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laker1963
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A key federal report blames poor management, key missteps and a faulty cement job by BP and others for the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history and the deaths of 11 rig workers.
The details, released Wednesday, were contained in the final report from an investigation team of the U.S. Coast Guard and the agency that regulates offshore drilling.'
The panel held hearings over the course of a year following the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon tragedy. The Coast Guard-Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement investigation was among the most exhaustive.
Environmental disaster(AP) BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, 2010, unleashing an estimated 780 million litres of oil into the Gulf of Mexico before the damaged well was capped three months later.
The blast killed 11 rig workers.
The gush of oil has caused extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitat, as well as to the Gulf's fishing and tourism industries.
Other investigations have faulted misreadings of key data, the failure of the blowout preventer to stop the flow of oil to the sea, and other shortcomings by executives, engineers and rig crew members.
Meanwhile, interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press show a BP scientist identified a previously unreported deposit of flammable gas that could have played a role in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but the oil giant failed to divulge the finding to government investigators for as long as a year.
While engineering experts differ on the extent to which the 60-centimetre-wide swath of gas-bearing sands helped cause the disaster, the finding raises the spectre of further legal and financial troubles for BP. It also could raise the stakes in the multibillion-dollar court battle between the companies involved.
"This is a critical factor, where the hydrocarbons are found," Rice University engineering professor Satish Nagarajaiah said. "I think further studies are needed to determine where this exactly was and what response was initiated by BP if they knew this fact."
Two months ago, BP petrophysicist Galina Skripnikova told lawyers involved in the oil spill litigation that there appeared to be a zone of gas more than 90 metres above where BP told its contractors and regulators with the then-Minerals Management Service the shallowest zone was located.
Haliburton's cement job under scrutiny
The depth of the oil and gas is a critical parameter in drilling because it determines how much cement a company needs to pump to seal a well. Federal regulations require the top of the cement to be 500 metres above the shallowest zone holding hydrocarbons, meaning BP's cement job was potentially well below where it should have been.
Cement contractor Halliburton recently filed a lawsuit against BP asserting that Skripnikova's statements prove the oil giant knew about the shallower gas before the explosion and should have sought a new cement and well design. BP has denied the allegations.
Skripnikova's job involved analyzing data from BP's Macondo well to determine the depth and characteristics of oil and gas deposits, which in turn is used in a process called temporary abandonment, when wells are sealed so they can be used for production later.
Crews battle the blaze on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.Reuters Based on the initial information, regulators approved BP's well sealing plan, which called for placing the top of the cement at roughly 5,300 metres below the surface of the water.
The cement was pumped April 19, the day before the explosion. But Skripnikova said that after she flew back from the rig, she and others re-examined the analysis, and on the day of the explosion she identified the shallower gas zone. That would have meant the cement should have been placed at just under 5,180 metres below the surface of the water.
She said she did not relay that information to drilling engineers on the Deepwater Horizon and warn them to hold off proceeding with the abandonment. She suggested in her deposition that she thought the information would be passed up the chain. BP was already $60 million over budget and stopping operations at that point and coming up with a new cement design would have meant millions of extra dollars in costs.
Later in the deposition, Skripnikova backtracked and said the new analysis was not discussed among her team until the day after the explosion. An underwater video camera shows oil gushing from the blown-out well's riser pipe in June 2010.BP/Associated Press
Skripnikova was never questioned at public hearings before the presidentially-appointed oil spill commission. Nor was she questioned before the joint U.S. Coast Guard-BOEMRE investigative panel. Her name and the information she has is not in BP's internal investigation report released last September.
BP spokesman Scott Dean insisted in a statement Tuesday to AP that when assessing top-of-cement requirements before the accident, BP did not identify the zone in question as bearing oil or gas. Dean said "BP has provided material concerning this zone to the parties in the multidistrict litigation and to government investigators."
BP provided a letter late Tuesday it said it sent the oil spill commission on Oct. 30, 2010, six months after the explosion. The letter said BP would be sending the commission draft reports the company prepared and more detailed studies to help inform its efforts to stop the flow of oil to the sea. The letter does not detail what the reports said, what data was provided, or whether the data was the same as what Skripnikova discussed in her deposition.
And an investigator with the presidential oil spill commission, which released a report on the disaster months ago and disbanded in January, told AP that BP did not specifically reveal the higher probable gas zone during the course of the panel's investigation.
The investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said an independent petrophysicist reviewed the data available to the panel and did not express concern about gas being at a shallower depth.
© The Associated Press, 2011
The details, released Wednesday, were contained in the final report from an investigation team of the U.S. Coast Guard and the agency that regulates offshore drilling.'
