What if you could have installed an anti-explosion device, but just didn’t want to spend the money? BP Fought Safety Measures at Deepwater Oil Rigs
Howso? BP did something or had some reason to believe that their rig would explode? How do you know it wasn’t the fault of Halliburton and their manual for operation?
Lets say Im driving down the road and take a left turn, but my brakes give out and I barrel into a group of people at a market stand.?
Lets say that the reason my brakes gave out was because they were wore down to the rotors. Cause: Inadequate maintenace
I’ve no idea, but to expect an instant or even quick solution to every problem is foolish.
So, is it safe to say that it is only luck that has prevented this happening before now, because it certainly doesn’t look like they were prepared for it?
So are you arrested that instant or after the brakes are analyzed?
You know, there’s always some paranoid guy who thinks of one more unlikely scenario that needs guarding against[sup]*[/sup]. You cannot guard against them all. Sooner or later you have to decide that either something cannot be done safely, or that you have taken adequate precautions. No matter at what point you make that choice, there’s always something else that someone will argue could or should have been done.
That person is not necessarily right, even after disaster has struck.
[sup]*[/sup]Unless it’s flying planes into buildings, no one could have imagined that!
Yeah, because a well blowout is such a remote possibility no one could possibly expect it.
Yeah because there’s one and only one way such a thing could ever happen and they teach everyone all about it in the 4th grade, so everyone’s a freaking expert.
Sorry, why do we need to predict exactly how a blowout will occur? If we can predict that blowouts will occur (from whatever cause) shouldn’t we have required the acoustic switch that acts as a shutoff valve?
The well had a device that was supposed to shut off the well to prevent a blow-out. It comes with an automatic sensor that is supposed to engage if it appears that a blow-out is occurring.
When the rig began to burn, the crew hit the switch to initiate the anti-blow-out device, but it failed to engage. Following that, the automatic sensor failed to engage. Following that, the remote submarines that are being used to inspect the leak have attempted to engage various devices on the anti-blow-out system that are intended as emergency starters, but they have failed to start it.
Barring future evidence that BP specifically chose a crappy vendor or failed to perform routine maintenance on the anti-blow-out device, there is not currently any reason to believe that they did not employ due diligence to prevent this disaster.
We may some day discover that BP is wholly at fault for this situation, but the current evidence suggests that they made a serious, good faith effort to prevent it.
Kicking around a few news sites, it appears that BP made some grand claim that a blowout was impossible–which was a particularly stupid thing to say, of course.
The Anti-blow-out device is actually called, (surprisingly enough), a BlowOut Preventer and is typically cited as the BOP.
Yup, acoustic switches are the answer to all the world’s problems. How do I know? I read it in the news, That makes me an expert.
There are lots of ‘experts’ out today, pointing at things, assigning blame. They seem almost omniscient in their certitude. If only we had put BP’s drilling program in their competent hands, we might all have been spared this disaster.
Else perhaps, a few of them are tooting their own horns and mouthing off to so as to pick up a bit of notoriety, perhaps a penny or two for themselves or their editors.
It took months to pin down the cause of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse, and this situation appears much more complicated.
If you wish to jump to conclusions, have at it, but be aware that the habit of stampeding to early judgement is the sort of thing that gets us into expensive and pointless wars in the middle east.
It may have actually activated, but struck a non-crushable joint between pipe sections.
That’d explain the sub’s failure to get closure too.
I’ve been wondering about this. Are you hearing that they are going to try to place the hood/dome?
Well Squink, you’re right; I am no expert. All I know is what I read in the papers:
We don’t know that do we? From the Wall Street Journal:
I was repeating a story that I heard on two separate radio news programs, tonight. (So I lack citations as I rarely keep a notepad on my thigh while I’m driving.)
If separate information is presented that no one hit the switch, I will accept that when it is presented.
However, the fact that the BOP was designed to act automatically and that BP installed such a device still argues, (barring future information that they used a cheap version or failed to maintain it), that BP made a good faith effort to avoid the current disaster in the case of damage to the drilling rig.
But of course the legal question is whether they were negligent. And I think we may have a jury question in whether it was negligent to fail to deploy the acoustic switch failsafe, particularly given its relatively minimal cost ($500,000 per rig), and the fact that other platform operators (Shell, e.g.) do employ the acoustic switch.
Just pointing out that if the hydraulic accumulators or their connecting lines were damaged in the initial blowout or if the wrong type or size of pipe was lodged in the BOP stack at the time of attempted closure, the presence of an acoustically-operated fail-safe would not necessarily make a difference. There is a reasonable chance that it can be determined whether either of these things occurred, so I prefer to wait for investigative results before speculating on liability.
I have some personal knowledge of both BP and general exploration industry practices. I can confidently state that BP used what was considered industry best practice (in the Gulf of Mexico) for the well control systems on this project, and it’s highly unlikely the project could have proceeded without meeting all required regulatory standards. I’m not saying some degree of negligence is completely out of the question, but this issue does not really hinge on the presence or absence of the failsafe device in question.
First of all, thanks for your input.
But if Shell was using the acoustic system and BP was not, can we really say BP was using “industry best” practices? Sure sounds like they weren’t.
(I understand your other point, that an acoustic signal might not have helped. Which in legal terms is a proximate cause issue.)