BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 12 Sep 10 - 02:03 AM

IF the block has indeed been lifted then I for one will be delighted, after all it was put in place to protect MMS, with that gone the other culprits in this affair, who did actually fail miserably in their "professional" capacities can be dragged before an investigation and roasted to the same degree that BP has been from day one.

In the attitudes shown BP stood up and shouldered their responsibilities while the other ducked and ran, the MMS to stave off recriminations got a name change, and Transocean and Halliburton made a bloody fortune rectifying mistakes that were avoidable and entirely their own.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Sep 10 - 03:12 PM

Reparations for onshore businesses probably will require litigation.
Plaintiffs and banding together. Several large legal firms have moved in, offering the needed legal expertise for a percentage of the possible awards.
Yes, litigation will keep BP and plaintiff lawyers busy for a long time to come. Many plaintiffs will go away unsatisfied.

Remember that business losses often can be deducted against profits, so business tax lawyers will be busy as well.

Unfortunately my son the lawyer practices in Canada, so he cannot share in the pie.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Sep 10 - 02:40 PM

The 'block' is long gone.
"Senate GOP Will Lift Block on Subpoena Power Against BP." Washington Post, July 1, 2010, The Plum Line, Greg Sargent.

Senator Jim DeMint put a block on the legislation during a voice vote. Later his spokesman said, "Senator DeMint does not and will not have an objection to this legislation. He simply objected on behalf of other senators who had not been given time to review the bill."
The colums says that the leadership has read the bill and decided it has no objections, it will move forward if a Dem asks again for it to be passed by unaminous consent.
A spokesman for Mitch McConnell, confirms that the leadership has no objections to the bill. "I don't know of any objections," he said. "What I do know is that there is bipartisan support."

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Sep 10 - 01:50 PM

BP has threatened to withdrawl their 20 billion dollar clean up reparations.

While the commercials about helping Gulf restaurants and business are running night and day for millions of dollars... the true story is that restaurants that made $200, 000 are actually offered $4,500 or nothing.

When BP said they would honor all legitimate claims, it was code for your claims will all have to be litigated unless you take the pitance we offer!

but are we surprised?

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Sep 10 - 01:43 AM

If you believe the Warren Report, I guess you are just waiting with baited breath and great anxiety for this new 'report'....good luck!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 11 Sep 10 - 01:01 AM

The government report is in the future, since much testimony remains to be taken.

Would that be the report of the Government investigating team whose powers of subpoena powers have been blocked by the Senate Q?

After all, much testimony remains to be taken and:

.......people intrviewed, not under sworn testimony conditions, can make comments that are untruthful and there is no legal recourse to pursue perjury in such cases."

But at least the people carrying out the investigation for BP (Note the team included BP personnel and independent experts brought in to examine the evidence) did get to talk to key figures which without the power of subpoena the Government investigators and inquisitors will not even see.

Additional to that the two bodies are performing two completely different functions and purposes. The BP report details merely what happened and the timeframe and order in which things happened, as such the BP Report actually "blames" no-one (Read it), the purpose of the BP report is to outline what happened for "lessons learned" to prevent re-occurrence.

FBI investigation to establish "Criminal Negligence" will have a tough time pinning anything on BP - That based on my first analogy of the taxi driver and the passenger, any traffic violation is the fault and responsibility of the driver not the passenger.

Government investigation to establish "Gross Negligence" will I believe cast accusations of such negligence at the doors of quite a number of players involved, to varying degrees.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Sep 10 - 04:26 PM

No red herrings have been dismissed. As would be expected, the report was self-serving and is being challenged in part by the contractors, particularly Haliburton and Transocean. Cameron has yet to comment.
Its main purpose (all 195 pages) is to provide the story that BP will use in the forthcoming suits and in arguments to limit penalty fines from the government.

Stanley Gordon, the maritime lawyer representing some of the oil workers, took aim at the lack of sworn testimony from people interviewed by BP.
".......people intrviewed, not under sworn testimony conditions, can make comments that are untruthful and there is no legal recourse to pursue perjury in such cases."
No verbatim transcripts of any interviews were produced.

Wall Street Journal, Sept. 9, 2010.