The panel held hearings over the course of a year following the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon tragedy. The Coast Guard-Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement investigation was among the most exhaustive.
Environmental disaster(AP) BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, 2010, unleashing an estimated 780 million litres of oil into the Gulf of Mexico before the damaged well was capped three months later.
The blast killed 11 rig workers.
The gush of oil has caused extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitat, as well as to the Gulf's fishing and tourism industries.
Other investigations have faulted misreadings of key data, the failure of the blowout preventer to stop the flow of oil to the sea, and other shortcomings by executives, engineers and rig crew members.
Meanwhile, interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press show a BP scientist identified a previously unreported deposit of flammable gas that could have played a role in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but the oil giant failed to divulge the finding to government investigators for as long as a year.
While engineering experts differ on the extent to which the 60-centimetre-wide swath of gas-bearing sands helped cause the disaster, the finding raises the spectre of further legal and financial troubles for BP. It also could raise the stakes in the multibillion-dollar court battle between the companies involved.
"This is a critical factor, where the hydrocarbons are found," Rice University engineering professor Satish Nagarajaiah said. "I think further studies are needed to determine where this exactly was and what response was initiated by BP if they knew this fact."
Two months ago, BP petrophysicist Galina Skripnikova told lawyers involved in the oil spill litigation that there appeared to be a zone of gas more than 90 metres above where BP told its contractors and regulators with the then-Minerals Management Service the shallowest zone was located.
Haliburton's cement job under scrutiny
The depth of the oil and gas is a critical parameter in drilling because it determines how much cement a company needs to pump to seal a well. Federal regulations require the top of the cement to be 500 metres above the shallowest zone holding hydrocarbons, meaning BP's cement job was potentially well below where it should have been.
Cement contractor Halliburton recently filed a lawsuit against BP asserting that Skripnikova's statements prove the oil giant knew about the shallower gas before the explosion and should have sought a new cement and well design. BP has denied the allegations.
Skripnikova's job involved analyzing data from BP's Macondo well to determine the depth and characteristics of oil and gas deposits, which in turn is used in a process called temporary abandonment, when wells are sealed so they can be used for production later.
Crews battle the blaze on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.Reuters Based on the initial information, regulators approved BP's well sealing plan, which called for placing the top of the cement at roughly 5,300 metres below the surface of the water.
The cement was pumped April 19, the day before the explosion. But Skripnikova said that after she flew back from the rig, she and others re-examined the analysis, and on the day of the explosion she identified the shallower gas zone. That would have meant the cement should have been placed at just under 5,180 metres below the surface of the water.
She said she did not relay that information to drilling engineers on the Deepwater Horizon and warn them to hold off proceeding with the abandonment. She suggested in her deposition that she thought the information would be passed up the chain. BP was already $60 million over budget and stopping operations at that point and coming up with a new cement design would have meant millions of extra dollars in costs.
Later in the deposition, Skripnikova backtracked and said the new analysis was not discussed among her team until the day after the explosion. An underwater video camera shows oil gushing from the blown-out well's riser pipe in June 2010.BP/Associated Press
Skripnikova was never questioned at public hearings before the presidentially-appointed oil spill commission. Nor was she questioned before the joint U.S. Coast Guard-BOEMRE investigative panel. Her name and the information she has is not in BP's internal investigation report released last September.
BP spokesman Scott Dean insisted in a statement Tuesday to AP that when assessing top-of-cement requirements before the accident, BP did not identify the zone in question as bearing oil or gas. Dean said "BP has provided material concerning this zone to the parties in the multidistrict litigation and to government investigators."
BP provided a letter late Tuesday it said it sent the oil spill commission on Oct. 30, 2010, six months after the explosion. The letter said BP would be sending the commission draft reports the company prepared and more detailed studies to help inform its efforts to stop the flow of oil to the sea. The letter does not detail what the reports said, what data was provided, or whether the data was the same as what Skripnikova discussed in her deposition.
And an investigator with the presidential oil spill commission, which released a report on the disaster months ago and disbanded in January, told AP that BP did not specifically reveal the higher probable gas zone during the course of the panel's investigation.
The investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said an independent petrophysicist reviewed the data available to the panel and did not express concern about gas being at a shallower depth.
© The Associated Press, 2011
Comments
you will be hard pressed to find a person that thinks BP did not violate the rights of millions with the spill. Therefore, they should continue to be punished.
file this article under "Duh!"
