BP's Stock plunges, Talks of Bankruptcy

[okeydokey]

Isn't this thread from over 6 months ago? How did it come back to life?

I guess someone needed an ego boost.

 

[bicker]

Or rather wanted to update the thread with today's news, the leaking of the commission's report.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Wow, this is stunning news. The commission appointed by a president that hates the oil and gas industry has determined that the oil and gas industry was at fault for the spill. Amazing. That's almost as surprising (and credible) as when BP blamed its contractors and when they blamed BP.

I probably would have thought that this was just another political hatchet job like when the White House altered their earlier report adding in support for their moratorium when experts they consulted for the report did no such thing. But with Bicker supporting this new report, I guess it must be the unvarnished truth.

 

[Poppinsme]

Nobody here in southern Louisiana has forgotten the gulf oil spill.

"Better management by BP, Halliburton and Transocean would almost certainly have prevented the blowout by improving the ability of individuals involved to identify the risks they faced, and to properly evaluate, communicate and address them," the report says. "A blowout in deepwater was not a statistical inevitability."

The report doesn't offer any new findings about what led to the blowout. It repeats the well-worn theory that a series of human missteps caused the accident, and that the massive stack of shut-off valves on the sea floor called the blowout preventer suffered various mechanical failures.

But the report does more than others to put BP's management decisions into the larger context of an extremely difficult drilling project that should have caused BP and others to exercise far more caution. Instead, BP went on to make a string of "compromises" that placed prioritized ease and speed, not safety, the commission concluded.

The commission questioned BP's true commitment to the safety centralizers were supposed to provide, saying its approach was summed up by this April 16 e-mail from one BP engineer to another: "Who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine and we'll get a good cement job."

In possibly the most fatal error of them all, BP's Kaluza and the Transocean drilling crew blatantly misinterpreted the so-called "negative pressure test," the industry-recognized best method for making sure oil and gas aren't leaking into the well and, the commission report says, the "only test performed that would have checked the integrity of the bottom-hole cement job." Pressure in two places in the hole that should have both been zero instead read zero in one spot and 1,400 pounds per square inch in the other. Transocean workers may have tried to explain away the difference as a product of an effect they'd heard about, but that most experts say is a myth. The different readings "could only have been caused by a leak into the well," the commission concluded, and yet BP ordered no further testing and took the negative test results to mean there was no leak.

From there, several other safety mechanisms failed, most importantly the blowout preventer. But the die had been cast by the buildup of risk from the series of managerial decisions leading up to the actual blowout.

"BP's fundamental mistake was its failure ... to exercise special caution (and, accordingly, to direct its contractors to be especially vigilant) before relying on the primary cement as a barrier to hydrocarbon (oil and gas) flow," the commission report said.


12/30/2010

Reader comment: BP better well clean up in front of my house

"BP better well clean up in front of my house. I live on Grand Isle. and I check the beach each day. The tar balls are still coming in each day . Some days are worse than others. I HAVE BEEN told by the workers that they think that they have a job till Easter. It will be necessary for a small crew to stay active for the rest of my life and beyond. For 10 years before the BIG SPILL it was very hard to find a tar ball on Grand Isle. I have lived there for the last 20 years, and I go on the beach almost every day. In the 1950s there were tar balls on the beach. Since then the industry has cleaned up its act. I know because I worked in the oil patch for 30 years. I worked over water in the inside lakes."

Tar balls still being cleaned off Grand Isle beaches

Published: Thursday, January 06, 2011, 8:15 PM

"...The inescapable conclusion of the oil spill hearings and commissions is that there was a profound disregard for and absence of sound (let alone best) management, engineering and systems practices. As the on-going investigations and reporting indicate, many of the proximate and root causes of the Macando well's performance deficiencies are still not understood.
"In the face of such deep uncertainty and the calamitous consequences of being wrong, the public's interests in exploiting its energy resources near its homes and jobs is to proceed with a level of prudence and caution not found in the self-serving world of wildcatting risk-takers who drive the energy business...."

 

[nathalee81]

Pretty much!

Seriously, I think it would be horrible if we regularly drop important issues just because they no longer the sexy thing to be talking about. What does that say? That we really didn't care as much about this issue when we went on for pages and pages? Rip into BP (for example) when our blood-lust is high, and the forget the whole thing a few weeks later? That smacks of mob mentality, which I would find offensive.

