ticking)

Methinks he drinks too much Palin Koolaid.

A federal judge in New Orleans on Tuesday blocked a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling projects imposed in response to the massive Gulf oil spill.

Very interesting.

The real problem is the dependence on oil. Recycle plastics to reduce the need to make new ones. Subsidize public transportation to make it convenient and affordable and in all counties to reduce people's driving. Tax cuts for highly efficient vehicles, taking into consideration their class; for example GM and Chrysler have developed hybrid systems for large trucks and SUV's. In general push the manufacturers and consumer towards petroleum efficiency.

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

My beef with the 'Environmentalists' is when they are against just about anyone & anything that isn't made of or for natural productions.

That's because you're behind the times. Green technology is going to be a major driver of economic growth int he 21st century. The environment and economic growth and prosperity are no longer enemies to forward thinking people. And no, this has nothing to do with Al Gore wanking his carbon trading schemes that do nothing. I mean real industry that employs people across the economic and social strata.

Originally posted by Jaybro:

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

Also, the 'not in my backyard' approach. In this case they figured (wrongly) that the further out to sea the better, so if your going to drill do it far away; that would be better/safer.

So, "environmentalists" supported deep water drilling? And said that it "would be better/safer"?

And you can document these claims? I can't wait to see your citations. (clock ticking)

Methinks he drinks too much Palin Koolaid.

Not really. Environmentalists, in my opinion, would have preferred ZERO drilling--anywhere---period. But when forced to accept the fact that there would have to be drilling 'somewhere', being they had successfully blocked virtually all other forms of drilling, the 'deep water' drilling option survived as the only remotely acceptable alternative left (anywhere near the Continental USA). I got this information by watching an interview of an oil executive on ABC TV recently--within the last month or so--it may have been one of those Sunday news shows. This was as I recall a small portion of the overall interview, but this basic premise wasn't debated, so I would have to therefore take it to be a fairly accurate/legitimate position.

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

The real problem is the dependence on oil. Recycle plastics to reduce the need to make new ones. Subsidize public transportation to make it convenient and affordable and in all counties to reduce people's driving. Tax cuts for highly efficient vehicles, taking into consideration their class; for example GM and Chrysler have developed hybrid systems for large trucks and SUV's. In general push the manufacturers and consumer towards petroleum efficiency.

....Green technology is going to be a major driver of economic growth int he 21st century. The environment and economic growth and prosperity are no longer enemies to forward thinking people. And no, this has nothing to do with Al Gore wanking his carbon trading schemes that do nothing. I mean real industry that employs people across the economic and social strata.

Positions I can't find fault with. If I have any disagreement whatsoever it might have to deal with the implementation of policies covering the above, rather than the actual content & theme.

I wholeheartedly agree that Al Gore is a wanker at best!

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

but this basic premise wasn't debated, so I would have to therefore take it to be a fairly accurate/legitimate position.

I hate to throw this in here (as I seem to be acquiring a reputation for always dragging religion into debates), but the local yokels in my state don't debate the existence of the god (Judeo-Christian) that they believe in. Does that make their god exist/give proof for his/her existence?

Originally posted by thedawgfan:

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

but this basic premise wasn't debated, so I would have to therefore take it to be a fairly accurate/legitimate position.

I hate to throw this in here (as I seem to be acquiring a reputation for always dragging religion into debates), but the local yokels in my state don't debate the existence of the god (Judeo-Christian) that they believe in. Does that make their god exist/give proof for his/her existence?

I see your point, poor as it is, but I can see your point.

That analogy has 'DAWG' written all over it!

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

Originally posted by thedawgfan:

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

but this basic premise wasn't debated, so I would have to therefore take it to be a fairly accurate/legitimate position.

I hate to throw this in here (as I seem to be acquiring a reputation for always dragging religion into debates), but the local yokels in my state don't debate the existence of the god (Judeo-Christian) that they believe in. Does that make their god exist/give proof for his/her existence?

I see your point, poor as it is, but I can see your point.

(Just thought I might point that out. )

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

I wholeheartedly agree that Al Gore is a wanker at best!

I'm going to ask you to stop insulting wankers, sir He's more of a cunt.

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

I'm going to ask you to stop insulting wankers, sir He's more of a cunt.

[/img]

Originally posted by Smileyfaze:

Environmentalists, in my opinion, would have preferred ZERO drilling--anywhere---period. But when forced to accept the fact that there would have to be drilling 'somewhere', being they had successfully blocked virtually all other forms of drilling, the 'deep water' drilling option survived as the only remotely acceptable alternative left (anywhere near the Continental USA). I got this information by watching an interview of an oil executive on ABC TV

You haven't made your point. One interview! Of an oil executive!

