U.S. rejected Dutch help on containing leaking oil three days after leak

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kokonut said:
Just tossing things around in these parts.
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Why does Chavez wants to nationalization of oil rigs? What are you think about it?
 
Chavez tried to take over American oil rigs in Venezuela and he failed.
 
Foxrac said:
like he did to Exxon?
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all American companies. Pretty amazing that a company could even defy against the government like Chavez especially when he tried to seize it.
 
Gulf States Give National Guard Minimal Role in Fighting Oil Spill
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has authorized up to 17,500 National Guard troops to fight the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but only a fraction of that number has been deployed so far -- raising questions about where the troops are and why they have such a small presence.

A Defense official told Fox News that governors are afraid that activating more troops would be politically harmful, charging taxpayers a high cost for duties that won't keep troops busy. The skill sets these troops have don't match the needs, the official said, and the governors aren't about to pay soldiers to stand on the beaches waiting for oil to wash up.

Gates told "Fox News Sunday" that there isn't more the Pentagon could be doing to help stop the spill or to prevent millions of gallons of oil from washing up on the Gulf Coast.

"We have offered whatever capabilities we have," Gates said. "We don't have the kinds of equipment or particular expertise."

Gates said there is a standing offer for the authorization of up to 17,500 National Guard troops in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, the four states that are most affected by the BP spill.

"If there's anything people think we can do, we absolutely will do it," he said.

Gates authorized the troops under Title 32 status, which means all costs would be reimbursed by the federal government, which in turn is charging BP.
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:hmm:
 
Twenty is the number of verified oil skimmers off the coast of Florida as of June 21, 2010. As of June 22, the State of Florida has independently hired FIVE additional skimmers due to federal inaction, bringing the new total for oil skimmers off the coast of Florida to 25.
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United States Senator George LeMieux
 
more hate?
 
please let me join to flame more hate.

The President's Lackluster Oil Team
My two cents: Let's use the Gulf oil spill as an excuse to fix the Gulf oil spill -- not as cover to pass more legislation that will put taxpayers on the hook.

The president promised to bring the smartest minds to bear on diagnosing the reasons for the Gulf oil disaster. So when he chose a panel to investigate the origins of the spill, I was prepared to be impressed. No such luck.

Don't get me wrong: There are lots of smart folks on the panel. People with big-time degrees and big-time resumes-but they are short on the one thing needed in this crisis: technical expertise.

Let me give you some examples. Ine member is an environmental activist who says the disaster stems from America's addiction to oil. Hmm...sounds like political analysis to me.

Only one of the seven commissioners has an engineering background, but it's in optics and physics - not too useful in this case. The other commissioners are experts in policy and management. Choosing someone who has actually been involved in drilling a well might have been a good idea.

But as has been the case throughout this crisis, the appearance of action has always been more important than actually getting something done.

I've got an idea: let's use the Gulf oil spill as an excuse to fix the Gulf oil spill -- not as cover to pass more legislation that will put taxpayers on the hook.
But that's just my two cents!
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2 cents? more like a dollar coin!
 
"Only one of the seven commissioners has an engineering background, but it's in optics and physics - not too useful in this case. The other commissioners are experts in policy and management. Choosing someone who has actually been involved in drilling a well might have been a good idea."

Oh yea.. especially the one who drilled for Deepwater Horizon!! Bring him in!!!!

Has it occurred to anyone that this meeting may be about "cutting corners" rather than the actual cause? I think we all knew what the actual causes were... but not the reasons leading UP to the actual causes.. what decisions were made, etc. Well, isn't this a management thing?
 
Daredevel7 said:
"Only one of the seven commissioners has an engineering background, but it's in optics and physics - not too useful in this case. The other commissioners are experts in policy and management. Choosing someone who has actually been involved in drilling a well might have been a good idea."

Oh yea.. especially the one who drilled for Deepwater Horizon!! Bring him in!!!!

Has it occurred to anyone that this meeting may be about "cutting corners" rather than the actual cause? I think we all knew what the actual causes were... but not the reasons leading UP to the actual causes.. what decisions were made, etc. Well, isn't this a management thing?
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Cutting corners is a no no. And even when adhered strictly to standards and guidelines, accidents will happen because oil drilling carries an inherent risk.
 
kokonut said:
Cutting corners is a no no. And even when adhered strictly to standards and guidelines, accidents will happen because oil drilling carries an inherent risk.
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in this case - it was an unacceptable risk of accident. Let's hear some inputs from CEO of one of the world's largest oil companies on Gulf oil spill.

