Mississippi Canyon Block 252

The crucible of the Gulf provides a harrowing example of the insanity we now consider normal.

Here we are, poised to go back into the deepwater, doing the same thing we were doing before the disaster on the Deepwater Horizon, with the same equipment, same rigs, and same systems.

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.

The long awaited internal report on the blowout of Mississippi Canyon Block 252 well from BP was released this week, a 200 plus page treatise with pag...

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...

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.

Until these questions are answered by BP, we have no real information to tell us that the well is dead, or even safe.

To judge from most media coverage, the beaches are open, the fishing restrictions being lifted and the Gulf resorts open for business in a safe environment. We spent the last few weeks along the Gulf coast, and the reality is distinctly different.

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.

In the deep water, there is virtually no room for error, stupidity or bad design. Add hubris, and you get what we've been dealing with now for 100 days.

One thing BP has proven without a shadow of a doubt is if you don't ask the right question, they are more than happy to just sit there and not answer the relevant questions.

Last evening, in an email statement, National Incident Commander, Thad Allen, ordered BP to reopen the well at the completion of the current shut in t...

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...

Hubris. Illusions of grandeur. Deepwater overseers had been so successful (lucky) that they were over-confident. Having never experienced this kind of failure, it was inconceivable to them that it could happen. It did.

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.

I'm getting lots of emails from folks who are suggesting all kinds of ideas to stop the flow of BP's blowout well in the Gulf.  While I appreciat...

By developing our own oil and gas resources, along with conservation, we can extend our decline curve to give us time to develop alternate sources of energy including wind, bio, solar, and, yes, nuclear

BP has been moving the date for the top kill on almost a daily basis, using vague explanations about staging, equipment, etc. There may be something else going on, and, based on BP's past, you can almost be sure there is.

Oil on the beach and interminable delays, in addition to dozens of "press briefings" where nothing is really said, has fed a growing frustration in the press and fear among the public that BP either doesn't know what it's doing, or is not being honest.

It's clear now that BP is not going to be forthcoming. It's time for an independent group of engineers and scientists be inserted into the BP response center to assure that outgoing information is complete and accurate

After viewing the subsea videos of BP's blowout well last night, I am renewing my question to BP and the MMS... What is the real flow from the well?

One of the BP's best bets to control the oil well might be the top kill -- a two step process to using plugging agents followed by heavy mud or cement, to stop the flow of oil in the Gulf.

BP announced that they were moving oil to the surface for containment with a riser tool, but backed off an earlier statement that they could contain 85% of the leak.

Clearly, BP/Transocean missed critical signs. The well was talking to them, but nobody was listening, especially the ones who were ironically at the party celebrating their safety record.

I am pretty convinced now that my initial conclusion about the cause of this accident was correct. BP and Transocean let their guards down.