They blocked "virtually all other forms of drilling"?

From 1981 through 1986, the Senate was controlled by a Republican majority, the House had a Democratic majority, and Republican Ronald Reagan was President. It was during this time that the first moratoria on oil and gas leasing were put in place.


In 1981, Congress voted to stop the sale of leases off the coast of Northern California. The moratorium was included in the Interior Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1982. The provision was supported by almost every member of the California delegation from both political parties. It was approved by the House and by the Republican-majority Senate, and signed it into law by President Reagan.

In 1982, Congress extended the moratorium for Northern California and expanded the area to include the Central California coast. The House also approved an amendment by Republican Congressman Jim Courter to prohibit leases off the coast of New Jersey. Again, the majority-Republican Senate approved the bill and Reagan signed it into law.
http://www.taylor.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=149:chronology-of-moratoria-on-offshore-drilling&catid=29:defense&Itemid=59

Reagan, the quintessential liberal environmentalist.

Originally posted by Jaybro:

Reagan, the quintessential liberal environmentalist.

http://www.ucbcomedy.com/videos/play/6472/bp-spills-coffee

So that explains all those coffee grounds on the beach! BP even spilled the coffee before it was made!

Kinda like this.
this

Back to more serious, the human toll continues to mount.

http://www.pnj.com/article/20100626/NEWS01/6260320/Oil-spill-s-despair-a-family-s-loss

OLEY, Ala. — Allen Kruse tenderly kissed his wife goodbye just after sunrise Wednesday and headed to the docks in Gulf Shores, Ala., where his boat, The Rookie, was moored.

A charter boat captain for 25 years, Kruse had signed on as a BP contractor to spot oil, deploy boom and eventually learn how to skim oil. His business had come to a screeching halt after the April 20 oil spill.

About an hour later, Kruse was dead. He was 55, the father of 11- and 12-year-old boys, Cory and Ryan, and daughter Kelli, 26.

About 7 a.m., after a BP training meeting, he climbed into the wheelhouse of his 46-foot charter boat and ended his worry, his frustration and his anger with a single bullet to the head.

"Nothing was easy working with BP. Everything was hard, and it consumed him. He wasn't crazy," said his wife, Tracy, 41, sitting outside the couple's home in Foley on Thursday.

"He'd been a charter boat captain for 25 years, and all of the sudden he had people barking orders at him who didn't know how to tie up a boat to a pier. I think he thought, 'I've got to get out of this. I can't take it.' "

The spill also left Kruse emotionally devastated. It robbed him of his passion for taking customers out to the Gulf to fish for red snapper and grouper, his wife said.

"Our whole lives surround this, this oil, everything is oil," he told her a few days ago

We might find out what happens when a storm passes over the oil spill really soon.... First storm of season brewing in Caribbean

With the luck we've been having here, it will be a Cat 5 and paint the landscape in oil x_x

There is a disaster unfolding in America. The Gulf coast has become the scene of one of the greatest tragedies this country has ever seen. Innocent, hard-working people who were guilty of nothing except trying to earn their keep are up against it, their lives and livelihoods threatened by a growing, toxic mess that -- with a malignance that seems almost purposeful -- destroys everything it touches.

Oh, and there's an oil spill too.

That, of course, is the posture Fox News has taken towards the Gulf oil disaster, having decided that the real threat to the nation is not the millions of gallons of oil floating on and under the Gulf of Mexico but, rather, the Obama administration's reaction to the disaster and efforts to hold the culpable parties responsible. And, as you'd expect, such a ridiculous position requires some wild fractures of the truth and an almost complete abandonment of common sense.

The crux of the Fox News position is that the White House is simultaneously doing too much and not enough. If you've tuned in to the Murdoch network at any point over the past couple of months, you've probably seen the likes of Rudy Giuliani complaining that the Obama administration waited 50 days or so before offering any sort of response to the oil spill. America's perpetually confused mayor was off by about 49 days -- the Coast Guard was on the scene immediately and the president dispatched officials to the region the day after BP's rig exploded. None of those easily verifiably facts were enough to stymie the conspiracy theory, articulated by Fox News' Eric Bolling, that Obama "let it leak so he could renege on his promise to ... allow some offshore drilling."