The report suggested the major failures were the cement job by Haliburton and failure of Transocean to implement safety measures in response to the pressure buildup.
Other investigations may substantiate, or refute the BP findings.
Dripping Oil, Sept. 9, 2010.
The government report is in the future, since much testimony remains to be taken.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 10 Sep 10 - 12:11 AM

One thing that the internal investigation does is knock a few "red herrings" down, that people on this forum were banging on about.

If the findings are verified as stated then criminal negligence may be proven against Transocean but gross negligence on the part of BP will be unlikely.

The timeline surprised me in as much as I was not aware that Transocean played around for as lonng as they did 40 minutes.

I await results of the examination of the BOP.

I stated from the outset two things happened:

1- The Cement Job failed

2- The BOP failed to function as it should

The "red herring" about Cement Bond Logging has now been dismissed, the operation could not be performed, it was not a case of BP attempting to cut costs. From someone in the industry involved in this aspect he said that even had they run such a test it would not have told them anything if the leak was at the shoe as stated in the report so far.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Sep 10 - 09:37 PM

Last item from Reuters.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Sep 10 - 09:35 PM

A BP spokesman said its lawyers were allowed to "review" their Deepwater Horizon report, and had provided legal advice and council to the investigative team, but would not elaborate on what that entailed.
"Some internal and external" lawyers for BP worked with investigators who prepared the report. This raises questions about the independence of the report, which assigned much of the blame to contractors Transocean and Haliburton.
The report was quickly blasted by Transocean, Haliburton 'and others'. As operator, BP faces many lawsuits over the accident.

"For BP, the stakes are high as it tries to dodge accusations of gross negligence ..... Under the Clean water Act, BP might have to pay fines of at least $1100 a barrel of oil spilled. But if the government finds the spill resulted from gross negligene, the fine could be $4300, potentially boosting the total to more than $20 billion."
Wall Street Journal, Sept. 10, 2010.

Other news-
Norway has halted new offshore projects until the causes of the Gulf rig blast are known.
North Sea producers are fighting to convince the British government that the UK does not need a moratorium on drilling, like the one imposed in the U. S. British MPs will grill outgoing BP PLC CEO Tony Hayward as part of an investigation into risks.
Doubt that he will be more open-mouthed with them than he was with the U.S. Congressional Committee.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 03:03 PM

Testimony was that BP engineers made a mistake by requesting the mud could be replaced with seawater because they mis-read tests of the well's stability.

It will be some time before all concerned have had a chance to testify and conductors of the hearing will write their report.
At this stage, there is no point in quarreling with testimony that is incomplete.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 12:49 AM

The managers decided the test results confirmed the well was in good shape

The well was in good shape, it was in exactly the same condition on the 15th July when the leak was stopped as it was on the 20th April when it blew. The reason it blew was because the cement job failed (Halliburton responsibility) as did the BOP (Transocean responsibility).

The drilling had ceased on the 17th when the cementing job started, at least three separate cement plugs would have been set, and that job was completed. The drilling mud used as counterweight is then replaced with salt water because the drilling mud is toxic and expensive and the BOP is then removed and recovered, a corrosion cap is then placed over the open conductor pipe sticking out from the top of the guide base, then they wait for the Production rig to arrive. Nothing has been replaced or substituted down hole on the Macondo Well apart from the cement plugs.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 12:35 AM

Testimony being taken at the hearing being conducted by the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, in the latest installment, focused on functions that keep a rig afloat and in place above a well, and the command structure.

The attorney representing the rig's chief mechanic, **noted that the rig's captain, Curt Kuchta, earlier had testified that he had not been trained to disconnect the rig from the well in an emergency- the rig's last line of defense in case of a blowout.**

An audit by BP marine safety personnel identified about 70 problems on board the rig. Testimony was that 63 of the problems had been addressed.

US Coast Guard Captain Hung Nguyen, co-chair of the (Macondo) Deepwater Horizon Joint Investigation, criticised the separation of navigation and drilling decisions aboard floating drilling rigs, a management structure commonly used throughout the oil industry.
"The fact that ship captains do not have oversight over drilling "is one of the problems we have here," Nguyen said in a Dow Jones Newswires report.
From Upstreamonline.com, a weekly international oil news source, 24 Aug 2010.

