Posted on 06/19/2010 4:39:28 PM PDT by Qbert
Government regulators have said that the failure of the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer April 20 was unforeseeable. But studies conducted for federal regulators in MMS or with their participation show that blowout preventers were known to have 'safety critical' vulnerabilities.
The federal agency charged with setting safety standards for offshore oil exploration failed to act on at least four warnings about vulnerabilities in subsea blowout preventers, the critical safety device that failed to shut down the Gulf oil spill when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded April 20.
Each of those four design flaws – detailed in three studies conducted for the US Minerals Management Service (MMS) during the past decade – threatened the ability of blowout preventers in deep water to function in an emergency.
Yet the flaws did not result in federal safety alerts or tougher standards for blowout preventer (BOP) manufacturers, say experts familiar with the MMS response to such findings.
[Snip]
But MMS’s lack of action in spite of warnings about the flaws, three of which have not been previously reported, points to a long pattern of ignoring rather than fixing known safety threats, the experts say.
“Were BOPs designed to fail and did MMS know this? Yes, some of their key people knew,” says Robert Bea, an engineer at the University of California, Berkeley and one of the expert reviewers of President Obama’s 30-day offshore oil-exploration safety review. “Did BP know?” he adds. “Yes, some of their key people knew. Did the industry know? Yes, some of their key people knew.”
So what exactly did the MMS and industry officials know about the BOPs’ vulnerabilities and when?
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Enquiring minds want to know who were the incompetents?
wow. this is very nearly a smoking gun. the obama administration knew, yet did nothing. LIHOP! (heh. been waiting years to say that.)
I wonder if this story will punch through the reality distortion zone that blinds the MSM when it comes to the obamites’ incompetence.
The MS is a completely captive regulator. It was a revolving door for oil industry administrators. It was lapdog of the industry, rubber-stamping the applications that were sent to it.
MMS had been making sure that the industry’s interests were served at the expense of citizen’s interests. Over the past ten years, MMS has done everything it could to get regulation and government out of the way of business.
You can’t have it both ways. A regulatory agency can serve the people or the business it regulates. If you want government to leave business alone, this is what you will get.
“MMS had been making sure that the industry’s interests were served at the expense of citizen’s interests. Over the past ten years, MMS has done everything it could to get regulation and government out of the way of business.
You can’t have it both ways. A regulatory agency can serve the people or the business it regulates. If you want government to leave business alone, this is what you will get.”
We have MMS’ failures, the SEC regulators looking at pornography during the market crash, etc., etc.
All I ask for is that if we’re going to have regulation, make it “smart regulation” instead of bloated bureaucracies that miss the key problems every time.
Too bad the environazis forced us into the extreme places left to drill.
Pray for the Gulf
Here is information on how BOP’s are built, and the problems with using them in the deep.
http://drillingcontractor.org/dcpi/dc-mayjune07/DC_May07_BOP.pdf
Are these used only when capping a well?
Once a well is producing is this still a necessary part?
How far did they drill down beyond the gulf floor and what is the wellhead pressure? Anyone know?
What the bloody hell is an MMS?
“Here is information on how BOP’s are built, and the problems with using them in the deep.”
Hey, thanks for the info!
Minerals Management Service MMS
Minerals Management Service, MMS
Multimedia Messaging Service, or MMS
Microsoft Media Server (MMS)
Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS)
Miracle Mineral Supplies (MMS)
Majestic Mountain Sage (MMS)
MM2 is an interface between a MMS Relay (MMS-R) and an MMS storage database,
Student information Management System - MMS
And that is just the first page of Google…………
And we are to know this how?
There was NOT ONE Description as to what the ABBREVIATION MMS stood for.
“Too bad the environazis forced us into the extreme places left to drill.”
And unfortunately, they’ll never even admit that that could’ve been a big part of the problem.
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