BCR
Well-known member
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- Jun 19, 2010
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- Political Leaning
- Libertarian - Left
"If the well remains fully shut in until the relief well is completed, we may never have a fully accurate determination of the flow rate from this well. If so, BP -- which has consistently underestimated the flow rate -- might evade billions of dollars of fines," Markey said in a letter to Allen released Sunday.
Maybe this is more serious than it looks? BP and the Obama administration are disagreeing on what should be done here, BP wants to leave the cap on but the White House wants them to take it off and outfit it so it can capture the oil in container ships and relieve pressure on the cap. Apparently there has been seepage and what looks to be the presence of Methane gases also leaking out.
BP probably doesn't want to remove the cap because it could take up to a week to refit it which means lots of additional $$$$ in fines .
Yes, lets look at it ONLY one way.
Lets not say its equally plausible that the Government doesn't want to lose out on fine money and the publicity of continuing to demonize BP and thus are pushing for a solution that keeps the oil flowing rather than stops it.
Nope, it must ONLY be BP that has utlerior motives and the government must have a pure and golden heart, that must be the only possible way this could be invisioned.
Yes, lets look at it ONLY one way.
Lets not say its equally plausible that the Government doesn't want to lose out on fine money and the publicity of continuing to demonize BP and thus are pushing for a solution that keeps the oil flowing rather than stops it.
Nope, it must ONLY be BP that has utlerior motives and the government must have a pure and golden heart, that must be the only possible way this could be invisioned.
Yes, because corporations always operate with the best interests of their employees and the public at large at heart. This heart-warming trust in a corporation that scrimped on necessary safety protocols and caused this debacle is sweet. Misplaced, but sweet.
However, we can't let anything deter us from the paradigm that corporate America = good, and government = bad.
Absolutely not. I think the scenario with BP is equally likely. Note how I even noted EQUALLY LIKELY in my post, suggesting that I didn't think the BP scenario is far fetched.
But nice strawman and rant Catz. My issue is not Government = Bad and Corporation = Good...its that both have the capacity to have ulterior motives and NEITHER are pure as the wind driven snow in this so immedietely assuming and stating the worst possible outcome in the guise of Corporation = Bad while ignoring the potential government side is nothing but vindicitive partisan politics.
But wonderful argument, it's just too bad it was made against a figment of your imagination.
Absolutely not. I think the scenario with BP is equally likely. Note how I even noted EQUALLY LIKELY in my post, suggesting that I didn't think the BP scenario is far fetched.
But it isn't equally likely. That's the point. The only reason you even consider it equally likely is your pre-existing paradigm that corporate america=good, government=bad.
Equally plausable it is not though
BP has a far higher incentive to keep the well capped, both to stop any new oil from escaping from the well (which may cause problems by the looks of it) and to prevent an accurate count of how much oil has been released so far then does the government. A big enough fine could cost BP a few years profits, while $30 billion dollars to the US government is peanuts.
Sorry, I don't buy the notion that we must think the worst of BP immedietely but think the best and greatest of the Obama Administration that's handling this.
Nice combination of strawman/false dichotomy. I have yet to note ANYONE applauding the administration's handling of this issue. In fact, I think that both the response from BP AND the federal response suck. HARD.
Here's the thing, from my very first post in this thread I was placing negative notions to both sides. Stating that both sides are equally possible to be suggesting what they're suggesting for alterior reasons.
NEW ORLEANS BP made a series of money-saving shortcuts and blunders that sharply increased the danger of an oil spill in a well that an engineer described as a "nightmare" just six days before the blowout, according to documents released Monday.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee released dozens of internal documents outlining problems on the deep-sea rig in the days and weeks before the April 20 explosion that triggered the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history. The committee has been investigating the explosion and its aftermath.
"Time after time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense. If this is what happened, BP's carelessness and complacency have inflicted a heavy toll on the Gulf, its inhabitants, and the workers on the rig," said Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak.
Congressional investigators have identified several mistakes by BP in the weeks leading up to the disaster as it fell way behind on drilling the well.
BP started drilling in October, only to have the rig damaged by Hurricane Ida a month later. The company switched to the Deepwater Horizon rig and resumed drilling on Feb. 6. The rig was 43 days late for its next drilling location by the time it exploded April 20, costing BP at least $500,000 each day it was overdue, congressional documents show.
As BP found itself in a frantic race against time to get the job done, engineers cut corners in the well design, cementing and drilling mud efforts and the installation of safety devices known as "lockdown sleeves" and "centralizers," according to congressional investigators.
In the design of the well, the company apparently chose a riskier option among two possibilities to provide a barrier to the flow of gas in space surrounding steel tubes in the well, documents and internal e-mails show. The decision saved BP $7 million to $10 million; the original cost estimate for the well was about $96 million.
In an e-mail, BP engineer Brian Morel told a fellow employee that the company is likely to make last-minute changes in the well.
"We could be running it in 2-3 days, so need a relative quick response. Sorry for the late notice, this has been a nightmare well which has everyone all over the place," Morel wrote.
The e-mail chain culminated with the following message by another worker: "This has been a crazy well for sure."
BP also apparently rejected advice from subcontractor Halliburton in preparing for a cementing job to close up the well. BP rejected Halliburton's recommendation to use 21 "centralizers" to make sure the casing ran down the center of the well bore. Instead, BP used six.
In an e-mail on April 16, a BP official involved in the decision explained: "It will take 10 hours to install them. I do not like this."
Later that day, another official recognized the risks of proceeding with insufficient centralizers but commented: "Who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine."
BP also failed to fully circulate drilling mud, a 12-hour procedure that could have helped detect gas pockets that later shot up the well and exploded on the drilling rig.
Asked about the details disclosed from the investigation, BP spokesman Mark Proegler said the company's main focus right now is on the response and stopping the flow of oil. "It would be inappropriate for us to comment while an investigation is ongoing," Proegler said.
… BP probably doesn't want to remove the cap because it could take up to a week to refit it which means lots of additional $$$$ in fines .
Wow. It never occured to me that an accurate flow rate would lower or raise fines. Apparently they are measuring the flow rate, and then using that to determine how much oil leaked out over the last two months and then fining them based on that. If this number is lowered then BP will get a much much lower bill. This is quite amazing.
Obviously the total liability is going to be related to the amount of oil that actually leaked.
Eh, somehow I doubt we'll ever recover the true cost of their screwup. Or the cost of their oversight's screwup.
ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2000) — Twice an Exxon Valdez spill worth of oil seeps into the Gulf of Mexico every year, according to a new study that will be presented January 27 at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in San Antonio, Texas.
Yes because the government truely cares about a few billion dollars. When its budget is in the multitrillion dollar range, it truely cares about a few billion dollars
While BP, a profit making enterprise whose future could be at stake, is not concerned about a fine that could be $3 billion or a $12 billion depending on how much oil was released
Yes, lets look at it ONLY one way.
Lets not say its equally plausible that the Government doesn't want to lose out on fine money and the publicity of continuing to demonize BP and thus are pushing for a solution that keeps the oil flowing rather than stops it.
Nope, it must ONLY be BP that has utlerior motives and the government must have a pure and golden heart, that must be the only possible way this could be invisioned.
This crisis has been crappy for the administration. It has a much stronger motivation to end it with the elections coming up.The Obama administration needs it to be a continuing crisis to further the cap and trade agenda.
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