US Coast Guard Captain Hung Nguyen wants to STFU sit back listen and learn, instead of making a complete and utter arse of himself. Some points about the above:

1) The "marine" crew of any offshore vessel or unit is completely seperate from the construction, survey, diving, or drilling crew for a very good reason - whatever they are on has to float, so if there is an emergency you have crews using their own expertise to dealt with any problems in the areas they know best.

2) The Rigs Captain in incidents like what happened onboard the Deepwater Horizon had far more important and pressing concerns than disconnecting from the well, an operation by the way that could not have been performed at the time. Besides which at his emergency station the Captain of the rig would be nowhere near where any of those actions could be taken.

3) If the rig was subject to marine safety audit, then that audit would conform to an industry standard checklist and would not cover any of the drilling equipment or drilling procedures other than aspects that impact the marine operation of the vessel. There would be separate audits to cover drilling.

4) No confusion within the industry at all about the roles and responsibilities of the Master (Marine Captain); Offshore Installation Manager; Tool Pusher.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 07 Sep 10 - 12:17 AM

toadfrog you obviously did not read the link.

You are wrong in quite a number of your assumptions

I do not work for BP (I did about twenty years ago)

The person who wrote the article is not a journalist, and does not work for BP, he was not present at the time of the incident so can in no way be liable or involved. The ship they talk of was the command ship for the response effort from 02:00hrs on the morning of the 22nd April (tells you that in the link).

One article toadfrog? No toadfrog I did not just read one article, what I read and had access to were the daily reports and various logs from the vessel throughout the rescue and well capping phases of the operation up until such time as the leak was stopped.

Don't know about you toadfrog but for me that tops four fucking articles written by journalists who have never been offshore in their lives or worked in the offshore oil & gas industry - TRUE??

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 09:44 PM

Digression-
Norwegian billionaire says his Seadrill company is considering a takeover bid for Transocean. "We are looking at companies that are cheap and that have good equipment."
Upstream Online, Sept. 1, 2010.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 09:31 PM

Testimony being taken at the hearing being conducted by the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, in the latest installment, focused on functions that keep a rig afloat and in place above a well, and the command structure.

The attorney representing the rig's chief mechanic, noted that the rig's captain, Curt Kuchta, earlier had testified that he had not been trained to disconnect the rig from the well in an emergency- the rig's last line of defense in case of a blowout.
An audit by BP marine safety personnel identified about 70 problems on board the rig. Testimony was that 63 of the problems had been addressed.

US Coast Guard Captain Hung Nguyen, co-chair of the (Macondo) Deepwater Horizon Joint Investigation, criticised the separation of navigation and drilling decisions aboard floating drilling rigs, a management structure commonly used throughout the oil industry.
"The fact that ship captains do not have oversight over drilling "is one of the problems we have here," Nguyen said in a Dow Jones Newswires report.
From Upstreamonline.com, a weekly international oil news source, 24 Aug 2010.

The BOP was lifted by a semi-submersible vessel operated by Helix Energy Solutions.

An article in the same source, Aug. 30, covering the probe, said BP engineers made mistakes, including mis-reading tests of the well's stability.
"The managers decided the test results confirmed the well was in good shape, clearing the way for rig workers to begin replacing drilling fluid in the well, which is heavier than oil and natural gas, with seawater.
"The seawater was too light to prevent the natural gas that had begun leaking into the well from shooting up the pipe to the rig, where it exploded and killed 11 workers."
BP will issue findings of its internal probe by Sept. 10.

Bloomberg copies some of Upstream Online reports, a weekly journal that charges subscription fees, but these items are taken directly from the journal.

The dispute over cement jobs on the rig intensifies, is another article in Upstream Online, but I can't access without subscription.




.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: toadfrog
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 07:20 PM

Teribus:

O.k. I assume that by referring to yourself as a person with "years of experience" in the offshore oil and gas industry, you are saying you work for BP. Is this correct? You have talked with one [unidentified] "authoritative" person who were present and is not a journalist. In other words, someone who may have directly caused the incident has assured you it was not his/her fault. And I assume the reason this individual cannot be identified because he/she is a likely witness in litigation and potentially liable.

