BP Ignored Safety Software In Setting Up Oil Well
from the no-surprise-there dept
Slashdot points us to the news about how BP blatantly ignored the advice of safety software that it was using in setting up the oil well at the center of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. Apparently, much of this information slipped out accidentally. The Oil Spill Commission accidentally revealed the following slide, which it had not meant to post, which highlights many of the "risky" steps taken by BP, Halliburton and Transocean in an effort to cut corners and save time:"Who cares, it's done, end of story, we'll probably be fine."Ah, yes. Now there's an email someone now wishes they had not written.
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Filed Under: safety software
Companies: bp, halliburton, transocean
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Famous last words together with "Hey! look"
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But we knoe it will. I suspect 'tis time for a revolution, America.
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Re:
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Accidentally?
Pardon me if I question the "accidental" nature of the leak (and it's interesting that leaks seem just fine when they are in the government's interest...) and indeed question the impartiality of the source.
Before the flames start, I'm not defending bp - they f*ucked up big-style - but there's plenty or blame to go around and an awful lot of bullsh*t being moved to try and hand it off.
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Re: Accidentally?
One wonders how they would have reacted if BP's habit of cutting safety corners had come back to bite them on the arse aboard a rig off the coast of Scotland, not in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Re: Re: Accidentally?
Actually the entirely valid reason the british government should have stepped in and told Mr. O to stop being such a grandstanding asshole is that it screws the entire UK economy and especially pensions, which are in a state already.. and doesn't do much for the the US economy either - taking down bp (which may or may not have been the aim, if not was serious brinkmanship) would have screwed the US economy to the tune of around 150,000 jobs plus many other knock-on effects. Not really that simple. For a variety of reasons, it's far less likely to have happened in the North Sea. For a start the Gulf is cutting edge technology in drilling, which not only directly increases risk but also increases economic pressure on it. The North Sea isn't - practices there have had many years for refinement. There is also the (to put it delicately) rather different cultural and administation response regarding "health and safety" between the 2 countries that comes into play not just for bp but in general.
In answer to your hypothetical though, I'd hope that in that case the UK government would beat the crap out of them make them clean it up (which they would and did do anyway) and pehaps make them pay for a full and (properly) independant audit of their rigs and facilities to ensure similar f*ck-ups weren't endemic. I would also hope that the supposedly famous british reserve would stop it short of ridiculous hyberbole, chest-beating, shirt-rending and vitriol that seems to come as natural as breathing to the average US politician and (no offense, but it's how it looks from outside) mostly be bought into hook, line, sinker, rod and copy of angling times by the US public at large. At the very least I think we could count on the UK goverment to add at least a little enlightened self interest over going for whipping up a mass-hysteria response.
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Re: Re: Re: Accidentally?
Theoretically the point was not to help the US economy or take down BP, but to make the responsible party clean up the mess. Which I doubt is what's actually happening. From what I've heard, there's a huge quantity of oil all over the bottom of the gulf, and BP isn't cleaning it up. I hope I'm wrong though.
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Well I did say theoretically. In reality the administration's goal was probably more political. Be seen to do something about the problem, look like he's holding BP's feet to the fire, etc.
No, you're probably not wrong - I'd expect they'll clean up all their own oil...
Was it really not obvious I was talking about the oil from this spill?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Accidentally?
Not that the UK did any better... I was particularly impressed when David Cameron masterfully alternated waffling with saying nothing in a desperate attempt to not shoot himself in the foot while trying to stay sucked-up to the US government. "I'd like to buy a failure please", "Oh! I'm sorry sir we only have epic ones left.", "Splendid! I'll take a dozen....". I think "unready for the job" is probably an understatement and with it the BBC was going along with the party line with some of the most partisan and misleading reporting I've seen this side of Fox news. I got pretty sick of that damn pelican too.... resilient b*gger though.
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Whoever leaked this information should be tried for treason and executed. We can not have our corporations being held accountable for their actions, it is a matter of national security.
/sarcasm (JIC)
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Captain Renault...
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Re: Captain Renault...
While I hope the US government keeps up with their threat to make BP pay for all of it, I would not be surprised if they didn't. Even if they don't, that's still got to be a big hit to their bottom line.
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Re: Re: Captain Renault...
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Re: Re: Re: Captain Renault...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Captain Renault...
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Oh, by the way, another fact-ette - not all the oil floating around the gulf and washed up on beaches is bp's. There was tons of the stuff there before hand and always has been since drilling started in the gulf. Disasterous though it was let's not pretend that it hasn't happened before. For a start 1 of the clips they used on the news during the spill was from the Exxon Valdiz (remember that?) and oil companies in general including US ones don't exactly have a great rep for cleaning up around the world - Nigeria for example. I think it was Exxon Mobil there that's still dragging it's feet over any compensation at all.
Or as usual does it only count as a disaster when it affects americans?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Captain Renault...
You think Obama is stupid? I can understand a lot of valid criticism of him, but calling him stupid is not on that list.
That'd be even more legally dodgy than most of the tenuous justifications for siezures recently
The scenario I'm thinking of is that the government gets some kind of order (via EPA? courts? not sure) requiring BP to clean up. Assuming that is legitimate, and I hope they do have that power, then from there assume BP fails to do so, or declares bankruptcy due to inability to pay. Certainly in the bankruptcy case, liquidation could be an option. In the failure to pay case, I could imagine seizure of assets being a last ditch penalty.
Maybe it wouldn't pay for everything, but it would pay for more than a company that isn't paying for anything. Not that BP is doing that, I really don't know. I would like to see them foot the entire bill. Pretty sure that's not going to happen though.
Oh, by the way, another fact-ette - not all the oil floating around the gulf and washed up on beaches is bp's. There was tons of the stuff there before hand and always has been since drilling started in the gulf.
I don't think anyone was claiming otherwise.
Or as usual does it only count as a disaster when it affects americans?
Are you really that ignorant, or do you just get a kick out of insulting Americans?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Captain Renault...
It wasn't intended as an insult - at least not in that sense. Each nation has it's own faults. To my mind one of america's is the arrogance of youth - thinking you (as a nation) are right all the time and refusing to learn from history because you do, lashing out when upset and sulking when you don't get your own way.
Having worked with and known other people who have to work with, US companies or other parts of the same company in the US, it is suprising how many times you hear that they (the americans) are difficult to deal with because they simply assume that the "way it works" in america is the way it works in, for example, europe and that's simply not the case. This to the point that a collegue during 1 project basically became an apologist for the US project team to smooth over all the faux-pas they'd made in dealing with the rest of Europe. America is great at many things, adapting to work well with others simply doesn't seem to be one of them.
Britain on the other hand perhaps has the arrogance of the "upper class gentleman" - being sure one is right because one has seen it all before don't you know? Resting on laurels, thinking the world owes one a living because one got there first, perhaps appearing all too snobbish to others, carping when others don't do things the "right" way.
Both of those weaknesses have a flip-side of strengths but neither is ideal. Of course it could be worse - if I were to point at a nation with the arrogance of the truely barking mad megalonaniac, I'm sure you could guess who I mean.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Captain Renault...
Sure, but... "stupid" doesn't sum those things up. Oh well.
other nations might say that the america will leap in all guns blazing where it's directly in their interest, but where it's not they appear to be curiously absent.
They might say that, but I think responses to things like the Haitian earthquake and the tsunami in Indonesia indicate otherwise.
Each nation has it's own faults.
Of course. But I don't think ignoring others' disasters is one of the US's faults.
if I were to point at a nation with the arrogance of the truely barking mad megalonaniac, I'm sure you could guess who I mean.
New Zealand. Obviously.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Captain Renault...
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Re: Re: Captain Renault...
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I Can't Remember All
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Capt Hindsight
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This is not to suggest that no critical mistakes were made, but only that some of the noted decisions may have been made with good reason based upon longstanding experience with drilling operations.
I certainly do not diminish the terrible toll associated with what happened, and especially the loss of the lives of 11 persons on the drilling rig. But in my view the jury is still out on what actions were material and proximate factors that led to the failure of the systems in place.
Reports to date seem to suggest that the likely culprit was a mechanical defect within the blowout preventor that was supposed to close the well when excess gas pressure was detected. It is my understanding that this device is undergoing close inspection to identify why it did not work as it was supposed to do.
One key area of inquiry that has not as yet (to my knowledge) been examined in detail concerns oil containment systems that should have been available for immediate deployment.
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Re:
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This was Halliburton's software indicating problems with BP's well, not Halliburton's own product. Big difference.
