Environmentalist’s forcing wells to be drilled at extreme depths instead of closer to the coast. Better yet, letting oil companies drill on land instead of in the gulf.
Something else to look into..“According to a 2008 lawsuit filed in Louisiana, Cameron and Hydril, a General Electric unit that makes drilling equipment, provided defective blowout preventer equipment resulting in a 2007 leak from an offshore Louisiana well.”
BP *wanted* to drill at this depth because the Macondo Plateau had tremendous reserves under it (as we now have the proof).\
Here are the documents they filed with the MMS explaining that safer technology and the prospect of extremely high-production wells are the main reason they are doing so much deep-water drilling.
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/offshore/deepwtr.html
If we explore a bit beyond the “wacky environmentalists made them do this” slogan, we find out that this sort of exploration was *entirely the choice of the industry.* They WANT to drill there because it is so profitable.