Bop

Today marks the first anniversary of the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of the US. But, unfortunately, most Americans, including our politicians, are suffering from collective amnesia about that tragic event.

The project manager for Det Norske Veritas, the company who led the investigation of the BOP, admitted an error in the computer model they used to determine the cause of failure of the BOP during the BP well blowout last April.

The US government is currently issuing permits to drill knowing full well that operators are using blowout preventers that are insufficiently designed to shut in blown out deepwater wells.

You'll recall that all during the summer I talked about BP's number one goal with its blowout well: getting it shut in without measuring the flow.&nbs...

As opposed to the National Academy Engineering panel, the president's panel continues to focus on investigating what happened environmentally after the blowout as opposed to seeking out the actual causes of the blowout.

Admiral Allen announced today that BP's fishing job being undertaken on their Mississippi Canyon Block 252 well has been called off due to total failu...

Back in late July, after a summer of struggle, the underwater oil spill caused by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig was finally capped. And then, something wonderful and miraculous happened! The media started remarking that all of the millions of gallons of oil that poured into the Gulf of Mexico just disappeared! Raptured up into Oil Heaven, even! Except: not. But that's not stopped the administration from taking the line that the oil's disappearance is unalloyed good news, and that it's safe for the bon temps to roulez once more.

I first spoke to Rick Steiner more than three months ago -- about two weeks into the Deepwater Horizon disaster -- after a source recommended I talk t...

It seems that Steve Chu, the Nobel Prizing-winning Secretary of Energy and his staff of advisors have been exercising what I consider to be questionable risk management with regard to the BP oil gusher.

In his presser this morning, Adm. Allen announced that they are still trying to decide what to do about the relief well. Dithering seems a strong word, but I'm going to use it now.

It looks like the "static kill" did the opposite of what BP and Allen had suggested. It certainly hasn't accelerated the relief well. To the contrary, it has caused interminable delays.

I have now been listening to both BP and government representatives for two weeks explaining the static kill, and have yet to hear an intelligent, cogent argument for why they're doing this.

Yesterday in his daily presser, Adm. Allen said that all is well with the well, and that BP may be ready to pump the Static Kill (Top Kill II) to cove...

Aside from the tens of thousands of barrels roaring into the Gulf unabated, BP are taking huge risks in further damage to the well by undertaking an operation whose objectives are still not clear.

I've been saying for weeks now that the US should change its offshore policy to "if you drill here, you live here". How hard is that?

BP's latest solution may work, but why did it take 2 1/2 months to build? In one of its presentations, BP said that this was one of the first ideas they had. If that's true, why didn't they just build the thing?

While they have every incentive to get the well killed, BP also has every incentive to not capture 100% of the well flow until they do. As soon as they do, then a real, measurable spill number will be in front of the public.

View image  This morning, BP announced that their first relief well is at 17,725' and that they have completed their sixth ranging run.  The...

BP's approach to this week's Offshore Technology Conference is wrong. Instead of hiding, BP should take advantage of this resource, call a meeting of these professionals and let them go to work.

It appears as though the containment structure is the only chance BP has of slowing the growth of the spill, at least until they get the well killed by a relief well, or if well bore damage slows the flow by itself.

BP released another instructional video that sort of explains what they are planning; leaving out key how's and why's and throwing in just enough oil speak so as to be distracting from the otherwise good illustration.

It's become clear that well design, short cuts, impatience, and bad judgment led to the blowout in the first place. The other issue is why the blowout preventer did not close as designed.

Yesterday a federal judge in New Orleans refused to stay his order lifting a 6 month drilling ban on deepwater drilling that he issued on Tuesday.&nbs...