Too Big to Exist (TBE) - Big Oil

There is no viable solution insight for the out of control oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. The stunning failure of British Petroleum (BP) raises the question - are these oil giants too big to exist? Are they too dangerous to function in our presence? BP has four permanent deep water structures and 28 boreholes operating at a water depth of greater than 5000 feet in the Gulf of Mexico. What's next?

British Petroleum (BP) had the resources to drill the well but lacked the planning and ability to deal with its failure. The oil giant's performance inspired ridicule by Jon Stewart in a recent Daily Show comment ("There will be blame"). The White House was not amused, however. Nobel Prize winning physicist and Secretary of the Energy, Steven Chu, is now in Houston with a team of cutting edge scientists tasked with mentoring BP and devising a viable solution as the oil giant continues to falter.

There is a well known history of oil company accidents including blazing oil rigs, the Exxon Valdez tanker leak, and the Prudhoe Bay pipeline collapse (another BP special). But nothing matches the collapse of BP's Deepwater Horizon structure at the Macondo prospect, Gulf of Mexico.

The failed site is gushing between 200,000 and one million gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico. The Center for Biological Diversity reported that the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the federal agency that approved drilling, routinely ignored Federal biologists by issuing waivers that failed to take in to account the impact of drilling on endangered species.

Adding humans as an endangered species might be a timely move. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) produced a document on April 28 indicating the leak could reach over two million gallons of oil a day. In addition to ravaging the Gulf of Mexico, the damage caused by oil may extend to the Florida straits and the Atlantic coast of the United States.

While BP estimates that it can contain the gusher within a week, Admiral Thad Allen of the U.S. Coast Guard is planning for the event to become a full scale catastrophe. His candid admission that half a million gallons of the toxic oil dispersant have been released above and below the gulf indicates the current level of desperation to contain the accumulating mess.

Too Big to Exist

BP is a $250 billion company, one of the six largest oil and natural gas exploration and marketing companies in the world. It's the largest corporation in the United Kingdom.

A look at its public safety record over the past five years raises questions about the ability of the company to function safely. In 2005, BP's Texas refinery had a series of explosions that killed 15 and injured 170 more people. Residents near the refinery were confined to their homes to limit toxic exposure. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board issued a thorough report laying responsibility at BP's doorstep. The company's poor maintenance of the Alaska pipeline at Prudhoe Bay due to "draconian cuts" in maintenance resulted in a major oil spill in 2006.

CNN conducted a major review of BP's challenges in light of these two disasters in 2006. Presented with evidence showing neglect of pipeline corrosion at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska the BP executive in charge claimed, "We were blindsided by the recent leaks." At congressional hearings, one BP officials invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid "self incrimination." BP senior management promised to take the steps necessary to moderate the company's obsession with the bottom line at the expense of safety.

Despite promising to remedy the problems it created in both disasters, BP had a poor track record of keeping its promises prior to the current catastrophe.

After being chastised by President Barack Obama for creating a "ridiculous spectacle" in the midst of the crisis, BP's CEO Tony Howard tried to diminish the scope of the problem. The CEO insisted that deep sea oil drilling will continue. He's right. BP has 32 Gulf of Mexico oil operations at greater than 5000 feet.

BP is not the only oil company with a poor safety record. It's the first big oil company to cause a catastrophe of this magnitude. It must be the last. We simply can't tolerate these lumbering giants that place cost cutting for bigger executive bonuses above the safety and survival of those who use their energy products. If you put your customers out of business and injure or kill them, they can't buy anything.

We are the endangered species.

END

This article may be reproduced in whole or part with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.

Michael Collins May 16, 2010 - 4:57pm

Michael Collins's diary | printer friendly version |

( categories: Global Energy )

What we'll lose - just a sampler

Co-locations with deep water drilling

Michael Collins May 16, 2010 - 6:04pm

well...

..the homes of the RIch and the Corporate Execs aren't in any threat or danger (physically or of losing value), so it's all good, right?

RIGHT??????

After all (Especially in conservative Deep South) people can be counted on to work against their best interests, because Those In Charge are really doing what's best for all of us, right?

RIGHT????

(but theriouthly, folks....)
What hasn't this well already been seized as a Crime Scene by the government? Then, it would be plugged, and the extent of the disaster already known, as opposed to letting BP continue to obstruct and obfuscate, while they kill the Gulf.....