Is that a fair summary of what you are saying, or have I missed something? If this is what you are saying, your story does not inspire confidence.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 06:40 PM

Sorry toadfrog, that did not really answer your question about where I get my information from. I refer you to:

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus - PM
Date: 24 Aug 10 - 10:48 AM

Authoratitave eyewitness account not by a journalist but by someone who was there, involved, and knows what they are talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus - PM
Date: 26 Aug 10 - 11:05 AM

The first inkling that there WAS something wrong with the BOP and the way it was connected up inside.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus - PM
Date: 26 Aug 10 - 11:45 AM

Where I make it known to Alice exactly what I meant by "our guys", i.e. fellow workers.

I have not worked on BOA Sub C but have done quite a bit of work on her sister ship BOA Deep C

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 06:30 PM

Well toadfrog best ask the journalists who wrote the stories how many years experience they have in the offshore oil & gas industry.

While BP may well have been in "control" of the rig in as much as they hired Transocean to do the drilling for them, it WAS Transocean doing the drilling. Transocean would be responsible for the operation and maintenance of the equipment on the rig.

Reported today in the UK press is that the original BOP has now been recovered. If it does transpire that Transocean "plumbed" it incorrectly, or made "local" and unauthorised modifications to it without the approval and knowledge of BP or of Cameron (BOP's manufacturers) then Transocean are, like the Macondo Well, in very deep water.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 02:44 PM

Royal Dutch Shell (Shell Oil) is not British, but home office in The Netherlands.

Macondo is the name of the BP Gulf drilling project which blew out. Each drilling prospect (well, or group of wells) is given a name under which data about the prospect can be summarized.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Alice
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 02:22 PM

toadfrog, do you mean Macondo explosion? I googled Machado because I had not heard of that one. The Macondo Prospect in the gulf is where the Deep Horizon rig was drilling.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: toadfrog
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 02:01 PM

Teribus:

Can you tell us the source of the statements you are making?
I have by now read four long and seemingly painstaking accounts of the Machado explosion, three in the WSJ and one in the New York Times. All step-by step, detailed, with diagrams and referring to events on a time line with explicit quotations from testimony. None of them leaves any doubt that BP was in control of the rig--aside from the fact that key BP people were missing from the bridge on the day of the explosion because they were busy ushering BP executives around the rig. All four point to a long sequence of events in which BP repeatedly made the quick and dirty choice. And on or near the final day, it made a bizarre decision to draw out drilling fluid and pump in seawater, overruling the strong objections of Transocean people on the spot.

I also understand that Shell, also a British Company, has run a formal presentation describing precautions Shell normally takes and pointing out that BP did not follow what it considers best practices. I have not read or seen that presentation, so I may be wrong on that.

So the question is this. Your version of the story squarely contradicts every factual source I am aware of. Is there any evidence to support it? If so, what is it?

I think I am only hearing patriotic slogans from you--no facts.
Where do you get this stuff from?

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 12:34 PM

OK so who owns Mariner Energy Inc., becuase that had a gas blast in the same area as BP.

I am sure somebody in the USA will find a possibility of blaming BP

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11014645

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 02 Sep 10 - 11:04 AM

Why Don did he tell the truth too?

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 03:01 PM

Ye gawds, Teribus! You're starting to sound like Colonel Blimp!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 12:09 AM

As the company with the worst record for mistakes, especially considering Alyeska and the refineries, and numbers of fines for disregard of safety that make other majors seem pristine, Americans will worry about BP's operations at all levels and in all situations.

BP's Safety record in the GOM was far,far better than that of Transocean. The safety record that you attribute to BP was that of the American Company it took over (AMOCO) caused by serious errors made by that company's management seven years before BP bought them.

As has been detailed in reports while your President has grandstanded and postured, the actual perpetrators, two American Contractors have been let off "Scot Free" (Transocean & Halliburton).

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Aug 10 - 09:55 PM

Disaster spawns fallout that goes far beyond the event and which is long-lasting. Trust will take time to re-build and money will be lost and lives disrupted until it is regained.

Moreover, the studies of the effect are by no means complete. Many are waiting for the other shoe to drop.