Trust me, I was in Louisiana in October and nobody there has forgotten what happened despite it not being "sexy" anymore. Just because it isn't a hot button issue on the dis boards anymore doesn't mean it has been forgotten.
My fellow Gulf Coasters and I spent the summer worrying about a hurricane blowing into the gulf and oil slicks forming on our front yard. My father lives in Louisiana, so I know someone who was personally affected by all this. Trust me, there are alot of people out there that still care about this issue.
There is a whole big world outside of the dis boards (although the community board does draw me away from said world for a couple of hours on a good day-which I can't quite determine if this is good or bad ).

 

[bicker]

Trust me, I was in Louisiana in October and nobody there has forgotten what happened despite it not being "sexy" anymore. Just because it isn't a hot button issue on the dis boards anymore doesn't mean it has been forgotten.

I don't give the DIS boards too credit for much, in that regard, but if a whole evening goes without anyone responding to Mark's defense of the oil industry, then that says something about how little the American public, in general, still cares about this issue. Sure, there will be replies now; some of us are very conscious of these issues and will contribute to the thread; but from the relative silence it is clear to me that for many it is a non-issue.

And what we see various people saying these days really does highlight how it may be possible that no significant change may ever come of this tragedy. Those with blood-thirst still want to blame one company - one face if they can manage that. Those who look at the issue with integrity realize that it is practically a societal issue. Those two groups will fight against each other, perhaps preventing anything having long-term significance from being undertaken, and essentially nothing will change.

Very sad.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I don't give the DIS boards too credit for much, in that regard, but if a whole evening goes without anyone responding to Mark's defense of the oil industry, then that says something about how little the American public, in general, still cares about this issue.

My post wasn't a defense of the industry. It was mocking the notion that the President's commission was anything other than another biased hack job. Your earlier post made it sound as though the commission was finally presenting the truth about the state of the industry. If you step back for a second, you'll realize that an investigation of the oil and gas industry by this administration is likely to be as objective as Speaker of the House Boehner setting up a commission to investigate the effectiveness of the recent health care reform legislation or as objective as a commission set up by former President Bush to investigate the industry.

I am in the industry and have a large financial stake in the outcome of this situation and the changes in the regulatory environment. Because of my position, I'm constrained as to what I can say about this situation. I'd love to give a detailed defense of the industry and an explanation of why I think that BP behaved far outside of normal practice even to the extent of gross negligence, but I won't. I'll just say that we need reasonable regulation that encourages safe and efficient production.

 

[bicker]

I am in the industry and have a large financial stake in the outcome of this situation and the changes in the regulatory environment. Because of my position, I'm constrained as to what I can say about this situation.

Fair enough.

I'll just say that we need reasonable regulation that encourages safe and efficient production.

Let's hope that that happens.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Let's hope that that happens.

I'm not getting my hopes too high. Not to get too political, but I think we're in a three bears situation. I'm hoping that the next administration gets here soon and is "just right."

 

[bicker]

Not to get too political, but I think "just right" will require a little bit from all the myriad sides, and that isn't going to happen in my lifetime. There is no indication, whatsoever, that there is any significant support building for a centrist view of things. And there really isn't anything to build such support on: Are you going to be swayed by someone saying, "We're going to take you half-way there!"

 

[snarlingcoyote]

My post wasn't a defense of the industry. It was mocking the notion that the President's commission was anything other than another biased hack job. Your earlier post made it sound as though the commission was finally presenting the truth about the state of the industry. If you step back for a second, you'll realize that an investigation of the oil and gas industry by this administration is likely to be as objective as Speaker of the House Boehner setting up a commission to investigate the effectiveness of the recent health care reform legislation or as objective as a commission set up by former President Bush to investigate the industry.

I am in the industry and have a large financial stake in the outcome of this situation and the changes in the regulatory environment. Because of my position, I'm constrained as to what I can say about this situation. I'd love to give a detailed defense of the industry and an explanation of why I think that BP behaved far outside of normal practice even to the extent of gross negligence, but I won't. I'll just say that we need reasonable regulation that encourages safe and efficient production.

Mark, I don't often find myself agreeing with you, but on this one, as someone with family all through the Petrochem industry in Lake Chuck and Houston; I'm 100% agreed on this one, both on the BP and the Obama commission's report findings.