This was NOT intended to be a political statement which IS one of the reasons I placed it where I did and NOT in the non cigar related thread which seems to be a substitute for what is a very political forum. This was a statement about big business and what they are willing to do and risk in order to make money, nothing more. Kuzi I am afraid that entertaining your suggested addition would start that discussion we have both agreed to avoid. I was NOT pointing fingers at any political affiliations.
I don't quite understand your last statement. This was the release of a report into the findings of what was to blame for the disaster in the first place. Why Duh? Me thinks someone didn't entirely read that "duh" article.
i did reat the entire article. the DUH was because it was clear (to me at least) that the blame was on BP, that their poor decisions, that their poor construction, that their poor self imposed safety standers, etc. all in the name of saving a few bucks was the root cause of the clear violation of rights for all those effected by the spill.
maybe it isnt a DUH to others, but shortly after the spill started it seemed logical to me that something went wrong on more than a mechanical/human error level. therefore it is a DUH to me. this piece was a confirmation of my strong suspicions.
As for the PM threads, personally I think they should be eliminated because there's a thread dedicated to that topic. No need to create new threads whenever you send someone a PM. But I don't see that stopping anytime soon.
"I was in the BP gas station filling up and they had an advertisement for 99cent sodas, so I went in and filled up the big 44oz. guy... Unfortunately I dropped it on the ground and it spilled all over the floor and surrounding displays/products. Currently they have a team working on what the best way to fix it is, currently they have thrown hay on it and tried to use germ warfare against it"
It's probably me, I'm already not in the greatest mood today, but this just seems to be knit picking to me. ***, that vacation just can't come soon enough. Later
This is not a regulation problem if anything this proves regulation will always fail. Working in the oil and gas industry I know what type of regulations it sees, and the offshore oil and gas is probably one of the most regulated industrys in america. The courts are going to punish the responsible party plenty for this incident and the company may even fail by the time it's said and done. May not seem possible with a huge company like BP but by the time you account for the increase in insurance cost (which is HUGE in the oil and gas industry) the loss in investors (not only in the stock market but gas companies also come together to take mutual risk/reward in these wells and with such blatant mismanagement other gas companies will avoid BP like the plague for a while), and last but not least the actual cost of the clean up it is possible to put even the biggest company out of business.
IMO the free market would take care of these issues in one way or the other. All regulation will do is cause us to be complacent as consumers and have us in a false sense of security. The cost of all these regulations is costing the country a whole lot of money and is without doubt huring small business... companies such as BP, Halliburton and any huge company doesn't fight these regulations they love them for the way they keep the competition at bay.
Hope your day gets better Doug!
In this case the type of regulations that I have in mind would see several VIP persons at BP, Haliburton and possibly other companies involved sitting in a jail cell as I write this.
I agree that regulations in this case would not have stopped the oil flowing into the gulf. Greed and short cutting methods in addition to people who make decisions being in a very tight spot due the the well already being some 65 millions dollars over budget also played a role in the situation. I'm betting however that if along with the millions of $$$ in wages and bonuses these fat cat's get, they could also face serious jail time and fines on a personal level when their decisions cause things like the gulf spill, that they would make the PROPER decision EVERYTIME.
Regulations of and by themselves can't stop this type of thing from happening, but if the regulations allow for the decision makers to be held accountable and face REAL consequences then 11 people would be alive right now that died that day, and thousands of different marine animals would not have died or suffered, and the gulf would not have to try to recover from the largest oil spill in the earths history.
Now Wes you just accept that as fact and get back on the train DEWD. LMAO.
However I still see it as a regulatory thing because I WOULD have the penelties spelled out very clearly in the regulations for all to see and know. If everyone from the CEO of the company to the dreadlocked environmentalist knew that there were REAL consequences when these types of situations occur, I think we would see next to none of them.
I don't see built in protections for people and environment as strong arming. To me litigating for years through the courts for some eventual settlement which dwarfs the real costs of clean-up and putting lives back together again is NOT the way to go.
If you can forsee a problem and can affect change BEFORE a disater like that one happens... that is way better then a few lawyer's getting filthy rich every time something like this happens. Too much like closing the gate after the horse has run through it.
Humans have the ability to reason. We can design wonderful creations. We have the capacity to determine that if we follow a process of steps what the result will be. That makes us somewhat unique in the world of animals. Tha fact that we are talking about it, tells me that we can indeed foresee these types of things happening, both in the past and in the future. If we can do something through a regulatory change which will make it unlikely that this scenario would repeat itself in the future and we decide not to, due to the overburdening of our companies and their ability to operate, blah, blah, blah... then we will prove once again that being the smartest animal on the planet isn't worth shite, if you refuse (knowingly) to use that knowledge at all times in all situations. (There, I just fell off my soapbox)