Total CEO: Big Oil on Big Oil
Is deep water exploration too risky?

We went from 50 meters (164 ft.) to 500 meters (1,640 ft.). Then 5,000 meters (16,400 ft.), and then more. So what is too risky? Too risky is when you don't consider that you can control what you're doing. And it's part of our code of conduct to never develop something you cannot manage.

When you [start an] exploration, you don't know if you will be capable to develop it, or even to drill. But in advance, you take a good look, and you think of how you will be doing it, and you believe in your capacities to develop new technologies and new ways of making things for the benefit of all of us. But the only way is always to go one step further. If you cannot say that you have the capabilities to manage and to control it, don't do it. And that is the [difference between] taking a risk, by which I mean being courageous, and being crazy. And we cannot be crazy. And I don't think the oil industry is crazy.

Now the big debate will be, are we going too far? Take Brazil, which everybody considers the best opportunity in the world. Everybody's pleased to see Brazil recover thanks to oil and gas discoveries [like the 2007 discovery of the Tupi oil field off the Brazilian coast]. But it's much deeper than the Gulf of Mexico.
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What do you make of the efforts to contain the spill?

The word transparent is a beautiful word. But to be transparent doesn't mean to show everything. There is a difference. Seeing this flow of oil [on the webcam] in the deeper shore, every day, 24 hours a day... there is a limit of what you can show to people. I think that's too much. I don't see what it brings. Transparency is to help change things. Transparency is what happened and what are you going to do for that not to happen again. But just a flow of oil -- that's not transparency.

And it has been hurting BP, which is trying to do something. They could have said, okay, we have relief wells on the way, which is the only one solution sure to really kill the oil spill. Until then, they're doing their best. How much are they [capturing]? We don't know yet. But it's better than nothing. And each time they've failed on something, there's been [headlines] about how they failed again. No one would tell firemen trying to stop a fire they were failing because they couldn't control the fire. Why? Because they are not responsible for the fire. But with BP, because they are responsible, then they are failing. If they were not responsible, [people would say] they are doing their best.
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Have you changed anything about Total's business or operations in response to this crisis?

It's something that is difficult to say, but you always, at the end, benefit from the mistakes of others. Which is not the case yet, because we don't know what happened. But the first thing we decided is to review all of our exploration operations and systems just to be sure that we are following the last best [practices] for drilling.

And the second thing is that we have decided to create two new task forces: One for drilling and exploration wells, just to make sure that we have the best new policies and practices everywhere in the world. The second is a task force to strengthen preparation plans to fight any potential major pollution, i.e. what do we do if confronted with a spill like this? Even if I insist most of our job is how to avoid spills, how can we handle it in a way that is safer? It shouldn't happen, but that doesn't mean you don't have a solution to stop it.
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it's a shame that BP was irresponsible.
 
kokonut said:
Cutting corners is a no no. And even when adhered strictly to standards and guidelines, accidents will happen because oil drilling carries an inherent risk.
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In their cost/benefit analysis, they obviously looked at the finanacial cost ONLY. That is unacceptable.
 
Tyrone Benton: We Told BP About Faulty Safety Part
In an interview with the BBC, a BP employee leveled an explosive claim Monday: that he and other Deepwater Horizon rig workers discovered a leak in the well's blowout preventer weeks before the fateful accident that sank the platform, killing 11 and causing oil to begin leaking into the gulf in the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

Stationed on the Deepwater Horizon rig as a subcontractor before it exploded on April 20, Tyrone Benton is suing BP for negligence, in part because he believes the company did not properly respond when it learned that the blowout preventer was leaking.

Transocean, the company that operated the doomed well for BP, says it tested the blowout preventer after Benton alerted it to the problem.

As The New York Times reported on May 29, BP's own internal documents show that the company had found several safety problems with the well, including leaks in the blowout preventer.
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yep...... a proof right there that BP willfully and knowingly cut corners and operate it unsafely.
 
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