The BP oil rig

[GAJOEY]

What's odd to me is that it was a BP rig. BP has some of the strictest safety protocals and procedures of any related company.

I agree My dad worked as a contractor for a BP plant in Alabama ..They were very tight on safety

[Scoop Sea]

No doubt BP has strict safety procedures, but the real problem here is the fact that they can't get the Blow Out Preventer to shut. Had the BOP worked properly, we would be looking at a minimal spill that unfortunately took some lives. Let's hope they can get that BOP operating soon or that the domes they are building will help stop the flow. If not we are looking at a couple more months of free flowing product.

Even if it gets stopped tomorrow, we'll still be picking up tar balls and tar mats from the beaches for months. It's just a darn shame this has happened.

[MudDucker]

This is terrible. I am not a big conspiracy buff and I sure as hell don't think BP did this to themselves, but these rigs have an EXCELLENT safety record and have never had an explosion like this one. I would not be a bit surprised to learn that some left wing liberal tree hugging group didn't bomb this thing in attempt to turn public opinion to stop offshore drilling.

[konrad]

[quote="MudDucker"]This is terrible. I am not a big conspiracy buff and I sure as hell don't think BP did this to themselves, but these rigs have an EXCELLENT safety record and have never had an explosion like this one. I would not be a bit surprised to learn that some left wing liberal tree hugging group didn't bomb this thing in attempt to turn public opinion to stop offshore drilling.[/quote]


Are you serious???? That's like saying the conservative fundamentalist were behind 911 so we could go to war with Iraq. Come on guys.

[PinFishKing]

I just read where Obama had allocated 1.2 billion dollars for FEMA birdhouses to temporarily house the migratory birds displaced by the disaster.

[Chalk]

What's odd to me is that it was a BP rig. BP has some of the strictest safety protocals and procedures of any related company.

The rig belongs to Transocean, the world’s biggest offshore drilling contractor. The rig was originally contracted through the year 2013 to
BP and was working on BP’s Macondo exploration well when the fire broke out. The rig costs about $500,000 per day to contract. The full
drilling spread, with helicopters and support vessels and other services, will cost closer to $1,000,000 per day to operate in the course of
drilling for oil and gas. The rig cost about $350,000,000 to build in 2001 and would cost at least double that to replace today.

The rig represents the cutting edge of drilling technology. It is a floating rig, capable of working in up to 10,000 ft water depth. The rig is
not moored; It does not use anchors because it would be too costly and too heavy to suspend this mooring load from the floating
structure. Rather, a triply-redundant computer system uses satellite positioning to control powerful thrusters that keep the rig on station
within a few feet of its intended location, at all times. This is called Dynamic Positioning.

The rig had apparently just finished cementing steel casing in place at depths exceeding 18,000 ft. The next operation was to suspend the
well so that the rig could move to its next drilling location, the idea being that a rig would return to this well later in order to complete the
work necessary to bring the well into production.

It is thought that somehow formation fluids – oil /gas – got into the wellbore and were undetected until it was too late to take action. With a
floating drilling rig setup, because it moves with the waves, currents, and winds, all of the main pressure control equipment sits on the
seabed – the uppermost unmoving point in the well. This pressure control equipment – the Blowout Preventers, or ‘BOP’s” as they’re
called, are controlled with redundant systems from the rig. In the event of a serious emergency, there are multiple Panic Buttons to hit,
and even fail-safe Deadman systems that should be automatically engaged when something of this proportion breaks out. None of them
were aparently activated, suggesting that the blowout was especially swift to escalate at the surface. The flames were visible up to about
35 miles away. Not the glow – the flames. They were 200 – 300 ft high.

Horizon.pdf

(1.33 MiB) Downloaded 112 times

[Tennessee]

This is terrible. I am not a big conspiracy buff and I sure as hell don't think BP did this to themselves, but these rigs have an EXCELLENT safety record and have never had an explosion like this one. I would not be a bit surprised to learn that some left wing liberal tree hugging group didn't bomb this thing in attempt to turn public opinion to stop offshore drilling.

Me either. If they did, it worked. As of today Obama put a ban on offshore drilling. I am not sure I can take fuel at 4+ a gallon again.

[Tennessee]

This is terrible. I am not a big conspiracy buff and I sure as hell don't think BP did this to themselves, but these rigs have an EXCELLENT safety record and have never had an explosion like this one. I would not be a bit surprised to learn that some left wing liberal tree hugging group didn't bomb this thing in attempt to turn public opinion to stop offshore drilling.

Me either. If they did, it worked. As of today Obama put a ban on offshore drilling. I am not sure I can take fuel at 4+ a gallon again.

I doubt that either because this could be the worse enviromental disaster in U.S. history.

I really fell sorry fo the folks down there, destruction almost total after Katrina, and now this.

[boggob]

Halliburton's shoddy work is coming under scrutiny:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 69072.html

[Harmsway]

Here is today's forecast . . . bleak at best.

Oil Slick Map_cumlative4_29_trajectories.pdf

(342.57 KiB) Downloaded 160 times

[boggob]

State of Emergency declared for 6 Fla Counties:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/30/louisi ... tml?hpt=T1

[CSMarine]

I for one have seen what oil spills can do to the coast. I lived in Port Aurthor, Texas in 1977 when a very small spill compared to this one happened. For years after the "clean-up" you couldn't walk on the beaches without oil covering your feet. Your boat would be covered with the mess every time you launched. I was out of a job then, so I was hired to be part of the clean-up in the marshes. We used pom-poms to wipe it up by hand. Worse job I ever had. Thousands of dead fish, birds, and about everything else that lived in the marsh. It would kill me to see that happen to the "Forgotten Coast."

[Harmsway]

This view is from yesterday; its a lot bigger today.

Oil Slick 20100429.jpg (3.7 MiB) Viewed 1706 times

[Tom Keels]

Hey, at least Florida will be able to sue Haliburton, BP, BigOil et al for billions.

[Harmsway]

Here link to "Other significant Oil pills in the GOM" . . .

http://www.response.restoration.noaa.go ... Mexico.pdf