http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7134583.ece
How many more rigs are out there, with all the craftsmanship of this one?
How many accidents like this are out there waiting to happen, all because someone shot the odds.
BP will be taken off the Gulf clean-up operation if the US government decides that its performance is not good enough, Ken Salazar, the US Interior Secretary, said yesterday.
“I am angry and I am frustrated that BP has been unable to stop this oil from leaking and to stop the pollution from spreading,” Mr Salazar said after visiting BP’s US headquarters in Houston. “We are 33 days into this effort and deadline after deadline has been missed.”
President Barack Obama’s administration is facing growing public and political pressure to take full charge of the oil spill containment operation as criticism of BP grows. “If we find they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way appropriately,” Mr Salazar said, but he did not specify at what point this would occur or what might be the trigger for it. He added that BP had agreed to pay clean-up costs beyond the $75 million liability limit set by current US law.
BP was also accused yesterday of agreeing to keep a test valve on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which later exploded, despite knowing that it would increase the risk of accidents.
The rig’s owner, Transocean, wrote to BP in 2004 to confirm an agreement that Transocean would keep the test valve on the safety device known as a “blowout preventer” rather than replacing it with a permanent and more effective “variable bore ram” that could have halted the oil flow, according to a letter leaked to the Washington Post.
A representative of BP reportedly signed a copy of the letter,
Showing posts with label Transocean Ltd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Transocean Ltd. Show all posts
Monday, May 24, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Tar balls found on Key West shores
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/reuters/MTFH33602_2010-05-18_09-43-33_N1880093.htm
One has to wonder exactly how would the officials know how much of an impact has been really made since the majority of the oil gusher's leak remains below the surface and can't be seen.
The U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday that state park rangers at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park on the island of Key West, Florida, found tar balls washing ashore throughout the day, marking the first appearance of oil debris reported in Florida since BP's deepsea well rupture on April 20.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has previously said the southern edge of the spill could make its way into the so-called Loop Current current, which could carry oil eastward toward the Florida Keys, out of the Gulf and up the East Coast of the United States.
Samples of the tar balls were collected and will be shipped to a laboratory for analysis to determine the origin of the source, the Coast Guard said.
Officials have stressed the spill has so far had minimal impact on the shoreline and wildlife along the Gulf Coast, but oil debris and tar balls had been reported earlier in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.
One has to wonder exactly how would the officials know how much of an impact has been really made since the majority of the oil gusher's leak remains below the surface and can't be seen.
The U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday that state park rangers at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park on the island of Key West, Florida, found tar balls washing ashore throughout the day, marking the first appearance of oil debris reported in Florida since BP's deepsea well rupture on April 20.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has previously said the southern edge of the spill could make its way into the so-called Loop Current current, which could carry oil eastward toward the Florida Keys, out of the Gulf and up the East Coast of the United States.
Samples of the tar balls were collected and will be shipped to a laboratory for analysis to determine the origin of the source, the Coast Guard said.
Officials have stressed the spill has so far had minimal impact on the shoreline and wildlife along the Gulf Coast, but oil debris and tar balls had been reported earlier in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Scientists find vast unreported oil leak from Deepwater Horizon
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7127904.ece
300 feet thick
A plume of oil 10 miles (16km) long, three miles wide and 300ft thick is pouring into the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
The plume is one of a number that scientists have found gushing into the sea a mile underwater, increasing concerns that the size of the spill could be thousands of times larger than has been previously calculated, according to The New York Times.
“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, from the University of Georgia, who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather information from the spill. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column,” Dr Joye told the newspaper.
After studying footage of the gushing oil scientists on board the
300 feet thick
A plume of oil 10 miles (16km) long, three miles wide and 300ft thick is pouring into the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
The plume is one of a number that scientists have found gushing into the sea a mile underwater, increasing concerns that the size of the spill could be thousands of times larger than has been previously calculated, according to The New York Times.
“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, from the University of Georgia, who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather information from the spill. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column,” Dr Joye told the newspaper.
After studying footage of the gushing oil scientists on board the
Sunday, May 16, 2010
BP's Own Probe Finds Safety Issues on Atlantis Rig
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704614204575246481681620318.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories
Ok so they KNOW
The question is why don't they care?
Because they're "To big to jail"
And with decisions like these and those made for Deep Horizon
Why do they still have a Corporate charter?
These people have no business being in this business.
The rule has to be: SAFETY FIRST!
NO EXCEPTIONS
BP production member Barry C. Duff said in an August 2008 email to two colleagues that "hundreds if not thousands" of subsea documents had not been finalized, and warned having the wrong documents on board the Atlantis "could lead to catastrophic operator errors."
Ok so they KNOW
The question is why don't they care?
Because they're "To big to jail"
And with decisions like these and those made for Deep Horizon
Why do they still have a Corporate charter?
These people have no business being in this business.
The rule has to be: SAFETY FIRST!
NO EXCEPTIONS
BP production member Barry C. Duff said in an August 2008 email to two colleagues that "hundreds if not thousands" of subsea documents had not been finalized, and warned having the wrong documents on board the Atlantis "could lead to catastrophic operator errors."
Crew Argued Over Drilling Plan Before Rig Explosion
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704414504575244812908538510.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories
An over whelming sense of fear, is still the predominant taste in my mouth after having read that there was a disagreement upon the proper procedure for shutting down the well.
