BP Knew of Deepwater Horizon Problems 11 Months Ago 438
jkinney3 was one of several readers to send in news of recently discovered internal documents from BP which indicate the company knew "there were serious problems and safety concerns with the Deepwater Horizon rig far earlier than those the company described to Congress last week." According to the New York Times, "The documents show that in March, after several weeks of problems on the rig, BP was struggling with a loss of 'well control.' And as far back as 11 months ago, it was concerned about the well casing and the blowout preventer." Reader bezenek points out this troubling quote about BP's inconsistent risk assessments: "In April of this year, BP engineers concluded that the casing was 'unlikely to be a successful cement job,' according to a document, referring to how the casing would be sealed to prevent gases from escaping up the well. The document also says that the plan for casing the well is 'unable to fulfill M.M.S. regulations,' referring to the Minerals Management Service. A second version of the same document says 'It is possible to obtain a successful cement job' and 'It is possible to fulfill M.M.S. regulations.'"
I have to wonder what goes on inside BP (Score:5, Informative)
Did they not honestly believe that a disaster could occur? Did the right people not talk to each other? Or was the urge to cut corners simply so great that people ignored the risk?
From the ABC interview with one of the survivors, the BP people were arguing with the Transocean people, insisting that it would be ok to skip some phases of sealing the well because they wanted to move the schedule up. I wonder what that BP manager was thinking.
Re:Liability caps (Score:5, Informative)
blahblahblah. More Libertarian nonsense.
When I'm out of town and don't know the area, and my car nearly dies running out of gas, I really don't have a choice about what the next gas station is. Whether BP, Citgo, 76, Gulf, etc.
Speaking oil and monopolies, yes, Standard Oil became a monopoly with out the Government's interference. So did many other monopolies.
Re:Old memo deja-vu (Score:1, Informative)
How about from here [agonist.org]?
Q: Why was this PDB prepared?
DCI Tenet has already described the genesis of this PDB item in a letter to the 9-11 Commission dated March 26, 2004. This PDB item was prepared in response to questions President Bush asked his PDB briefer. The President had seen previous intelligence reports about possible al-Qa'ida threats to U.S. targets outside the United States. The President had asked whether any of the information pointed to a possible attack inside the United States. When this PDB item was presented to the President on August 6, 2001, his PDB briefer told him that it was prepared in response to the President's previous questions.
Q: What information does this PDB item contain?
The article advised the President of what was publicly well-known: that Bin Ladin had a desire to attack inside the United States. Bin Ladin had stated publicly in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would try to "bring the fighting to America." Most of the information in the article was an analysis of previous terrorist attacks by al-Qaida and a summary and discussion of general threat reporting from the late 1990s. The draft was prepared by CIA after consultation with an FBI analyst.
Q: Did the PDB item include any warning of the 9-11 attack?
No. The only recent information concerning possible current activities in the PDB related to two incidents. There is no information that either incident was related to the 9-11 attacks. The first incident involved suspected "recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." This information was based on a report that two Yemeni men had been seen taking photographs of buildings at Federal Plaza in New York. The FBI later interviewed the men and determined that their conduct was consistent with tourist activity and the FBI's investigation identified no link to terrorism. The second incident involved a call made on May 15, 2001 by an unidentified individual to the U.S. Embassy in the UAE "saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives." The caller did not say where or when the attacks might occur. o On May 17, 2001, the NSC's counterterrorism staff convened the Counterterrorism Security Group, whose members include State, DoD, JCS, DoJ, FBI, and CIA, and reviewed the information provided by the caller. o The information was also shared with Customs, INS, and FAA. o The PDB article advised the President that CIA and FBI were investigating the information. o We had no information, either before or after 9/11, that connects the caller's information with the 9/11 attacks.
Re:Halliburton? (Score:2, Informative)
From the WSJ's article [cjr.org] on the Deepwater Horizon.
BP also skipped a quality test of the cement around the pipe—another buffer against gas—despite what BP now says were signs of problems with the cement job and despite a warning from cement contractor Halliburton Co. ....
Halliburton, the cementing contractor, advised BP to install numerous devices to make sure the pipe was centered in the well before pumping cement, according to Halliburton documents, provided to congressional investigators and seen by the Journal. Otherwise, the cement might develop small channels that gas could squeeze through.
In an April 18 report to BP, Halliburton warned that if BP didn't use more centering devices, the well would likely have "a SEVERE gas flow problem." Still, BP decided to install fewer of the devices than Halliburton recommended—six instead of 21.
BP said it's still investigating how cementing was done. Halliburton said that it followed BP's instructions, and that while some "were not consistent with industry best practices," they were "within acceptable industry standards."