As the company with the worst record for mistakes, especially considering Alyeska and the refineries, and numbers of fines for disregard of safety that make other majors seem pristine, Americans will worry about BP's operations at all levels and in all situations.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 31 Aug 10 - 07:02 PM

Part 1:
"The saddest sight this week has been of America's first family taking a quick one-day holiday in Florida. Crashing visitor numbers and plummeting fish sales have devastated the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. There is talk of an 80% drop in revenues in some resorts. Yet figures show just 16 of the state's 180 holiday beaches are at all polluted, while the bulk of the spill appears to have dispersed, or be dispersing out at sea. Having hyped the disaster for political purposes, the president is now frantically trying to play it down.

The spill has been another classic of state terror in which incident and response are wholly out of proportion to one another. As the oil leak began back in April, Obama declared a disaster, banned fishing in 37% of the Gulf and ordered a halt to underwater oil exploration, putting some 27,000 jobs at risk. Columnists screamed it was "Obama's 9/11" and demanded he "harness the nation's outrage". He was attacked for playing golf within 58 days of the disaster. With dial-a-quote scientists howling blue murder, any who might have looked at previous spills and thought it might not be so bad would have been unpatriotic disaster-deniers.

Hardly a day passed without the president castigating BP, the hated "British Petroleum" – never its American site operators, Transocean and Halliburton, or his own regulators. It was a field day for xenophobes. The president used the sort of language normally visited on global terrorists. He was going to "get BP" and make them "pay for this". It was another Hurricane Katrina, but one that could thankfully be blamed on foreigners. A Louisiana seafood supplier declared: "If I had a bomb, I would put it on London" – which would have him in Guantánamo Bay if he were Muslim and speaking of New York. Foreigners had raped America. It was they, they, they …

Now, mysteriously, Obama speaks of we, we, we … who "have this thing under control". His environment adviser, Carol Browner, says "the vast majority of the oil appears to have gone". Less than 10% of coastline saw any oil at all. There have been no sightings of dead fish floating in the sea and most fishing will soon be "back to normal". The Gulf is apparently "clean, safe and open for business", and a lovely place to take the kids. It is OK, everyone. Disaster has turned to triumph, so let us all think about the midterm elections.

So whose fault really was the collapse in the local economy? It began with a failed oil well, responsibility resting with BP, but blame still not apportioned. Yet as every terrorist knows, it is not the bomb that does the real damage, it is the publicity multiplier given it by the media and politics. The bomb causes the bang; the target is then relied on to supply the megaphone.

So it has proved in the Gulf. Competing scientists have had a field day. While some kept up the hysteria this week with such declarations as "We don't know the long term yet", those with links to the administration or fishing for BP's $500m offered to Gulf environmental research are suddenly optimists.

Most of the oil has mysteriously evaporated, like that from the biggest similar disaster, the dumping of oil into the Persian Gulf in 1991 by Iraqi forces. America did not turn a hair, any more than it did about the Union Carbide explosion that killed 15,000 Indians in Bhopal in 1984, with only trivial compensation paid.

The issue is apparently no longer the number of "barrels" spilled but the sort of oil, the location of the spill and the temperature of the ambient water and air. Contamination of most wildlife appears to have been minimal. Even crustaceans recover fast, while the ban on fishing has boosted fish stocks.

Part 2:
"The great conflation of fear – often egged on by "the science" – is the result of government gladly allowing itself to go mad for a day, to raise a fear, glean a headline or win a budget rise. Obama grotesquely exaggerated the oil threat to advance his personal and party cause. He is now struggling to downplay it.

The US Travel Association is suing BP for $500m in promotional compensation. Why not sue the president? It was he who led the charge in disaster rhetoric, with a daily stream of negative publicity for the Gulf of Mexico, before trying, somewhat pathetically, to make up for it. He and others were surely accessories after the fact."

The above by Simon Jenkins, not someone I normally agree with, taken from the Guardian of 17th August, 2010 in an article entitled:

Oil spilled. But hysteria did the real damage in the Gulf

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 30 Aug 10 - 05:48 PM

Gnu, it is something like the Captain (Commanding Officer) of a ship that runs aground or is involved in a collision at sea. He may have been fast asleep through out the run up to the incident and right the way through it. However it will be the Captain who will be held responsible, it will be the Captain of the ship who is Court Martialed, alongside the Officer of the Watch whose fault it was.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: gnu
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 07:40 PM

That is a matter for the courts. Liability is responsibility.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 04:43 PM

are they still liable as they were the ones who paid to have the rig drill and stood to profit from it?

