Paging Mr. Mohammad, paging Mr. Mohammad, your bag has been taken to the Lost and Found...
Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 06/06/2010 6:37:08 AM PDT by Ready4Freddy
NEW ORLEANS — Over six days in May, far from the familiar choreography of Washington hearings, federal investigators grilled workers involved in the Deepwater Horizon disaster in a chilly, sterile conference room at a hotel near the airport here.
The six-member panel of Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service officials pressed for answers about what occurred on the rig on April 20 before it exploded.
They pushed for more insight into an argument on the rig that day between a manager for BP, the well’s owner, and one for Transocean, the rig’s owner, and asked Curt R. Kuchta, the rig’s captain, how the crew knew who was in charge.
“It’s pretty well understood amongst the crew who’s in charge,” he said.
“How do they know that?” a Coast Guard investigator asked.
“I guess, I don’t know,” Captain Kuchta said. “But it’s pretty well — everyone knows.”
...
“A lot of activities seem not very tightly coordinated in the way that would make me comfortable,” he said. “Maybe that’s just the way of business out there.”
Investigators have focused on the minute-to-minute decisions and breakdowns to understand what led to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, killing 11 people and setting off the largest oil spill in United States history and an environmental disaster. But the lack of coordination was not limited to the day of the explosion.
New government and BP documents, interviews with experts and testimony by witnesses provide the clearest indication to date that a hodgepodge of oversight agencies granted exceptions to rules, allowed risks to accumulate and made a disaster more likely on the rig, particularly with a mix of different companies operating on the Deepwater whose interests were not always in sync.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
What I want to see is a list of names showing WHO was in charge of the rig THAT DAY of the blast.
I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if the name of the engineer/geologist on duty that day sports the name Allhu Akbar.
Knowing nothing about the specific case, but having some experience I would say the Captain was in charge for all aspects related to the platform. The field party chief would be in charge of the actual drilling operation. And the BP representative was a thorn in the side of all hands. The argument probably came when the BP rep wanted the Field Party Chief to do something he didn’t want to do.
Just my guess.
Ping
But it’s pretty well known that if you don’t do it BP’s way, they will at the very least threaten to stop doing business with you in the future.
I have no idea if there were alternatives to Transocean, but then, I’m speaking in general.
“It’s pretty well understood amongst the crew who’s in charge,” he said.
“How do they know that?” a Coast Guard investigator asked.
Because according to The Peter Principle, scapegoats are always found at the bottom level of the corporate totem pole.
Everyone should know their job.
I guess it depends on how micromanaged the operation is, because that creates a subculture which is hesitant to do much of anything without approval from a higher-up. (When seconds count, it only takes a few minutes to hold a meeting.)
There are some decisions which need to be made on the spot.
“scapegoats are always found at the bottom level of the corporate totem pole.”
This applies to public agencies too, not just corporations. Indeed, the Obama campaign and administration have been living examples of this principle. Time and again underlings have been thrown under the bus, as the man in charge apparently can do no wrong. Would that he were Japanese, as by now he surely would have done the honorable thing and resigned for all the screw-ups that have happened under his command.
Never let a crisis go to waste, and if you can, nudge it to make it worse than it was.
What I would like to know is who turned down the 17 nations offering help early on?
Questions of oversight also came up in the New Orleans hearings last month. For example, Michael J. Saucier, an official with the Minerals Management Service, said that his agency “highly encouraged” — but did not require — companies to have backup systems to trigger blowout preventers in case of an emergency.
“Highly encourage?” Captain Nguyen of the Coast Guard asked. “How does that translate to enforcement?”
“There is no enforcement,” Mr. Saucier answered.
Well, we can see where this will lead. Government must have more control. Because corporate greed killed the ocean.
That is, the situation between owner, contractor and sub contractors produced the typical friction always present on large projects.
The judgment of subs must be taken in hand by the contractor and weighed against his own experience and judgment and contractual obligations.
Having spent some time on and around the rigs, that’s what I would say, too. I think the article does a pretty good job of laying out the government’s oversight lapses leading up to the incident. However, the description of the “cluster-f#&k” that is the government’s clean up response is excellently portrayed. One person who is “not in charge” (despite federal law appointing him as such) is Barrack Hussein Obama. I’m convinced he doesn’t have a clue what to do or how to do it.
1.Tony Hayward BP CEO
Anyone who has ever worked around the oil business knows, the contractors do what they’re told, or the oil company will get someone who will follow their orders.
Paging Mr. Mohammad, paging Mr. Mohammad, your bag has been taken to the Lost and Found...
Its still unclear who the hell is in charge!
When are the going to get a 200’ barge, put a 24” flange fitting in its bottom, invert it and drop it over this whole mess, dump a bunch of ballast on it and pipe the stuff out into tankers.
PS - leave the drain open in the tanker hold until all the water drains out and oil starte to come out!!!!
It is all timing. Transocean rig was available at the time...I will say though that I have been personally responsible for the drilling of hundreds of wells. The Tool Pusher is always the last word of responsibility, but the Operator has a heck of a heavy hand....I can say in those few incidents where I wanted to overide the Tool Pusher, I caught myself and decided that I did not want to take on that responsibility..This rig was costing 600K a day, so even two hours of rig time was significant. My feeling, is that BP got in a hurry..
The buoyancy of the oil would probably float the barge back up.
BP Increased Oil-Capture Rate to 10,500 Barrels a Day
June 6 (Bloomberg) —
BP Plc said it increased the amount of oil being captured from its leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico to 10,500 barrels a day from 6,077 barrels in the previous 24-hour period ending at midnight June 4.
The well is estimated by government scientists to be gushing 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day into the Gulf.
The spill is the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
raybbr - thats why the intermediate step of dropping ballast on the inverted hull before putting a pipe on the flange on the bottom of the hull.
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