Posted on 05/23/2010 2:30:19 PM PDT by dennisw
Oil company BP used a cheaper, quicker but potentially less dependable method to complete the drilling of the Deepwater Horizon well, according to several experts and documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.
But that engineer and several others said that, had BP used a liner and casing, it would have taken nearly a week longer for the company to finish the well — with rig costs running at $533,000 a day and additional personnel and equipment costs that might have run the tab up to $1 million daily.
"There are clear alternatives to the methods BP used that most engineers in the drilling business would consider much more reliable and safer," said F.E. Beck, a petroleum-engineering professor at Texas A&M University who testified recently before a U.S. Senate committee investigating BP's blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico.
He and other petroleum and drilling engineers who reviewed a log of the Deepwater Horizon's activities obtained by the Sentinel described BP's choice of well design as one in which the final phase called for a 13,293-foot-long length of permanent pipe, called "casing," to be locked in place with a single injection of cement that can often turn out to be problematic.
A different approach more commonly used in the hazardous geology of the Gulf involves installing a section of what the industry calls a "liner," then locking both the liner and a length of casing in place with one or, often, two cement jobs that are less prone to failure.
The BP well "is not a design we would use," said one veteran deep-water engineer, who would comment only if not identified
He estimated that the liner design, used nearly all the time by his company, is more reliable and safer than a casing design by a factor of "tenfold."
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
From a liberal newspaper. Is this article accurate or not? Posting to learn more. I like crude oil and I like nature and fishing and oysters
They also had Obama administration approval to do so.
It was a combination of cutting corners and government going along with it which caused the Exxon Valdez spill.
I was on crude oil carriers in the Alaska trade, saw what was happening, and predicted problems.
This looks like another government assisted spill to me.
They also had Obama administration approval to do so.
Yep...which is conveniently left out of the MSM accounts...and if they had responsibility for any “shortcuts”aren’t they culpable in the spill itself?
And if they are, why didn’t they step in to help remedy it?
Even in an advisory capacity...you know, the famous Washington ‘experts” who are the “smartest people in the room” that Dims want us to turn our lives over to?
AHH yes all the arm chair experts know all. Just pump in the heavy mud to stop the leak and drill baby drill.
Obama has done his part also, but BP needs to be given lock stock and barrel to the states affected by this to either sell or derive supplementary income.
I would think the oil industry including the big major in the gulf should have had a better backup plan.
I am not a oil industry basher at all but they make billions, have incredible technology but they could have collaborated on a back up system in case of a blow out like this.
Would have been a heck of lot cheaper in the long run . . .
It appears BB tried to cheap it out. If I were an other company I would have no part of their plan. It could legally expose my company.
BP
By the time that all the lawsuits are done, in a decade or so... BP will only exist in the history books ...
Used ‘nearly’ all the time.
And of course,hindsight is always 20 20.
We ought to be looking at why any permit was given without a feasible plan for a blowout. Why was the response from BP so slow.
Why was the response from the maoist non existent.
This whole day one lie from the administration is pathetic.
for your info ... “forfeit” ... :-)
Are you really an Okie? ... just wondering ...
The largest single donation by BP — $77,051 — went to Obama.
Gibbs fired back that the former Alaska governor needs a lesson in how the oil industry works.
“Sarah Palin was involved in that election but, I don’t think she was paying a whole lot of attention,” Gibbs said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
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STUPID, JERK, Gibbs, Palin has more experience in how the oil industry works than the whole Obama administration. She actually held them responsible in Alaska.
Our company is better??? Anonymous sounds like he’s a little self-serving....
According to Gibbs, Palin needs lessons in handling the oil companies. /s
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Once in office, Palin took an aggressive stance toward the oil companies. Her nickname from high-school basketball, “Sarah Barracuda,” was resurrected in the press. Early in her term, she shocked oil lobbyists when she was so bold as to not show up when Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson came to Juneau to meet with her. Palin, after scrapping Murkowski’s deal, would not give Big Oil the terms they wanted, yet insisted that the companies still had an obligation under their lease to deliver gas to whatever pipeline Alaska built. She invited the oil companies to place open bids to build a pipeline, but they refused. A bid by TransCanada, North America’s largest pipeline builder, was approved by the legislature in August.
Palin also raised taxes on oil companies after Murkowski’s previous tax regime produced falling revenues in 2007, despite skyrocketing oil prices. Alaska now has some of the highest resource taxes in the world. Alaska’s oil tax revenues are expected to be about $10 billion in 2008, twice those of previous year. BP says about half its oil revenues now go to taxes, when royalty payments to the state are included. Earlier this week, Palin approved gas tax relief for Alaskans, and paid every resident $1,200 to help ease their fuel-price burden.
But it does take a special person to go from small-town mayor and hockey mom to standing up to the world’s biggest corporations. Despite a stint as chairman of the state’s Oil and Gas Commission, she’d never done business on a remotely similar stage. When Fortune last year asked Palin if she was intimidated, she said simply, “No. Being reasonable commercial operations, I expected the Big Three will act responsibly.”
http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/29/news/newsmakers/palin_oil.fortune/
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