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BP did not "have" the software in either sense. Halliburton "possessed" the software and used it to analyze BP's well and provide recommendations as it related to the cement job before Halliburton commenced with the job. Halliburton basically said "We've done a software analysis of this well that you want us to cement and our analysis indicates that more centralizers should installed beforehand in order to obtain a reliable seal." BP basically said "Piss off. It's our well and we'll do it our way. Just shut up and put the cement down the hole or we'll find someone else who will."
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US. Govt
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Re: US. Govt
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Off all their other risky wells that they got lucky on and *didn't* blowout, that's what, ignoramus.
They play the odds on safety vs. risk to maximize profits. That game is based on a faith that when one of those gambles looses (blows out) that the loss (fines, etc.) won't be so great as to wipe out the profits from the other ones that didn't blowout. It appears that BP's faith in that was well founded.
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Shit happens, and oil rigs will never be completely safe. As long as companies are held accountable for any damages they cause (BP wasn't, by the by. The law caps their total liability in related damage to $75 million. How's that for "regulation"?) they will learn from their mistakes right quick.
You do realize that the other oil companies scrambled, in the wake of the BP spill, to shore up all of their rigs too, right?
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To be trusted, you need to have credibility. You previous comments have pretty much eliminated that.
BP is not thinking "HAHAHAHA! Our plan worked flawlessly! Our investors will be pleased!
BP's policies have made it very profitable. If you don't think that pleases investors, it just further illustrates why you have so little credibility.
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Depending on the source of the email, this could be more appropriately worded as:
Ah, yes. Now there's an email someone wishes that they could wish that they had not written
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It was not safety software - but cementing modelling analysis software
It does not determine 'safety' of anything, and is itself not capable of determining safe conditions, but can only give an estimation of what can be expected assuming known properties of the cement, and the conditions which it is under.
You post a list of safety issues as if that was identified by some all powerfull safety software..
And that is just not true, only one item on that list has anything to do with cement, and an analysis of cement is not an analysis of the well safety..
But it makes for a better flame headline for mike to get more hits if you can be a shock jock.
We would prefer accuracy Mike, really we would..
Why wernt you honest and say MODELLING software, instead of lie and say safety software ?
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Re: It was not safety software - but cementing modelling analysis software
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Re: Re: It was not safety software - but cementing modelling analysis software
Sure he just quoted from another article, and they are both wrong..
So if the original article is wrong, should Mike just parrot that incorrect statement ? or should he be responsible, and check what he is posting on his web site is at least accurate, and factual.
Saying the other 'reporter' did it, does not make it ok for mike to be the same..
If Mike cannot determine by himself what is fact and what is fiction, but has to rely on other bloggers to tell Mike what reality actually IS..
that is sad..
And yes, it might be "typical darryl" if you mean that when I see bullshit, and lies I call out those who make those statements.
Its not my fault that Mike is a furtile source of bullshit and lies.
But according to you, its ok for Mike to be wrong, as long as he is wrong by copying someone else who is equally wrong..
Saves Mike a hell of alot of thinking I guess.
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Re: It was not safety software - but cementing modelling analysis software
Listen, you government-monopoly-loving doofus, it's called safety software because it assists in the safe sealing of wells. Tools that are used to enhance safety are often called "safety" tools.
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Re: Re: It was not safety software - but cementing modelling analysis software
You joke, its clear you dont have a clue, when was the last time you heard someone refer to autocad as 'safety' software ?
What about SPICE ?
these are physical modelling tools, they simulate what happens physically, inside a computer.
You use them to design things, none of this is considered 'safety' software.
Its design and engineering software, software cannot determine 'safety', the software can determine stresses, values, requirement, weights, wind loading ect. But it cannot determine what is 'safe' or not.
That requires a person to determine the parameters that would be safe or not, the software can just tell you if you simulation meets those requirements.
All that concrete modelling software does is tell you what strengths and conditions that will occur if they do certain starting things. And again, it does not in any way determine 'safety'.
You would be a fool to think that somehow software or some form of "tools" are going to ensure some level of 'safety'.
Ofcourse they ensure the design is sound, and that the design works (or should work) in the real world.
But if you use autocad, and SPICE electronics analysis software to build a cruise missile then that software will not flag anything that is 'unsafe'.
Same if you design a tall building, and you do not design it strong enough, it might fall down in the simulation, but at no point will the software "TELL" you it is 'unsafe'.
That is up to people, to work out..
So yes, its typical darryl, calling out bullshit when I see it..
At least im not a Anonymous Coward, with nothing better to do that to troll, and make weak one line statements..
Typical AC
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