Somewhere in my mind there was a certain sense of security, (that now is no longer there), that proper procedures were in place for everything built, that if not followed could cause catastrophic calamity to either the environment or that of man kind itself. I now, no longer hold that sense of security, and I'm having an exceptionally hard time trying not to envision this same scenario occurring over the proper procedures of constructing a nuclear power plant.
BP's employee argued it wasn't proper procedure, the dude ought to know it's his job
And the smell of caution is already there over the gas levels
And you know you jerry rigged the fail safe
Who decided to go ahead and shoot those odds?
To take nothing else into concern but completion of the job?
A corporate suit did.
Talk about a head game...this is the big one.
What else has been compromised?
For Profit
In his sworn statement, he described the meeting as including ranking personnel from BP, Transocean and Halliburton Co., a contractor that dealt with cementing the well.
According to Mr. Williams's account, Transocean's rig manager, Jimmy Wayne Harrell, was discussing the plans for the next few hours' work, including taking out the drilling mud and running a test to make sure gas wasn't seeping into the well. Mr. Harrell explained in the meeting that he had received the plans from BP.
Then, according to Mr. Williams's statement, the top-ranked BP employee assigned to the rig, Donald Vidrine, disagreed and said "that was not the correct procedure."
An over whelming sense of fear, is still the predominant taste in my mouth after having read that there was a disagreement upon the proper procedure for shutting down the well.
Somewhere in my mind there was a certain sense of security, (that now is no longer there), that proper procedures were in place for everything built, that if not followed could cause catastrophic calamity to either the environment or that of man kind itself. I now, no longer hold that sense of security, and I'm having an exceptionally hard time trying not to envision this same scenario occurring over the proper procedures of constructing a nuclear power plant.
BP's employee argued it wasn't proper procedure, the dude ought to know it's his job
And the smell of caution is already there over the gas levels
And you know you jerry rigged the fail safe
Who decided to go ahead and shoot those odds?
To take nothing else into concern but completion of the job?
A corporate suit did.
Talk about a head game...this is the big one.
What else has been compromised?
For Profit
In his sworn statement, he described the meeting as including ranking personnel from BP, Transocean and Halliburton Co., a contractor that dealt with cementing the well.
According to Mr. Williams's account, Transocean's rig manager, Jimmy Wayne Harrell, was discussing the plans for the next few hours' work, including taking out the drilling mud and running a test to make sure gas wasn't seeping into the well. Mr. Harrell explained in the meeting that he had received the plans from BP.
Then, according to Mr. Williams's statement, the top-ranked BP employee assigned to the rig, Donald Vidrine, disagreed and said "that was not the correct procedure."
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Transocean Petitions to Limit Liability in Gulf Rig Blast
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704635204575241852606380696.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
God forbid that those 11 people's family should be compensated for their death without a fight.
Greed kills but it also maims.
By MARK LONG And ANGEL GONZALEZ
Transocean Ltd., the owner and operator of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that burned and sank last month unleashing a massive oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico, Thursday filed in federal court a petition to limit its liability to just under $27 million.
..The world's biggest offshore driller filed the request in the U.S. District Court in Houston under a century-and-a-half-old law that allowed the Titanic's owners to limit their liability following that ship's 1912 sinking. While Transocean may not succeed in limiting its financial liability, the filing could give the company an edge in what could be a lengthy, multipronged legal battle against claims for damages from the accident that killed 11 workers.
Under the Limitation of Liability Act of 1851, a vessel owner is liable only for the post-accident value of the vessel and cargo, so long as the owner can show he or she had no knowledge of negligence in the accident, maritime lawyers say.
The law was created in the days before modern insurance and communications technology, to help U.S. shipping businesses compete against foreign ship owners who were protected against claims. Drilling rigs count as vessels under U.S. maritime law, and since "the remains of the … Deepwater Horizon now lay sunken" about a mile deep in the federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the value of the rig and its cargo comes to no more than $26,764,083, Transocean claims in the filing. Before the accident, the rig was worth around $650 million.
God forbid that those 11 people's family should be compensated for their death without a fight.
Greed kills but it also maims.
By MARK LONG And ANGEL GONZALEZ
Transocean Ltd., the owner and operator of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that burned and sank last month unleashing a massive oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico, Thursday filed in federal court a petition to limit its liability to just under $27 million.
..The world's biggest offshore driller filed the request in the U.S. District Court in Houston under a century-and-a-half-old law that allowed the Titanic's owners to limit their liability following that ship's 1912 sinking. While Transocean may not succeed in limiting its financial liability, the filing could give the company an edge in what could be a lengthy, multipronged legal battle against claims for damages from the accident that killed 11 workers.
Under the Limitation of Liability Act of 1851, a vessel owner is liable only for the post-accident value of the vessel and cargo, so long as the owner can show he or she had no knowledge of negligence in the accident, maritime lawyers say.
The law was created in the days before modern insurance and communications technology, to help U.S. shipping businesses compete against foreign ship owners who were protected against claims. Drilling rigs count as vessels under U.S. maritime law, and since "the remains of the … Deepwater Horizon now lay sunken" about a mile deep in the federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the value of the rig and its cargo comes to no more than $26,764,083, Transocean claims in the filing. Before the accident, the rig was worth around $650 million.
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