Those Fox Newsers who were magnanimous enough to acknowledge that the White House was, in fact, responding to the disaster concocted a series of lies to claim that they were dragging their feet. Did the administration turn down foreign assistance for the clean up effort? Did the White House unreasonably delay the purchase of Maine oil booms? Did Obama dally in approving sand berm construction? The answer to each of these questions is "no," but on Fox News they were presented as the absolute truth.

The flip side to the administration's allegedly criminal neglect was their allegedly criminal efforts to hold BP accountable for the disaster. Echoing Rep. Joe Barton's (R-TX) now-infamous apology to BP CEO Tony Hayward over the deal the administration struck with BP to establish a $20 billion escrow fund to pay for spill-related damages, Fox News personalities rushed to declare the fund a "shakedown" and a "stickup." Others declared it was unconstitutional for the government to force BP to set up the account (even though BP volunteered to do it).

Indeed, BP has had no better friend than Fox News (no offense to Rep. Barton). Every move the administration has made to hold the oil company accountable has been met with derision from the conservative network. Glenn Beck likened the congressional hearings into the oil spill to the Salem witch trials and the McCarthy hearings. Fox Business host Stuart Varney claimed the administration is "demonizing" BP and trying to "seize its assets."

The question that remains is: Why? Why would Fox News so vociferously and ardently defend BP when even Republicans were fighting to get in front of microphones to denounce Rep. Barton's apology and the company's approval rating is, quite literally, somewhere between O.J. Simpson and Saddam Hussein? It's the same reason they attacked Obama when he sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and the same reason they attacked him for asking that the country pray for the Gulf coast. It doesn't matter what Obama does, Fox News will automatically gainsay it. It doesn't matter if they make no sense, look foolish, or wildly contradict themselves -- if Obama does it, it's wrong. He could replace Teddy Roosevelt's face on Mount Rushmore with Ronald Reagan's and they'd attack him for desecrating an American landmark.

Fox isn't a news network, it's a point of view disguised as one.

I'm finding the president more noisome by the minute, but the Fox approach more so.

And Fox Business is doing a disservice to its viewers...it can't stop spinning and propagandizing long enough its viewer correct investment advice. BP's liability in this matter is of direct importance to its viewers that are invested in that firm and if they keep telling their viewers that Sierra Club is at fault (or similar garbage) their viewers stand to loss money. It it be interesting to see if Fox winds up getting sued now

BP was fully aware of the consequences should anything have gone wrong during the drilling operation , They did extensive mapping and geological surveys prior to drilling and should not have taken the risk . The thought of oil and gas reserves and the spoils to be made from them overcame the risk . People whom worked on the rigs new what was going on and as it turned out a lot of people in the fishing communities and their families new about BPs risky behavior , The local workers employed by BP turned a blind eye to what was going on for years in order to keep their much needed jobs . I've seen how this works from personal experience and to a large degree it's the same all over the world and getting worse ( Coal mining , Diamond mining , Paper industries , Sugar and etc. ) , Everything is a disposable resource when it comes to big company making big profits including plant , animal and human life . Humanities greed will eventually be the demise of us all . As I've watched this oil /gas flow it brings to mind a question I haven't heard anyone address . BP has many of these rigs in the gulf and granted this may be the motherload , But where was all this oil and gas going to be shipped to if they would have pulled this operation off without a hitch ? That's a awful lot of resources going where ? Can't be U.S.A , We don't at the present have the refining facilities to handle that volume ( Most have been shut down and are in a state of deterioration ) due to E.P.A and other restrictions bought and paid for via our politicians and there " Donation Contributors " . It's a vicious cycle and most of us are at the bottom of the food chain .

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal declared Sunday a "Statewide Day of Prayer for perseverance during the oil spill crisis."

That should help, but if you're going to pray to the Big Guy, shouldn't it be for Him to come in with a Celestial Cleanup Crew?

Originally posted by Jaybro:

That should help, but if you're going to pray to the Big Guy, shouldn't it be for Him to come in with a Celestial Cleanup Crew?

The Cajuns are always 3 steps behind. MS Guvna Haley Barbour declared yesterday a day of prayer.

would you vote "yes" on fighting the top-guys of BP bond-like art? "quantum of solace"-kind?
explosions and stuff? live on tv? swat teams and cams everywhere?
and then taking all the money from bp and stuff the leaking hole with bodies of the evil-guys?

Oil has now officially reached Mississippi's shores.

