Until this week, the general impression of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf has been that the explosion took everyone by surprise, and that neither BP nor a dysfunctional MMS had any idea that the well had reached a critical stage. Two days ago, however, Bloomberg reported that both BP and MMS were well aware of the high risk of a blowout at that particular well. BP and its subcontractor Transocean had in fact been fighting against a blowout for over two months, and MMS was well aware of the situation:
