Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, offshore oil, oil spill, safety, well control on January 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Bob Graham and William Reilly will testify.
Schedule (Eastern Time):
0930 – Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee – live streaming
1400 – House Natural Resources Committee – broadcast live on C-SPAN3
The questioning should be pretty lively, especially at the House hearing.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, huckster, oil spill, well control on January 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »
A Detroit Lakes, Minn., man who fabricated a story last summer that he had invented the cap that fixed the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is facing three unrelated felony theft charges.
You may recall the parade of snake oil salesmen and other hucksters who appeared on TV during the blowout. Apparently, this guy was one of them.
In July, several local news outlets, including KARE-TV and KSTP-TV, reported that Mastin had invented the cap that eventually plugged the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But the Pioneer Press found that BP had not bought the device from Mastin.
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, macondo, offshore oil, safety, well control on January 17, 2011| 1 Comment »
One of the better paragraphs I have read since Macondo:
The Deepwater story shows the fight against complacency is a continuous struggle, not a single battle. An executive at another oil major told me the default setting for safety managers should be “chronic unease”. That’s easy to see if you’re a prison governor or lighthouse-keeper. But it should be part of any executive’s attitude. Constant vigilance against, say, new competition, supply chain disruption, or unforeseen technological change is a must for modern managers.
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, offshore oil, safety, well control on January 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »
No government regulatory structure alone can guarantee safety in an industry that must constantly adapt new technology to natural variations in drilling sites and unexpected natural phenomena. Oversight must improve, as the Obama administration has made clear, but also every company involved in oil drilling – not just BP – must individually and in concert with others evaluate industry standards and safety research programs. And none should assume that BP’s mistakes could not occur elsewhere. Washington Post
Well said!
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, offshore oil, oil spill, safety, well control on January 6, 2011| 2 Comments »
The explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig, resulting in the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, was caused by its operators’ decisions and not by general problems in the oil industry, Exxon Mobil Corp. Chief Executive Rex Tillerson said Thursday.
But then seems to contradict that statement:
“It’s really up to the industry” to make sure regulation is strong and disasters like these don’t happen again, he said.
So, isn’t the second quote acknowledging a systemic problem?
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, National Commission, offshore oil, oil spill, safety, well control on January 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »
The conclusions of the presidential commission’s inquiry into the causes of the Deepwater Horizon accident published Thursday make it increasingly likely that BP will not be found grossly negligent and will avoid the harshest financial penalties for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Siding with arguments by the Plaintiffs, Judge Barbier concluded that the depositions should go forward in New Orleans, rather than in Houston as preferred by BP.
BP vs. TO vs. Halliburton (quotes from New York Times article)
In a statement on Wednesday, BP noted that the commission had found fault with a number of companies, not only BP, the main owner of the well.
Halliburton said in a statement that it had acted at BP’s direction in preparing and injecting cement into the well. It said tests the panel identified as indicating problems with its cement formula were preliminary and did not contribute to the disaster. Halliburton also criticized the commission for what it called selective omissions of exculpatory material it gave to the panel’s staff.
A spokesman for Transocean said that BP, not Transocean, made the major decisions in the hours before the blowout. “Based on the limited information made available to them, the Transocean crew took appropriate actions to gain control of the well,” the spokesman said. “They were well trained and considered to be among the best in the business.”
Posted in accidents, UK, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Energy and Climate Change Committee, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, parliament, safety, UK, well control on January 6, 2011| 1 Comment »
The blowout in the Gulf of Mexico could have been prevented if the last-line of defence—the blind shear ram on the blowout preventer, located at the well head on the ocean floor—had activated and crushed the drill pipe. Given the importance of this equipment, and the evident dangers of relying on a single device, we urge the HSE to consider prescribing specifically that blowout preventers on the UK Continental Shelf should have two blind shear rams.
Posted in accidents, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, National Commission, offshore oil, safety, well control on January 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Posted in accidents, UK, well control incidents, tagged accidents, blowouts, Deepwater Horizon, drilling, Energy and Climate Change Committee, Gulf of Mexico, macondo, North Sea, offshore oil, parliament, safety, UK, well control on January 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »
The UK Energy and Climate Change Committee has released its report entitled “UK Deepwater Drilling – Implications of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.” We’ll post the report as we get a link.
A moratorium on oil drilling in deep waters off Britain would undermine the country’s energy security, according to a report by lawmakers published on Thursday in response to the BP spill disaster last year.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 