The unambiguous message from top executives of BP rivals Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell: It’s not drilling on the outer reaches of the continental shelf that’s a problem; it’s BP.
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“We would not have drilled the well the way they did,” Exxon chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson bluntly told members of the House subcommittee.
For example, Exxon would have used a different cement to build the well casing, designed the well differently and responded more aggressively to early signs of trouble, Mr. Tillerson said.
He pointed out that 14,000 deepwater wells have been drilled around the world, with few problems until now.
“It’s not a well that we would have drilled,” echoed Shell Oil president Marvin Odum.
Interesting though that Tillerson said “We could not have stopped this” either…
Not really surprising, they don’t want to be in the cross-hairs with BP. Of course their wells wouldn’t leak.
The price to BP is going to be steep, luckily for them they are getting fined/billed by the same junkies who they make billions off of. So they’ll survive. But that bill will make all players in offshore oil put a risk factor on continuing to do that work so the profitability threshold of offshore projects goes up.
If the administration is going to make the cost of doing buisness offshore too expensive then let them get their oil fix from us.
phoney baloney, they can say anything they want. It’s like saying you can buy a computer for a $1 @ Bestbuy except they don’t have it in stock. I’ll bet it’s more likely that Exxon, Chevron & Shell were never given the opportunity. In fact one of Chevron’s projects off the coast of Nfld is in ocean that’s 1000m DEEPER than the BP train wreck.
Hi!
Your “I told you so” guy here to tell you “I TOLD YOU SO” about Barry using the gulf leak to push energy taxes and windmills that GE and BP are feverously waiting for.
I have predicted this from day one of the leak and repeated it a few times at SDA.
I won’t go as far as saying the leak was engineered from day one but more and more evidence is surfacing that this “explosion accident” might have been avoided if BP executives had not tried to cut corners by giving directives which were flagged as being very dangerous in the last few days of the rig installation.
In simpler words: They might have sucessfully created the crisis by deliberately bypassing safety protocol which they can in the future claim as “human error”.
Hell, After Barry’s disastrous address, Fox’s Greta made Axelrod almost declare that Rahm Emanuel’s “Never let a good crisis go to waste” was exactly what is going on.
Here in Canada, the MSM is still cowering for the one this morning. Pathetic! Can’t wait for SUN news to hit the air in Serfnada.
We live in dangerous times my friends and Barrack Hussein Obama along with his masters behind the curtain are the world’s greatest deceivers and a menace to freedom and prosperity.
If MSNBC have the knives out on him now and the UK has all but declared war on this Prez, you know this empty suit is a scourge and a big ass mistake for the west.
At this pace, I can’t see how the USA will put up with another 2 1/2 years of this administration. Even if Barry becomes lame duck in the fall.
Bankruptcy plays a key role in a free market. It removes the losers. If BP can’t do it right, and they need to pursure Gov’t sponsored green energy business models – they should sink.
If the other guys are going to do it better, let’s reward them.
I read this elsewhere …. there is only one reson these companies are piling on BP. And of course no one at AP or the Glopnpail are pointing that out.
The MSM are the stupidest people on the planet.
Interesting, but hardly an objective view being they are rivals. Does BP have problems with their other deep-water wells throughout the world? I would imagine all these guys would prefer to drill in shallower water or on land if they weren’t hog-tied by Al Gore’s socialist agenda.
Heard on BNN this morning from a British guest.
“Obama is no longer a statesman. He’s a demagogue.”
The guy is correct.
Now, he’s trying to dispense collective guilt, smearing the entire oil industry because of an accident.
But then, that should come naturally. The entire AGW agenda he’s pushing can only succeed through pushing the collective guilt button of the peons.
Keep pushing back.
November can not come soon enough.
@the bear
In saying this was a well they wouldn’t have drilled, execs weren’t saying they wouldn’t drill that deep but rather that, in deep waters, they would have drilled in a different manner. I don’t think that’s unbelievable. There are an incredible number of things that went wrong and were ignored simply because it was taking twice as long to drill the well as they expected.
” He pointed out that 14,000 deepwater wells have been drilled around the world, with few problems until now.”
Something was was not right with this well. What was it? It is interesting to read comments from oil workers.
After a well is drilled, it is the heavy mud that is holding down the horrendous pressures. The mud between the casing and the rock and sand has to be replaced by cement. The casing has to be centered in the bore hole. If the casing is up against the bore hole sidewall the cement will be too thin in those areas. We all know thick concrete is very strong but thin concrete is pathetically weak. Could it be this simple?
One commenter claimed BP shorted the number of centering devises. Could this be what other oil excecs meant by ‘we would not have drilled in BP’s manner?
While I agree that the other execs need to be careful, because even when you’re doing things right accidents can happen, I believe BP really does have safety issues. And, I believe they are related to a more hard-nosed, bottom-line (meaning profit bottom-line) approach than the other majors.
In 2005, they had the refinery explosion in Texas that claimed 15 lives. In 2006, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska had to be shut down for weeks because of corrosion in their pipeline system.Now the rig explosion.
That’s either extreme bad luck, or a pattern. I don’t think Exxon, Chevron or ConocoPhillips have anything like it.
So, yeah, these guys are piling on, but there might be a reason for it.
Chevron?
A Chavez company. They should be sent packing.
I doubt anyone commenting here has the knowledge required to know that the other (non BP) oil company execs are not sincere. It is quite possible that the others would have successfully drilled and completed this well without incident. If that is the case, any government prohibition to offshore drilling will be a costly mistake. Simply put, we desperately need offshore oil.
Doowleb: Chevron is a U.S. company which several years ago aquired Texaco. It is one of the largest in the world and had exrensive operations in Canada. The Venezuela co.(Chaves) is Citgo operating refineries and stations in U.S.
RE:….cement and concrete.
I am curious about the so called cement. Don’t know anything about the mix used for drilling. I would guess it is not concrete but more like grout, i.e., cement mixed with sand along with certain admixtures.
Where’s Michael Moore when you really need him? Surely he can smell money from another conspiracy “documentary”. The plot goes something like this:
Obama and BP deliberately conspired to blow up the well so that Obama could ban drilling and his personal investments in wind generator stocks would go up. Meanwhile Obama secretly blows up a South Korean Navy ship and blames the North so they would go to war with each other. Obama moves in to occupy the newly-liberated North Korea after the war and grants unlimited offshore drilling rights to BP as their reward in the scam. The ruined beaches of Florida? No problem, Obama’s new health care plan will euthanize all the retirees anyway — no more need for beaches in Florida.
C’mon Moore, why aren’t you biting?!
Quite right, Woodporter. As it stands, the current 6-month moratorium is going to exacerbate an already dire economic situation down in the gulf states.
Those deep drilling wells are not going to sit idle in the gulf for six months waiting for the moratorium to be lifted. For all they know, it will never be lifted — a distinct possibility given the far left slant of the current administration.
Those drills are going to move to places elsewhere, like Asia and Africa. In the event the moratorium is lifted in six months time, it will be several more months before the rigs return. In the meantime, all those high-paying oil jobs go *POOF* in the U.S. gulf states.
The moratorium is typical, knee-jerk government response to a crisis situation. It ignores the long track record of incident-free deep drilling in the gulf, and around the world. And, quite frankly, oil companies in the current political environment are going to double down on safety and drilling protocols. The chance of a similar blowout occurring, likely already low, becomes even lower still.
Obama is going to steal $20 billion from BP.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-16/bp-said-to-agree-on-20-billion-fund-for-oil-spill-update1-.html
I work downtown Houston for one of those three and our well designs are different. Our P&A procedure is completely different.
You cannot tar a whole industry with one brush just because on of the companies has a design failure and/or human error. That would be like telling Ford to stop selling the Focus because Toyota has a Gas Pedal sticking problem.
However, this is exactly what Barry the Terrible has done.
concrete – generally a 3rd party company comes along (say Haliburton for example) and sets a cement plug which prevents the product from escaping. Then I *think* they perforate the casing to expose the drill hole to more of the pay zone. I’m sure someone on here know a lot more about this than someone that hasn’t been near an oil well on a wage earning basis for over 25 years though. 😉
Oh my– that’s rich coming from Exxon, who up until a few years ago were quite content to have the Third Mate pilot thier tankers out of Alaskan oil terminals while the Captain slept off his hangover.
concrete- The cement they use has no sand or gravel added. It has to flow freely through all that casing.
Why wouldn’t the rest of the industry respond this way? The incompetence, and negligence, of one operator is threatening the operations of the entire industry. It only stands to reason they’d turn on BP. If they’d didn’t respond this way, I’d be worried.
And everybody is forgetting one thing.Who gave the most bucks to the Zero’s campaign? Oh my…would that be BP? Yup. And the guys/gals on the rig SAW rubber coming up the pipe from the BOP.They mentioned it,and were told,by BP,no big problem.Right.So now the Zero wants to shut down drilling off shore for six months.Guess what.At just about 3/4 a million bucks per day,those rigs are heading for the North Sea,Hibernia,etc.And meanwhile the Zero can keep getting his oil/gas from his Saudi buddies.
Amazing how a commie TOTUS can destroy a country.
Its BS…these oil companies are not equipped to deal with disasters out there.
Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson admitted that major oil companies are unprepared to deal with environmental disasters at their drilling sites.
Sure they wouldn’t have cheaped out so bad, but they are still not prepared for the unknown.
BTJ says “Sure they wouldn’t have cheaped out so bad, but they are still not prepared for the unknown.”
Uh….how, exactly, do you prepare for the “unknown”? If you could, then the “unknown” would be “known”.
Sharks feeding on a carcass.
The conspiracy theory being firmly set aside, I am almost at the point of believing The Obama Administration has let the situation fester in order to help force the cap & trade tax play. Financing the Chicago CCX with a new gambit now that Global warming as the means of providing the impetusis unlikely. My description as the Obama Administration reflects that President Obama doesn’t run with the ball, he only coaches from the sideline without the integrity and principles of President Reagan. Cheers
Uh….how, exactly, do you prepare for the “unknown”?
~Joey
I keep a bible, a case of rum, and a change of underwear handy.
Works for me.
“…Financing the Chicago CCX with a new gambit now that Global warming as the means of providing the impetusis unlikely…”
Mike sr
It is to note that the Bilderberg group just finished their annual meet in spain on June 6.
Amoung the talks was GLOBAL COOLING which is what many serious unpoliticized scientists are currently contemplating. (Google ‘solar minimum’). So it looks like at least the elite secret group is on the right side of science.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/jun/14/charlie-skelton-bilderberg-2010
Being governments worldwide are broke but don’t want to start shedding their own weight instead looking for more ways to take in more tax revenue, the MANMADE GLOBAL WARMING myth is still being pimped.
Big government is now public enemy number one and blood will have to spill to break it down to size.
A couple of weeks ago it was reported in a British newspaper that Tony Hayward sold £1.4 million of his BP shares three weeks before the spill.
Is this called a coincidence?
This is great news. BP stock will continue to decline. It will be a much under valued company and when they have hit bottom, some people are going to get very rich off their rebound. I just happen to have a couple nickles ready for when that happens.
“Big government is now public enemy number one and blood will have to spill to break it down to size.”
I’m afraid you are right. That Congressman who assaulted the student (and who is sadly a mis-Representative of my state) is a perfect example. You could just hear the imperious attitude dripping from his words. They have become an ersatz ruling class, and increasingly don’t even pay lip service to the notion that they are the servants of their constituents. Also, look at the flagrant disregard for recent Supreme Court rulings, e.g. Chicago Mayor Daley announcing he’ll find a way around it if the Court incorporates the 2nd Amendment against the states, Obama basically “dressing down” the Court in his State of the Union address, etc. I see all these expressions of imperium as something of a shot across the bow, letting the serfs know that we can try whatever we want through official channels, but if our betters don’t like the results they’re just going to continue doing things the way they want.
Our first nation brothers have a saying, “Only the rocks live forever”. The thing is, they don’t! Nothing lives or lasts forever. Not even our most exotic materials. Corrosion, erosion, mechanical damage and decay will take their toll. The Earth’s crust ripples, plates shift, continents drift. Quite apart from naturally occuring mechanics the fact is that ALL wells, everywhere, are primed time-bombs. Perhaps we shouldn’t be providing Mother with ready-drilled vent shafts. And unscupulous saboteurs with sitting ducks. That is our legacy to our childrens’ childrens’ children. We may smugly be able to live, today, with that scenario. But will they be able to live with that reality? Hmmmmm?
Joey: I see you are not familiar with risk assessment/management. You determine the scope of your unknowns, you determine your knowns within that scope, then you predict potential outcomes, and then you work out potential solutions.
The O&G industry does not have a problem. The world has a BP problem. These sleazy idiots killed people at the Texas City refinery and they killed people on the Deepwater Horizon and now they’re killing the GOM. It’s a crying shame the entire industry is being tar & feathered for the gross negligence of a bunch of tinker toy engineers, led by a Swede from the telecom industry and that little wimp, Tony Hayward. I hope they fold up & go away. (And, I’m very pleased I sold my BP stock after the Texas City explosion.)
I’d say the one person who has been more more notably absent on the job in this crisis other than the POTUS is BP CEO, Tony Hayward and his senior executive. BP’s response on the PR has been incomprehensible and projects an air of corporate incompetence. Recall also the stories of the heated fight on the drilling deck before the explosion. Transocean rig hands were said to have been overuled by the “company man” who ordered the replacement of heavy drilling fluid — typically used in the final stages of plugging oil wells — with a lighter liquid. A senior hand is reported to have been heard making a comment to the effect of ‘I guess that why we have the crimping mechanism for.’ Corporate cultures that tend to top down decision making accompanied by accountability evasion at a senior level almost always end in disaster of some sort. Not saying that is the case here, but from this limited view it has the look. After this expect Hayward to make a latteral move into something bigger and better than CEO BP. I can’t figure it out but it seems that that is the way the cookie crumbles.
There well could be a different culture at BP compared to other energy companies. In fact, within the same company there can be very different procedures and risk tolerances between business units, even ones with identical jobs and HQ-mandated SOPs. Management may turn a blind eye to unorthodox practices when under pressure to meet production quotas and performance objectives.
That is one of the reasons why companies should be completely responsible for any accidents, the risk of catastrophic financial penalties must outweigh the benefit of cutting corners.
oilwell cement is a pretty specialized product. there is no sand , but plenty of additives to make it flow correctly and set in a specific time. centralizers help but crush pretty easily when stressed go wrong, remember you are dealing with pressures of 10000 psi in this well. however ,its the differential pressures that matter.
Texan:
The O&G industry has HUGE problems! Chevron and Shell have disgusting practices, the same ties to gov’t, and neglect the individual rights of many. BP is just on a whole other level of negligence…and practices it in the wrong backyard.
“The O&G industry has HUGE problems!”
If that’s how you feel, I suggest you quit buying gasoline and everything else that has a smidgen of petroleum in it.
Thanks for the suggestion, however, it’s all but impossible. It is not gas and oil itself that is the problem…it is the industries that extract it, the regulation/laws associated with those industries, along with the stagnant technology associated with O&G that are the problem.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said Wednesday the British energy giant cared about the fate of the “small people” hit by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
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You small people can kiss the big oil giants a$$.
‘We don’t want no short people around here.’
everybody sing.
Then I suggest you start your own O&G company (with vibrant technology, of course) so that you may show the industry how the job should be done (and save the world).
Why didn’t they put a damn hose on the pipe and pump the oil into a tanker?
Again, thanks for the suggestion, however I’m not in a position to start an O&G company…nor am I in a position to perform technological advancement in that field. I am in a position to recognize the general short comings of current O&G industry, rather than claiming that ‘it’s all good, except for BP’.
Rose: They tried that, a couple times…it failed for a number of reasons…one being that the pipe is more than a km underwater.
the bear @ 1:15
Like you it has been a few years since I set foot on a rig but I do remember the procedures involved in drilling and completing critical wells.
From what I’ve been able to find on various sites across the net many corners were cut for seemingly financial reasons.
The lack of cement bond logging to confirm the integrity of the cement job, the lack of supplemental cement squeezes to address deficiencies, the wellbore casing system design, piss poor pressure testing procedures, ignoring obvious signs of downhole problems while continuing to under-balance the wellbore, suspect maintenance of the BOP stack and human error all contributed to this mess.
As I understand the current situation the casing string is so badly compromised that any attempts to close in the well could lead to a further catastrophic failure.
Even further, it seems that attempts to better seal the collection system currently in place may lead to increased back pressure in the wellbore thereby exacerbating the situation.
I hope they hit the relief well target on the first attempt or this is going to go on for a long time.
Syncro
Syncro: I know very little about rig engineering, but I heard that BP was advised by Haliburton to use 21 centralizers before cementing the well, and they only ended up using 6. It will be interesting to hear what Tony Hayward has to say to congress tomorrow.
Somebody also tampered with the BOP and had one of the shears set on test mode. When it was activated, the rams were then in a pull back configuration as opposed to their intended forward motion.
How can nobody read an instrument panel, especially when you are drilling at these depths. Wouldn’t somebody put a little red light on the dashboard to say “test mode”?
And these were built by people with engineering degrees. Find out the school and shut them down. But then, maybe they are schools located in BHO’s Chicago!!!
“I am in a position to recognize the general short comings of current O&G industry … ”
From what university did you receive your Ph.D in Business Shortcomings?