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1. On a footage or day rate job, (this was a day rate, reportedly $1 MM/Day), the drilling contractor doesn’t do anything without operator approval or direction. (Questionable - reported that the semisubmersible TransOcean Deepwater Horizon was contracted on a day rate of around $530,000/day but about $26 Million Dollars over budget (AFE - Approved for expenditure) 2. There is no reason to believe the blow out preventer was defective. The probability of a similar result is high for any crew using the same casing and cement program that was used here. 3. The well was drilled to 18,360 ft...

BP, Transocean and Halliburton pointed fingers over who bears responsibility for the oil-rig explosion. At hearings Tuesday, Halliburton is expected to describe a failure to place a cement plug within the well before withdrawal of drilling "mud" that kept gas from escaping. Two rig workers corroborated this account.