The cement job was especially important on this well because of a BP design choice that some petroleum engineers call unusual. BP ran a single long pipe, made up of sections screwed together, all the way from the sea floor to the oil reservoir.
Companies often use two pipes, one inside another, sealed together, with the smaller one sticking into the oil reservoir. With this system, if gas tries to get up the outside of the pipe, it has to break through not just cement but also the seal connecting the pipes. So the more typical design provides an extra level of protection, but also requires another long, expensive piece of pipe.
"I couldn't understand why they would run a long string," meaning a single pipe, said David Pursell, a petroleum engineer and managing director of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., an energy-focused investment bank. Oil major Royal Dutch Shell PLC, in a letter to the MMS, said it "generally does not" use a single pipe.
BP's Mr. Gowers said the well design wasn't unusual. BP engineers "evaluate various factors" to determine what design to use for each well, he said.
Despite the well design and the importance of the cement, daily drilling reports show that BP didn't run a critical, but time-consuming, procedure that might have allowed the company to detect and remove gas building up in the well.
It's possible that they are simply covering their ass, but it's also possible that Halliburton learned from the Montara accident and was arguing for extra safety measures
Not entirely true. Here's some insights (Score:5, Informative)
In addition Tony Hayward [wikipedia.org] is a geologist with a PhD.
BP Doesn't care. No really (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6ZN6r5-1QE
Re:President Obama (Score:5, Informative)
That is called populism, and while it might make people feel good, it doesn't have a basis in law or the constitution. Holding them financially responsible is an obvious point, but you can't seize assets of the employees (4th Amendment) nor hold them personally responsible unless you can show criminal negligence or that they broke some other law. That is entirely possible for some.
What we can't do is knee jerk react and create new laws because of this. The problem isn't that we don't have enough laws, the problem is that the current system of laws and regulations wasn't followed. Politicians love to pass new laws when the shit hits the fan, because it makes it look like are doing something, when in fact it is a useless gesture.
Re:Duh (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, like this.
First of all, the sections of pipe are joined mechanically, and sealed with O-rings. The O-rings are specified for shallow water pressures (and temperatures), and rather than use adequate deep water parts, the shallow water parts were continued to avoid mandatory Federal oversight and testing.
On top of that, deadlines for completion were already tight, as no schedule variability was provided for unforeseen events, such as severe weather, that might hamper drilling and well conversion efforts. The conversion from an exploratory/research structure into a production well was a hard deadline, and pressure was on internally from the otherwise stagnant middle managers clamoring for achievement. There was no room for failure with a project named Deepwater Horizon.
As engineers' warnings flowed up the chain of command, the wording changed from "grave concern" to "concern" to "noted comment" to eventually "thumbs up!". Inter-hierarchical presentations followed a strict time schedule, so power point mentality and "no bad news up" reigned.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
"HP *WILL NOT* come out of this unscathed,"
Exxon did. Their fine was a drop in the bucket.
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BMO
Re:Liability caps (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Duh (Score:5, Informative)
Like Nigeria [guardian.co.uk]. From that article,
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Sick of Pocket Know-it-alls (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Duh (Score:3, Informative)
You note that as satite, but that's basically exactly what happened with the Challenger. The engineers had reliability reports and lots of testing data that showed launching in the cold was a Bad IDea... however, poorly constructed presentations didn't highlight THAT aspect of the data, and their warnings were generally misunderstood or ignored.
Re:Liability caps (Score:3, Informative)
Oil is a commodity traded on the open market at a price that people will pay for it. Also all crude oils are not the same. The gulf of mexico mainly supplies sour crudes which are traded far more cheaply than the west Texas intermediate crudes (the price quoted in the news). Yet some refineries are especially kitted out to process sour crudes, and some only process sweet crudes. As such a price rise by BP for oil from the Gulf of Mexico will ultimately still lead to it being sold in the open market. Thus the market price will rise slightly. In several key places around the world (depending on the local economics and refining capacity) the refineries of ALL companies running this type of crude will have to absorb these costs. This leads to a higher cost of gasoline coming out of the refineries. Local economics will then lead to the costs ultimately being passed on to consumers who have to gasoline from these refineries.
The free market approach of competition breaks down due to barriers caused by different crudes, different refining capacities, geographical locations, cost of transport of goods, and the general convoluted screwyness of how oil and petrol are traded on the open market. If your competition idea worked flawlessly with none of these barriers there wouldn't be any refineries in Australia for instance because all the refining capacity here is less than 1/5th of one of the reliance petroleum refineries in India who can produce stuff far cheaper. Fortunately they can't run much sour crude.