"If Stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?" -- Will Rogers

justadood May 16, 2010 - 6:34pm

They're idiots

It's that simple. Engineers are thorough by nature. You don't create a structure without plans to deal with its collapse, malfunction, etc. But BP did. They obviously had no viable contingency plans, so why did they build it? Because they could.

The sad thing is that there's no review for danger to humans. We're species too;)

Michael Collins May 16, 2010 - 7:14pm

actually,

They leased the hardware from a subsidiary of Halliburton...

Yes, they planned poorly, but just as big a culprit in this fiasco is CheneyCo....they own the hardware that failed and blew up and sank. BP owned the rights to the hole that's shitting smelly black poo all over our Gulf right now...

Good luck getting either into a courtroom, much less pay a fine....ain't gonna happen

"If Stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?" -- Will Rogers

justadood May 16, 2010 - 8:45pm

Payment

The Exxon Valdez verdict wend from $5 bil or so down to .5 bil. That's justice in action. You are so right on no payouts in the foreseeable future.

As for BP, they're the lease holder, therefore the responsible party. Given their penchant for being cheap, they're to blame, I'll bet. Interestingly, Andarko, the darling of deep water drilling companies, was a passive investor at 26% in the failed BP site. Their stock took a big hit and they are putting together reserves for possible suits.

Michael Collins May 17, 2010 - 3:21am

What worries me...

Is the idea that some of the students I see around (even at Ivy League colleges) may one day become engineers at companies like BP.

creativelcro May 17, 2010 - 11:14am

Too Big To Be Treated As Human Beings

The problem is corporate personhood, not oil or technology per se. We have seen it health care, we have seen it Wall Street Banksterism and we see it in the oil, coal and gas industries---and will continue to see it until our leaders and our average citizens understand these are all dots in a single pattern. Corporate Personhood is what needs to be abolished once-and-for-all. Corporate Persons are not Air-Breathers. They don't deserve the same Constitutional protection as human beings in any court, in any state of the Union. Take that away from them, and you take away the "too bigness" of failure.

dude May 16, 2010 - 7:07pm

They deserve some time in the slammer

You're absolutely right - the neologism of "personhood" is a perversion of the original concept of corporate legal status from way back. It's just an another exemption for the inept and greedy. It is easy to see where BP is coming form - two prior disasters where they were at fault due to being too cheap to act like engineers ... now this. Who would have figured? We would have, this is unless we were regulators who were told to "fast track" this. I blame the "peak oil" hysteria for this - it has become the rational for recklessness.

Michael Collins May 16, 2010 - 7:13pm

We're surrounded by

Dumb giants with the same rights we have. And they go around destroying things...

creativelcro May 17, 2010 - 11:16am

i share your concern

it is terrifying to think of man's hubris in this endless quest for fossil fuels.

thanks for this excellent and informative diary and comments.

melometa May 17, 2010 - 8:02am

The answer is clear

BP should have been too big to flail.

Actor 212 May 17, 2010 - 10:19am

What is truly frightening to me

is that BP was one of the "better" oil companies out there. Imagine the shenanigans in Exxon. I shudder.

What folks are realizing is that these deep water wells are another animal all together. I can see that all parties, the companies, engineers, regulators have thought of these things as just a shallow well in deep water.

They are anything but. The oil is deep and at very great pressure. There is also a 2 degree heat rise for every incremental depth, so the temperature of the oil coming out of the ground is at tremendous pressure and at tremendous heat. Hence it is actively off gassing, and explosively flammable. You can have oil coming out of the ground that is 550 degrees. Think of it.

Coming out of the ground at depths to far down for humans to be, so all interaction with the ground is robotic. Is it any wonder that a hydraulic pump that needs replacing is held off for a later time. The simple replacement of a battery is a crazy bottom of the sea ordeal.

Oil is moving into the realm of crazy. It comes from regimes filled with either anarchy or political views inimical to Democracy. It is rife with piracy, land theft, utter disregard for the environment. It's need supersedes anything and everything. Every day there is this 75 million barrel fix, its worse than heroine.

The faster we can move away from oil, that there can be some mental change of attitude. What it takes I do not know. But I have to believe those States bordering the Gulf are now well aware of the ticking time bombs off their shores. Florida will be eviscerated if these oil plumes move as the models suggest they might.

Scotjen61 May 17, 2010 - 2:46pm

A symptom

of a greater problem.

We need oil. It is essential to the world economy. It is essential to our way of life.

We can't afford anything that interferes with the collection of this resource. A reduction of availability retards growth, endangers the food supply. Our need grows each year as the supply may be diminishing.
We suffer the destruction of our environment for this need. We suffer the murder of people for this need.

When I was living in South America in the late 70' and early 80's, there were accounts of Natives in the Amazon being shot from helicopters to remove them as an obstacle for drilling. Destroying huge swathes of the Earth's lungs in the process.
In Canada, we are surface mining shale oil and using up mass amounts of fresh water, leaving poison waterways in their place.
We kowtow to tyrants and support terrible regimes for this need.
We send armies across the world and pay a huge price in life for this need.

As long as we continue to pay these costs, we deserve to pay them.
Pretending that it is merely a matter of corporate responsibility and regulatory oversight is one way we can avoid taking personal responsibility for being the cause of the larger problem.

I too am a co-conspirator in the destruction of the planet. I to am culpable in the price we all pay. I try not to think about it because it is a horrible thought to hold but I know that the blame rests on my shoulders, maybe not an equal weight, but there it rests regardless.

Gannon May 17, 2010 - 3:14pm

Blinders

You're right up to the point where you take responsibility, imho. The responsible parties are those who direct policy allowing the single option of fossil fuels to the exclusion of mitigating actions like serious conservation and alternatives like this
http://tinyurl.com/nm6ec6

I'd like someone to debunk the information about solar at that link. If it is accurate then we're on a deliberate path to ruin instigated by those who prefer suffering to an impingement on their investments in energy and war.

Michael Collins May 17, 2010 - 3:30pm

Why no personal responsibility?

Why right until... It makes no sense. These issues are actionable today, and we are not actionless sheep that need to simply run around behind those who make choices for us. All parties responsible. I am not one who will simply point fingers at others and exclude myself from responsible behavior.

People need to think, and act accordingly. Just as it is the responsibility of government to attempt to incentivize the alternatives, and make the problems more expensive. These oil rigs out in the ocean are sitting on Government Sovereign land. Technically that oil is US property. The leases should be massively more expensive. Oil should be priced like cigarettes are, with additional costs associated with the problems created. The Fed has taken tremendous steps in the last 18 months, and it simultaneously requires people to use those incentives and change behavior. Without it nothing can ultimately be solved.

The company's need to behave responsibly and every individual needs to adapt to a world that gradually stops using oil.

Gas shouldn't be $3 it should be $12, $15, and after the Gulf of Mexico maybe $20 a gallon. But at the same time for those driving around their SUVs and decrying corporate greed.

Look in the mirror.

Scotjen61 May 17, 2010 - 4:46pm

Sheep

You're right. We are not just sheep. However, the responsibility for the energy dilemma increases as you go up the food chain. We're responsible for as small a carbon footprint as we can muster, given the circumstances ... and those circumstances rely on information. Chu, who does know what needs to be done, has stressed the great results we'd get on conservation, seriously pursued on a broad base. Where's the policy and leadership on that. It's a critical, urgent question yet it's among the mix of many other issues that are not critical to the survival of the species. Without information and leadership, we're doomed, I'm afraid - unless you look at the history of scientific invention and realize that projections of "only oil and coal" are based on the assumption that current alternatives and none in the future is a valid way of looking at a problem.

On gas prices, fine but what of the disruption? That requires information and leadership. I should have said, "Gannon, you alone, are not responsible..." But we could blame it all on him;)

I'd like a group like Chu assembled for this crisis to look at the energy crisis overall and give us some cutting edge solutions. I'd also like to know if that link I have about solar is based on something real. If it is, then we're in just terrible shape with an alternative like that sitting there.

Michael Collins May 17, 2010 - 6:40pm

Picture Perfect

Responsibilty rises as one rises up the food chain. I will use that over and over.

Scotjen61 May 17, 2010 - 10:10pm

What do you know?

I agree.

I did inhale.

Don May 18, 2010 - 8:34am

I wonder how much this is a consequence of Peak Oil

Look where they are; BP is drilling in the middle of the ocean a mile deep and then 3 more miles through rock. Of course there's plenty of oil out there; BP just likes to do it the hard way. Seriously, it sounds like BP's equipment isn't really designed for such depths. There are questions of whether their BOP can sheer pipe thick enough to drill that deep; whether the cement used by Halliburton to seal the well was up to snuff; the fact that there were really no tried and true contingency plans in case of a problem. The expense of drilling at those depths already meant $100 a barrel before the disaster and that is not the price of doing it right.

