An oil-drilling procedure called cementing is coming under scrutiny as a possible cause of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico that has led to one of the biggest oil spills in U.S. history…
The process is supposed to prevent oil and natural gas from escaping by filling gaps between the outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole bored into the ocean floor. Cement, pumped down the well from the drilling rig, is also used to plug wells after they have been abandoned or when drilling has finished but production hasn’t begun.
In the case of the Deepwater Horizon, workers had finished pumping cement to fill the space between the pipe and the sides of the hole and had begun temporarily plugging the well with cement; it isn’t known whether they had completed the plugging process before the blast.
Regulators have previously identified problems in the cementing process as a leading cause of well blowouts, in which oil and natural gas surge out of a well with explosive force…
The scrutiny on cementing will focus attention on Halliburton Co., the oilfield-services firm that was handling the cementing process on the rig, which burned and sank last week…
Halliburton also was the cementer on a well that suffered a big blowout last August in the Timor Sea, off Australia. The rig there caught fire and a well leaked tens of thousands of barrels of oil over 10 weeks before it was shut down. The investigation is continuing…
Federal officials declined to comment on their investigation, and Halliburton didn’t respond to questions from The Wall Street Journal.
Golly gee, that’s a surprise.
Have you about Obama and his communist healthcare plan to kill your grandmother?
#10 Well said.
“It’s only common sense. There are no accidents around here…”
Peter Gabriel
First, Cheney is a true American hero who helped to make us safe after 9/11. Second, mistakes due happen and Halliburton is the best in the biz but far from perfect. Check their record against their competitors and I’d hire anyone from Halliburton in a heartbeat. If anything this crackpot theory makes more sense then Cheney trying to blow up the country.
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1367.htm
#20–Bubba==quite the firebrand today. I’ve noticed a positive correlation between my “emotional level” and how accurate I am. Yourself?
I could parse your statements but I’ll go with a general review here.
Yes, both parties are corrupt, but not all corruption is the same. Repugs are corrupt, bought and paid for by the religious right and the Corporate Welfare Queens. They pander to these groups and go to extreme lengths to curry their favor. Dems are corrupt, bought and paid for by Unions and the Corporate Welfare Queens. You see the similarity==I know you do. BUT HERE IS THE DIFFERENCE WHILE THEY ARE STILL THE SAME: The Dems pander to their power base and go to extreme lengths to curry their favor.
WE THE PEOPLE tend to get more scraps when the Unions are overfed rather than when the RELIGIOUS RIGHT gets overfed.
Only very stupid people focus only on similarities, or only differences. Star gazers contemplating the ultimate reality really should be considering both? Compare and contrast? Weight the differing elements?
Only an idiot votes Repuglican==unless you are a corporate elitist/top .1 per center.
From: Obamaforever
To: to whom it may concern
First things first: I believe that Halliburton is Dick Cheney Inc.
With that said I believe that we may never know what or who caused the rig accident and the valve not working. BP is not saying much. All we get is a half-ass sketch of what is going on the sea floor. BP could give us a more detailed idea of what it looks like at the sea floor. The reason that BP is not saying much is because it knows that anything they say can be used against them in a court of law.
It is said that the valve was tested 10 days before the incident and found to be in working order. O.K., what does the word ‘tested’ mean? I do not think we will ever find out how the valve was tested. Everybody involved with the rig will make sure that the method by which the valve was tested will never be found out. And why? Again, the testing method could be used against them (i.e. the people involved with the rig) in a court of law.
You may be thinking that they could bring up the valve and see why it did not work (well, not work fully). I am thinking that the valve is down there for good. They may be able to divert the oil into a new pipe, but they will want to keep the valve where it is. The valve will give them an added safety measure if the diverter pipe fails. Their thinking is that a half-closed valve is better than no valve. You may think that this a bunch of B.S. You may be right, but the valve will not be moved.
What can be done so we will not have another disaster?
Here are my recommendations:
1. Test ALL equipment at the depth at which it will be used. I doubt that the valve was tested at 5000 feet. I hope that I do not have to say this, but in the case a Repuke is reading this, no oil should be used in the testing of the valve. One can replace the oil with a harmless fluid with the same characteristics.
2. Make BP take out insurance. They are now self-insured. BP reasoning for being self-insured is that BP calculated the odds of a disaster and said that we can afford to take the risk of not being insured by a third-party. Well, we all know how that worked out, don’t we!
If they are insured by an independent third-party the insurance company will make goddamn sure that all the necessary testing will be done before any drilling is performed. The insurance company does not want to pay out billions of dollars in damages.
3. Besides an independent insurance company performing inspections we also need a group of inspectors comprised of people from academia who know the oil industry. These people should not receive any money from the oil industry. They should not be beholding to the oil industry in any way shape or form.
We need another independent group of inspectors because we cannot afford to have another like disaster. The Gulf would become a cesspool if we have another disaster like the one we are having now. (Note: This may be a mute point. The current disaster may turn the Gulf into a cesspool anyway.)
P.S. Maybe we can get bobbo to put on his scuba gear and dive down to the valve and fix the damn think. This should be no problem for a man of his abilities. Oh, no! I forgot that the valve is at 5000 feet. Maybe bobbo can do some modeling instead (inside joke, folks)!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey OBE==with your in depth real world experience, or your modeling expertise, given the cost of clean up, liability suits, lost oil isn’t it true that BIG OIL has every financial incentive to run safe rigs===or are they more like Virgina Coal Mines at sea?
Your best thoughts?
Oh dirty oil! OBE==#25–OFE
Obama
For
Ever
Just exactly “why” no one can tell.
How is that “Drill! Baby, drill!” working out for the good folks and businesses on the Gulf Coast?
Remember — conservatives want MORE of this, not less.
Here’s a list of all the oil spills worldwide since 1940. So far the amount of oil spilled is small compared to other disasters. 75 in total, 25 in the just the last 10 years. So I would question whether engineering is going to make a difference in oil spills or not. Human error can be attributed to most, if not all of the events. Interestingly, 1/3 of the 75 total are US based.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills
From: Obamaforever
To: bobbo (aka Mr. Universal Knowledge)
No one coal mine accident can approach the
damage that this oil leak has caused and will
cause. One could say that if you heap together
all the damage that coal mining (and coal burning) has caused in the past, the present, and the future you would approach if not exceed the damage caused by the oil leak.
I am assuming that the leak will not be fixed
for months. If the valve closes completely (in a
few days) the damage will be bad but not a disaster.
Be it coal mining or oil drilling we need effective inspections. All we have had in the past eight years are George W. Bush-type of inspections. We all know how well that has worked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As for modeling the valve we need to inspect
(hands on) the valve. We would be working
backwards so we would have to place another
valve on the sea floor to see if our modeling
made any sense or not. In any event it is doubtful we could duplicate the conditions that cause the original valve to fail. The modeling and the experiment of placing another valve on the sea floor would only give us feel of what caused the original valve to fail. Our modeling and experiment(s) would not be in vain thou
because the modeling and experiments would
help us to see what conditions would
cause a valve to fail when we install valves
in future installations.
P.S. bobbo, you could ride in one of those
one man deep sea submarines to inspect the
valve. It would be rated for 4000 feet. Damn!
there I go again forgetting that the valve is at
5000 feet. Well, you could try. It wouldn’t hurt
-much!!!
So when will we be able to declare Halliburton a menace to humanity and give them the corporate death penalty?
31,
IF we can find THEIR new name and the correct department…we might have a chance..IF it hasnt been sold off to another group.
Cement & nothing but cement. No sand & no aggregates. What could possibly go wrong?
% % % % % % % %
beholding to the oil industry sb beholden
may be a mute point sb moot
–just another rigged distraction to keep the mind numbed masses from seeing what the other
hand is doing.
-the fleecing shall continue unabated.
(get out of paper while you still can)
-s
Ah, Halliburton – Prick Cheney’s handiwork !!! And another DISASTER FOR AMERICA !!! Wonder how soon BP will want a bailour !!!
P.S. for Milo #5 – When the Conservatives took over the Wall Street Journal, they had to LOWER THE READING AGE LEVEL TO 8TH GRADE SO CONSERVATIVES COULD UNDERSTAND IT !!! Previously the level was “Graduate Level” !!!
Hmm, the Obama Administration announces a new policy on oil drilling, and then this happens to allow them to ban oil drilling. The damage is worse because they waited many days to send out the ‘SWAT teams’, making the environmental impact worse, and making their argument easier to make. Wonder what Halliburton gets for their cooperation.
Mextli,
Not using a safety valve on that rig to save $500,000 in the face of a (now realized) billion-dollar disaster, for one.
The other issue here is the process in question, one that regulators previously alerted the company to. Why not stop doing it until it is proven whether it is dangerous or not?
Why are you an apologist for the evil greedy short-cutting bastards who allowed this disaster to happen? This must be Obama’s fault, right? It can’t be years of GOP chipping away at environmental regulation, right?
People like you both puzzle and disgust me. Why do you defend these people? What benefit does avoiding regulation provide to the country? Why do you apologize for these people, especially in light of the fact that THINGS COULD HAVE BEEN DONE TO PREVENT THIS?
MikeN,
You surprise me with that dumb-ass comment #36. You are better than this.
Any dumber than blaming Halliburton for everything?
Why is Obama sending SWAT teams to all of the oil rigs, not just the ones that blew up? Does he think there are terrorists at work here?
I’m not blaming Halliburton. RMFC. I am blaming the cycle of greed and shortcuts and bypassed and ignored regulation by corporations operating in this country. I am blaming asswipe senators who take lobbyist money and block legislation like financial reform or mine safety or the safety requirements for an offshore oil rig. WHY are we among the few countries that do not require that missing safety valve, for example?
So to answer your question, I am not targeting any one company, I am targeting the right-wing culture of F*CK EVERYBODY.
True, the Left is corrupt, but they are too stupid to be this evil.