Up until today, however ironic it may be seeing as how Governor Haley Barbour designated today as a "day of prayer", oil had not reached Mississippi's shores. It had reached a couple of our barrier islands, but not the shores. Couple that with a potential Hurricane blowing in by mid to late week and that day of prayer may possibly be deemed a success.


For a more detailed piece about it, see this: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE64U0OW20100627

Originally posted by thedawgfan:

The Cajuns are always 3 steps behind. MS Guvna Haley Barbour declared yesterday a day of prayer.

There are prayer groups forming here. I see a hole in that logic, though, assuming The Big Guy exists at all...why did He not stop it already.

Originally posted by thedawgfan:

Oil has now officially reached Mississippi's shores.

Tropical Storm Alex should get you guys caught up in oil in no time. Alex is supposed to go int Mexico, but that waves are expected to push more oil onshore. He'll be a full fledged hurricane tomorrow, so that outta kick the waves up a bit.

Originally posted by thedawgfan:

The Cajuns are always 3 steps behind. MS Guvna Haley Barbour declared yesterday a day of prayer.

Let me know what the results are, Dawg.

When I was a kid, I prayed for a pony. I got the measles. God knows what's best for us.

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

I see a hole in that logic, though, assuming The Big Guy exists at all...why did He not stop it already.

Indeed.

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

Tropical Storm Alex should get you guys caught up in oil in no time.

Oh joy....

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

He'll be a full fledged hurricane tomorrow, so that outta kick the waves up a bit

Yes, it should.
I wait with interest to see how the "power" of prayer works from Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.

Originally posted by Jaybro:

Let me know what the results are, Dawg.

Will do Jaybro!

Originally posted by Jaybro:

When I was a kid, I prayed for a pony. I got the measles. God knows what's best for us.

Indeed.

Originally posted by Sanguinemoon:

I see a hole in that logic, though, assuming The Big Guy exists at all...why did He not stop it already.

This isn't about logic. It's about basic assumptions about the nature of The Big Guy.
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16:49 Now they that died in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, beside them that died about the matter of Korah.
Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. ... And the LORD plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made.
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And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.
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But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. Gen.19:26
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"Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him."
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Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven.
And don't forget Nadab, Abihu, and Uzza. And a host of others.
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There is a remote possibility that none of these things happened, though.

Originally posted by thedawgfan:

Oil has now officially reached Mississippi's shores.

Up until today, however ironic it may be seeing as how Governor Haley Barbour designated today as a "day of prayer", oil had not reached Mississippi's shores. It had reached a couple of our barrier islands, but not the shores. Couple that with a potential Hurricane blowing in by mid to late week and that day of prayer may possibly be deemed a success.


For a more detailed piece about it, see this: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE64U0OW20100627

Oh yes, the official proclamation
http://www.governorbarbour.com/news/2010/jun/Day%20of%20Prayer.pdf

whereas, the Dutch engineers are NOT listened to. Were they invited to the proclamation event?
http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/2269976/amerikanen-negeren-nederlandse-olie-experts.html

Americans Ignore Dutch Oil Experts By ANP

Americans are not leveraging Dutch assistance sufficiently to fight the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Communicating with the Americans is difficult and they barely listen to Dutch experts.

This Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Rotterdam-based firm Mari Flex confirmed a Radio Netherlands broadcast that contained this message: There are currently seven Dutch experts present in the United States to advise on the proper use of the six swipe arms provided for the American Coast Guard by the Dutch General of Public Works and Water Management. These arms can ingest up to 240 tons of oil per hour. Advice However, the American authorities are ignoring advice from the Dutch, says a Mari Flex spokesperson. “For example, we think it’s better to clean farther away from the source as the oil is thicker there and thus easier to clean.” It is frustrating, according to the Dutch firm. “After all, we were hired for our expertise.”

Since the ships started working last week, only ten tons of oil have been cleaned daily, barely five percent of maximum capacity. "The operation could be a lot more efficient and faster if the Americans would listen to the Dutch." American law also restricts the operation of the ships. Ships with even bigger storage capacity are not allowed because they do not sail under the American flag. According to Mari Flex, the rescue operation will take “at least a few more months.” Dutch assistance was the result of an American request for help from the European Union.

Why rely on engineering when you can have magic.

Originally posted by Jaybro:

Originally posted by thedawgfan:

The Cajuns are always 3 steps behind. MS Guvna Haley Barbour declared yesterday a day of prayer.

Let me know what the results are, Dawg.

When I was a kid, I prayed for a pony. I got the measles. God knows what's best for us.

You got the measles and we're getting a hurricane.