Joaquin May 18, 2010 - 1:04am

You bring up a really interesting point

I've been a bystander in the 'peak oil' controversy, more interested in innovation and alternatives. At some point, it occurred to me that big oil should love "peak oil" because it's the rationale for unfettered exploration and drilling. Well ... who knows but all those leases approved after 5/22 (in my groovy chart at the end of the article) are motivated by something (cash no doubt;) but rationalized by something else - the fear of "running out."

We need to shift from a deviant finance mentality to one drive by the best principles of engineering.

Michael Collins May 18, 2010 - 2:29am

They wouldn't be there

if there were easier oil to be found elsewhere.

This is most definitely a symptom of peak oil. The costs of drilling under these conditions are astronomical, and apparently, not high enough.

I did inhale.

Don May 18, 2010 - 8:36am

Shit

I did inhale.

Don May 18, 2010 - 8:51am

Atlantis is a nightmare waiting to happen

Isn't it ridiculous that we're in this mess, with proof of the outcome (the Gulf catastrophe) and we absent a national crash program to conserve energy. The savings of energy by 2050 are calculated in this document by Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy and also a real world physicist. http://tinyurl.com/2dmgk2t

Where's the urgency? It's time.

Atlantis Water depth:

BP Exploration & Production (Atlantis) 7,050 1/16/2007

Michael Collins May 18, 2010 - 12:20pm

Breast-beating mea culpas

bring only so much satisfaction...

push local government for incentives and urge your neighbours who can afford it to think long term and at least install thermal solar for hot water.

this should be rolled out nationwide while copper is still relatively affordable, seeing as the chinese will keep driving up the prices of all commodities in their insane copying of the worst of our vices.

light bulbs, all good, but the savings with better insulation and solar water alone would take a huge load off our fossil fuel consumption.

i have installed 2.3kw PV on my roof and turned on a neighbour to the company who has installed 10kw on his roof.

the company is giving me some 'thankyou' money for the hookup, and i wish everyone could do something similar until it went viral.

if governments are going to keep stalling, we need to take up the slack.

best case: this gusher is capped, but no company dares to shortcut any safety regs from now on, while we max out the change in attitude to green tech and roll it out worldwide.

melometa May 19, 2010 - 1:24pm

From a post today on zero hedge :-(

Making this quick, don't feel well. About 4:15pm or so eastern, coming back from Tampa, Florida north on Veteran's Expressway...about 7 miles perhaps from SR 54...it sprinkled some gray watery and solid black oil on my car. Thought it was bugs, but so fast did not make sense and windshield wipers just smeared it. Got out of car at store and looked on the paint and solid black dots on my car...I touch? huh? it's wet? it's OIL!!!!!
I had several folks verify it before I sprayed it off and it came off easier than the few love bugs. Two hours later still wet like OIL! nope, not water, smell it, OIL!!!
Anyone on Gulf try not to smear touch it as it is harder to wash off if it happens to you. Bands of storm clouds coming this way from Gulf of Mexico...has not actually rained at least where I have been, just ran through the sprinkle. I smell it now I am inside the house...it's just hard for me to believe also. One can think of a other things...oh maybe it was a vehicle in front of you...there was no vehicles near me at the time. So coincidence oil spill in the gulf and it rains oil on my car? okay believe what you will...but I know my gut and what happened to me, what I saw, others witnessed, I took pics of (sorry don't know how to post them, and it photos could be debateable anyway, take my word or not whichever...but we are in deep hocky doo folks.
I was noticing that big black blotch closer to west coast FL on some images that someone posted yesterday on Disasters board...wondering. Well, maybe wrong board but felt more may see it here and ones that live here. Be careful, if it gets on your clothes, pets, hair, eyes, skin...it won't be so easy to wash off as a well waxed car is.
Not checking this for now, gotta wash out my ears, eyes, nose and lay down...change clothes as I smell it now inside the house on my clothes. I did not smell it while out though and my nose is now desinsitizing, but I feel nauseated. I am really sensitive though, some may not be so much or get the heavy warnings I do.
Thanks for letting me post this bopp, if you want to move it, okay with me I understand...maybe nobody pay attention anyway and I am not super pops here as it is!
~Eve

Joaquin May 20, 2010 - 5:34pm

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