BP was concerned about well casing and blowout preventer 11 months ago
By Ian Urbina
The New York Times
May 30, 2010
WASHINGTON – Internal documents from BP show that there were serious problems and safety concerns with the Deepwater Horizon rig far earlier than those the company described to Congress last week.
The problems involved the well casing and the blowout preventer, which are considered critical pieces in the chain of events that led to the disaster on the rig.
The documents show that in March, after several weeks of problems on the rig, BP was struggling with a loss of “well control.” And as far back as 11 months ago, it was concerned about the well casing and the blowout preventer.
On June 22, for example, BP engineers expressed concerns that the metal casing the company wanted to use might collapse under high pressure.
“This would certainly be a worst-case scenario,” Mark E. Hafle, a senior drilling engineer at BP, warned in an internal report. “However, I have seen it happen so know it can occur.” …
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37422018/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/
Was BP willing to gamble on the safety of human life and the destruction of the environment? What if BP lost the gamble?
Based upon information now in the hands of those looking into the accident, BP was aware of possible trouble 11 months ago. It now looks like BP took a gamble – and BP lost.
There was a big blow-out of a BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. And America’s neocons along with their neocon press jumped into “damage control” mode. Their mouths started to work before their brains had time to digest the facts – not too unusual for neocons.
It’s Obama’s Katrina roared the neocons. And later another neocon claimed it was un-American to mess with BIG OIL. Both rhetoric sources have now become quiet. Stupid assertions, with the exception of WMDs(That assertion was never retracted by the one who made it famous), sooner or later die a natural death.
And, of course, it wasn’t just BP who suffered a lost. A good part of America is awaiting its share of the loss. Reaping the “rewards” of negligence is stupid but well within the behavior of business bolstered by the lassie faire attitudes of a neocon government.
Big oil has had twenty-some-odd years of doing it like it wanted to. And the Gulf of Mexico is just another example of how BIG OIL has been doing business under the neocons.
The neocons, with one exception, are in a class by themselves.
Tags: blowout preventer, bp, documents, lassie faire, oil rig, rig safety, well cassing, well control, willing to gamble