They are liable gnu because they are the Operating Company who hold the exploration licence for that concession, nothing whatsoever to do with who paid for what or who stood to gain or lose. As they are the Operator they are liable, that does not necessarily mean that they (BP) were at fault or to blame and that is becoming clearer and clearer by the day that they were not.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 04:36 PM

700 Up

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: gnu
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 03:31 PM

Teribus. My apologies. I stand corrected.

But, are they still liable as they were the ones who paid to have the rig drill and stood to profit from it?

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 03:17 PM

Dr. Jay Grimes discussed the NOAA report, saying it is the best available so far, but also said the most inconclusive variable is the amount of oil that decomposed at sea. He has said nothing about plume analysis.

Many scientists suspect "the figure for oil remaining in the water is much higher than the report's estimates, and complain that federal officials have refused to reveal the algorithms used to derive the calculations that relied on measurement and estimates provided by Gulf response teams in daily operational reports."
The Times-Picayune, August 17, 2010.

Charles Hopkinson and researchers, Univ. Georgia and Georgia Sea Grant, said "Almost 80 per cent of the oil has not been recovered, they say. They took particular issue with the NIC's dismissal of dispersed oil hidden below the surface. "one major conception is that oil that has dissolved into water is gone and, therefore harmless," says Charles Hopkinson.
At stake here is the toxicity of dissolved oil in water.
Several teams [including Univ. Georgia] have plans to travel to the Gulf and look for oil trapped in deeper waters.
New Scientist, August 21, 2010, article by Sujata Gupta, "Gulf Spill: Is the Oil Lurking Underwater?".

Early on, I made a mistake about the drilling crew on the floor (Transocean, not BP) when the gusher destroyed the rig. Terribus greatly expands on this.

Nothing, however, changes the fact that BP, as principal, had charge of operations and was either complicit in or failed to direct the rig operator and others in the conduct of the operation. This was the thrust of my posts.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 10:36 AM

From New Scientist this week
Terry Hazen, a microbial ecologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, says that he has studied the same plume as the Woods Hole team. His results show that microbes were eating up the plumes rapidly - so fast, he says, that the oil must already have vanished (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1195979). He is adamant: "The plume is no longer there. It's gone."

Other microbial biologists, including Gary King of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and Jay Grimes of the University of Southern Mississippi in Ocean Springs, agree with Hazen's rates of degradation.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 06:40 AM

""The total area and volume of the Gulf is not pertinent.""

True to form, ducking a pertinent point with a personal opinion presented as fact.

I was not one of those who initiated comparisons with other spills, but, since those comparisons are being used to blacken BP with accusations of causing greater damage than any others, a comparison of the water volumes in proportion to the volume of the spill is not only pertinent, it is necessary in order to make your case stand up.

The size of the Gulf is not pertinent, nor is the size of Prince William sound. What is pertinent is the volume of water in each case which was polluted, and the volume of pollutant in each case.

I started out my working life as an analytical chemist, and am fully conversant with the concept of dilution, for which the two parameters are required. By the tone of your response, You are not.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 03:24 AM

Marine scientists are worried that the oil plumes might affect the zones with valuable food supplies, reducing oxygen content, micro-organisms on which seafood species depend, and other needs of species harvested in the Gulf.

Oxygen content of the water within the subsea plumes has been measured and found to be non-critical - outside the plume 67% oxgenated within the plume 57% - no effect on marine life.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 03:19 AM

gnu:

Just a comment... it does NOT matter ONE IOTA about anything BP may or may not have done re costs or safety or ANYTHING else. They owned the rig. They drilled. They spilled.

They have to pay. Period.

This bullshit about the oil disappearing is an attempt to NOT PAY in future and it is wrong.

Already had much of this discussion with Q and eventually in the end he had to concede that I was correct.

Point 1: "They (BP) owned the rig" - Completely wrong the Deepwater Horizon was owned by a Company called Transocean Drilling - That is a matter of fact.

Point 2: "They (BP) drilled" - Again completely wrong those responsible for drilling on the Transocean Deepwaer Drilling Rig Deepwater Horizon were all Transocean employees. These were the personnel responsible for operating and maintaining the BOP which failed (It now looks as though the BOP was subject to unauthorised modifications and that it had been connected in such a way as to prevent it working by Transocean employees). These were the personnel responsible for by-passing safety systems and shutting off alarms onboard the Deepwater Horizon.

Point 3: "They (BP) spilled" - Most certainly they did, then made every effort possible to mitigate the effects of the leak - accomplishing that inside three months operating in waters and drilling depths right at the forefront on technology (XTOC 1 - another "Transocean" drilled well in the Gulf of Mexico - in far shallower water took nine months)

Point 4: "They (BP) have to pay" - No doubt and that is what they have stated all along so what is your comment? They could have hid behind the 75 million ceiling but did not voluntarily, they have always stated from the outset that they would pay all legitimate claims (and they have already been inundated by many fraudulant claims). I have seen nothing on this thread or in any publication where anybody has said that they should not pay.

BTW they are not honoring their debts to the working people of the Gulf as we knew they wouldn't. They are chiseling out by perverting the regulatory system and unfortunately
they are allowed to get away with it. The American people are being short-changed by this crooked goliath. Stringsinger

Examples please? Or is this just something else you fling about without substantiation and expect people to accept it because it is what they want to hear?

The Gulf oil went into the marshes, not just onto beaches. The marshes are nursery habitat for the marine animals and birds. It has been devastating. Alice

Very little of the oil from the Macondo Well actually made it to shore, lost of marine life was minute compared to the Exxon Valdez incident. By the way Alice did you accept who I meant when I said "our guys" in the previous post of mine that you commented on, or are you above owning up to your own mistakes?

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: pdq
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 07:51 PM

I hope this link works. It is a...

                                                                                     NASA satellite photo of oil plume

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 06:09 PM

Oysters, prawns, crabs and other bottom organisms are limited in distribution by depth/oxygen content of water/food availability/water temperature and other factors. They are not spread across the Gulf but are in a zone nearshore; many fish are limited by food supply/ oxygen content of water, temperature, etc. as well.
Marine scientists are worried that the oil plumes might affect the zones with valuable food supplies, reducing oxygen content, micro-organisms on which seafood species depend, and other needs of species harvested in the Gulf.

The total area and volume of the Gulf is not pertinent.
The area concerned is near-offshore Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and perhaps Cuba. Mexico seems to be well away from plume projections.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Alice
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 05:57 PM

The Gulf oil went into the marshes, not just onto beaches. The marshes are nursery habitat for the marine animals and birds. It has been devastating. The oyster beds were devastated by the gulf oil disaster.
100% mortality reported in some oyster beds

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 05:41 PM

""And there was one helluva lot more oil that gushed into the Gulf than was spilled in Prince William Sound.""

OK Don F, granting you that one, would you like maybe to give us the comparative water volumes of Prince William Sound, and the Gulf, and how the oil volumes compare when the difference is accounted for?

You know! How many gallons per cubic kilometre, or how many tonnes per million tonnes of seawater.

It seems to me both facile and probably inaccurate to compare the quantity of oil without taking into account the water volumes involved.

Does that sound reasonable to you?

Don T

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: pdq
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 04:49 PM

The oil spill in Alaska fouled beeches and wound up between and under rocks. The Gulf oil spill was kept off beeches for the most part so it was not trapped.

The main reason that the oil spilled in the Gulf is dissapearing is the water temperature, which is (just a guess) about 20 degrees F warmer than the cold Pacific Ocean waters of Alaska. The important microbes don't thrive in cold water.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: gnu
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 04:41 PM

Just a comment... it does NOT matter ONE IOTA about anything BP may or may not have done re costs or safety or ANYTHING else. They owned the rig. They drilled. They spilled.

They have to pay. Period.

