Good points. One thing is this wasn’t a production well. It was an exploratory well (though they planned on pumping it later). So maybe the EIA hadn’t been tracking it or something. Or, maybe BP and the EIA knew it was heavy crude and that the skimmers would be ineffective. Maybe that’s why they declined the offer of the skimmers.
“Maybe that’s why they declined the offer of the skimmers.”
The official silence on this matter is still troubling to me if that’s the rationale. And it seems odd that the Coast Guard (along with BP), would reject the skimmers, and then at a much later date, try to use skimming techniques.
I’m guessing that we know why BP would likely reject any supertanker skimmer idea involving whatever they have for their own fleet- because the cost would exceed their legal liability cap. And at any rate, it would seem that If BP were deemed incorrect in their assumptions about cleanup methods, they should just be overruled by the Feds- but it doesn’t seem clear who gets the final decision in calling the shots here. And why would the Feds reject the offers of 17 other nations? As I understand it, there is a shortage of supertankers, and thus employing them into the Gulf for cleanup purposes would disrupt oil delivery, which would in turn drive up prices. Skyrocketing gas prices would have a deleterious effect on an already fragile economy (and thus, the administration may be choosing economic concerns over oil spill disaster and coastline protection concerns). Is this what the silence is about?