What Were the Causes That Led to the Deepwater Horizon Blowout and Explosion?

The Oil Drum ^ | June 19, 2010 | William Semple

[UCANSEE2]

Don’t worry. Even BP isn’t sure where all the leaks are, or exactly what caused the Rig to explode, or the BOP to not operate.

[UCANSEE2]

[worst-case scenario]

There is more going on here than environmentalists disliking Big Oil. I don’t think that there is any shortage of environmentalists who claim that the auto industry is evil. Other factors are in play.

The big difference here is that the finance and auto companies were *American* corporations. BP is a British one.

American taxpayers are not going to bail out a foreign corporation that is in financial trouble because it’s ruined its P & L statement due to its own chicanery.

[USNBandit]

No but one time both my boys puked within 5 seconds of each other. I thought I was in the center of the perfect storm.

[muawiyah]

I'm not an expert in drilling for oil but I am expert in writing regulations and manipulating them to achieve aims not immediately obvious to the general public, nor even the targeted population.

BTW, my understanding of how to write them to jerk people around arose out of my concern that nothing like that should ever happen to rules I was writing. It's amazing how many people reviewing a regulation for purposes of required approval will recommend a disastrous but otherwise minor seeming change.

That's what I'm seeing here with EPA. The "no dumping" rule has popped up repeatedly in every effort made to contain the blowout or mitigate the flow of oil into the Gulf biological systems.

I don't think it's an accident. BTW, I don't have to hate EPA to come to that conclusion either. It's long overdue for EPA to INVESTIGATE the folks who write and approve their rules and track the subtle changes in interpretation that have given this result.

Hey, you even had EPA cited as the authority that decided that building temporary barriers between barrier islands to keep out the oil from further out in the Gulf might damage the environment ~ LIKE WORSE THAN BEING COVERED IN OIL?

There are dozens and dozens of these pronunciamentos allegedly issued like fatwahs by EPA mullahs that sound NUTS.

[worst-case scenario]

I’m a GoGo - Good Government. It’s an absolute necessity. Captured regulatory agenciess, rules written in ways that damage instead of helping, bloated bureaucracies, people that don’t do their jobs ...they all are the burr under my saddle.

We need government, in my opinion. But we can’t afford it if it doesn’t do its job and protect the public.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Ernest_at_the_Beach.

• Wolf Blitzer: "Billion potential barrels of oil" under BP well; "Could really explode" expert says
• What Were the Causes That Led to the Deepwater Horizon Blowout and Explosion?
• BP disaster started in February?
• Failure of Rig's Last Line of Defense Tied to Myriad Factors ( Deepwater Horizon BOP Fails )
• Louisiana Says Deep-Water Drilling Moratorium Would Cause "Economic Catastrophe"
• Panel Is Unlikely to End Deepwater Drilling Ban Early ( RE: Deepwater Horizon oilspill)
• BP Rig Worker Claims He Reported Oil Leak Weeks Before Explosion
• Here's What Oil Industry Insiders Are Gossiping About The Oil Spill -- Some of the chatter that came back was amazing. BP has discovered the largest and most powerful well in history, and control of it may be outside existing technology. The previous record gusher was Union Oil Co.'s Lakeview well in Maricopa, California, which spewed out a staggering 100,000 barrels a day at its peak in 1910, and created an enormous oil lake in the central part of the state. Estimates for the BP well now range up to 50% more than that. The pressures at 18,000 feet are so enormous, that drilling two more relief wells might only result in creating two more oil spills. If Obama doesn't want to take the nuclear option... then there will be no other alternative but for the spill to continue until the field exhausts itself or becomes capable, possibly some time next year. This is not the end of the world. Less than 1% of the spilled oil is ending up on the beaches. Watch TV, and that is not 150,000 barrels on the beach in Pensacola, Florida. Most of the crude is being moved parallel to the coast by the current and will eventually end up in the mid-Atlantic...

G'night all!