This bullshit about the oil disappearing is an attempt to NOT PAY in future and it is wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: toadfrog
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 04:27 PM

Teribus:
1. BP was in control of the rig, and made the decisions. The people from Transocean were ignored.
2. It is not as if this were the first time BP cut corners on safety, with disastrous effects. Cutting corners on safety is its modus operandi. This has been notoriously so for years, BP unquestionably has the worst corporate culture of any of the oil majors. Exxon had a big oil spill, cleaned up its act, and has little trouble since. It has become the best run of the major oil companies.
3. Brown, the old CEO of BP, expanded by buying up competitors and cutting costs--notably safety, relentlessly. Then came the Texas City explosion. Tony Hayward, when he took over, said words to the effect safety would be his number one priority. He didn't. There were additional, ongoing spills in Alaska.
4. I do not know which, if any, American companies have rigs in the North Sea, but would think that if Americans had a really bad oil spill there and destroyed the coast of Scotland, the Brits would have harsh things to say about that firm. And I would not necessarily attribute that to bigotry,

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spil
From: Stringsinger
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 04:04 PM

Arthur, the American people have not had the influence in Washington that a true democracy requires. It's true that BP has been given carte blanche by the regulatory agencies and this is one of the big deceptions of the Obama Administration. Still, to blame American citizens who may wind up paying taxes and job losses for BP's malfeasance is the height of lack of charity. If it happened in Britain, I doubt the reaction on the part of the citizenry would be
much different than here in the US.

BP screwed up and wrecked the Gulf of Mexico and put fishermen and other tradespeople
out of business. And you want to blame them for it?

BTW they are not honoring their debts to the working people of the Gulf as we knew they wouldn't. They are chiseling out by perverting the regulatory system and unfortunately
they are allowed to get away with it. The American people are being short-changed by this crooked goliath.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 05:00 AM

OK Don answer the question yourself.

What are the points of difference between Prince William Sound and the waters of the Gulf of Mexico?

In the two instances you wish compare how did the oil get there?

In the two instances you wish to compare is it true that oil occurs naturally through seabed seepage in one location but not at the other?

In the two instances you wish to compare is it true that in one location because of millenia of crude oil seepage microbes naturally exist and evolve that literally eat and break down the oil, and that such microbes are totally absent at the other location?

What are the points of difference in the characteristics of the oil being transported through Prince Edward Sound and that escaping from the Macondo Well?

Does BP have some special blessing when they screw up, Teribus?

I'm quite sure they just wish it would all go away, and they seem to be trying to simply pull a bag over their head and blythly walk away, whistling a merry little tune.

You are talking here I presume Don about the Major International Oil Company who:

1) IMMEDIATELY faced up to their responsibilities from the outset;

2) Voluntarily declared that they WOULD NOT hide behind the US$75 million ceiling on liability from the outset;

3) Who then proceeded to do everything in their power to mitigate the damage caused and seal off the well.

Now if you want comparisons Don shall I go into how Exxon behaved after the Valdez incident dropped off the radar, how Dow Chemicals (Union Carbide) has behaved after Bhopal; or Occidental Oil behaved after the Piper Alpha.

By fresh revelations each day it becomes clearer and clearer that this accident was caused not by BP but by the actions of the specialist contractors that they employed, both predominantly US Companies - OK now let us see President Barack Obama hold their feet to the fire, lets see that political "light-weight" keep his boot on their necks.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Aug 10 - 06:29 PM

Does BP have some special blessing when they screw up, Teribus?

I'm quite sure they just wish it would all go away, and they seem to be trying to simply pull a bag over their head and blythly walk away, whistling a merry little tune. But there are a few itty-bitty questions that remain. Such as:

How come Prince William Sound is still an ecological disaster area some twenty-two years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill?

Almost 20 years after the spill, a team of scientists at the University of North Carolina found that the effects are lasting far longer than expected. The team estimates some shoreline Arctic habitats may take up to 30 years to recover. Exxon Mobil denies any concerns over this, stating that they anticipated a remaining fraction that they assert will not cause any long-term ecological impacts, according to the conclusions of 350 peer-reviewed studies. However, a study from scientists from the NOAA concluded that this contamination can produce chronic low-level exposure, discourage subsistence where the contamination is heavy, and decrease the "wilderness character" of the area.

And there was one helluva lot more oil that gushed into the Gulf than was spilled in Prince William Sound.

We haven't seen the end of this. And we won't for some time to come.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Aug 10 - 04:53 PM

It is being munched away at by microbes even as we speak, according to reports from the US.

Oh dear not quite the disaster everybody was predicting.

And GfS is right it ain't over yet we still have all those law suits to get through, you know the ones where people have actually got to prove they lost something.

Subject: RE: BS: US bigots attack British Company (oil spill)
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 27 Aug 10 - 04:43 PM

It ain't over yet!

GfS