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tp_1983 wrote:I can understand that it is quite hard to fix a leak that is a mile deep. But didn't they think about this when they put the pipeline in? What was thier contingency plan? 'We'll cross that bridge when we come to it'?
On the whole Obama front to coin a phrase much loved by our yankee cousins 'cut the guy some slack.' What do you want him to do? If he didn't mention it then everyone would say he was being paid by BP to keep it quite. So he gives them a hard time about hoping to speed them up a bit. Does anyone here really expect him to dive down himself and sort it out?

No. What I expect the President to do is not make mistakes similar to his predecessor. In some recent cases, he appears to be less confident than he appeared during his campaign. In this case he is acting almost too late to be effective.

Thats what happens when you hire someone to run the country who's never managed, well anything.

So to be clear, what would you actually like him to have done? As every politician will tell you it's very easy to be confident in opposition, very hard when in power.

tp_1983 wrote:So to be clear, what would you actually like him to have done? As every politician will tell you it's very easy to be confident in opposition, very hard when in power.

MANAGE THE FEDERAL RESPONSE PROPERLY.

Actually manage the thing. Don't talk. Don't legislate, manage it. Kill the red tape on projects. Be the Commander in Chief and control the assets on the ground efficiently.

The fact he has time for parties and speeches shows he's not in the game. GET IN THE ING GAME.

Frazzled wrote:

tp_1983 wrote:So to be clear, what would you actually like him to have done? As every politician will tell you it's very easy to be confident in opposition, very hard when in power.

MANAGE THE FEDERAL RESPONSE PROPERLY.

Actually manage the thing. Don't talk. Don't legislate, manage it. Kill the red tape on projects. Be the Commander in Chief and control the assets on the ground efficiently.

The fact he has time for parties and speeches shows he's not in the game. GET IN THE ING GAME.

+1

So you think it is red tap that is stopping anyone from stopping this leak?
Its nothing to do with the leak being a mile deep? I suppose the scientists at BP know exactly what to do, the government just won't let them.
This is actually a very technical issue and no one knows exactly what to do.
I'm sorry to disspaoint you this is the real world, not DC comics. Super Obama can't just get on a train to the coast, read the hand book to mending deep sea dropped bollocks en route and then knock some heads together and save the day.

tp_1983 wrote:So you think it is red tap that is stopping anyone from stopping this leak?
Its nothing to do with the leak being a mile deep? I suppose the scientists at BP know exactly what to do, the government just won't let them.
This is actually a very technical issue and no one knows exactly what to do.
I'm sorry to disspaoint you this is the real world, not DC comics. Super Obama can't just get on a train to the coast, read the hand book to mending deep sea dropped bollocks en route and then knock some heads together and save the day.

No the elimination of red tape would help though. The Scientists at BP are baffled... this, apparently, is not something they planned for. Our Government gave them all this time to resolve the situation.

This was BP's mess to fix almost 7 weeks ago. They FAILED! They continued to propose ideas after their "go to" plan flopped. Yesterday a reporter asked a BP rep if they had an idea of how much oil continues to leak into the Gulf. His answer was how much oil they had captured with this latest attempt. But it seems this is nothing more than a stop-gap anyway because they have this captured oil, but have no idea on what to do with it. The Plan... BURN IT.

Obama should have immeadiatly had the EPA, Fema, Experts in the field of deep sea drilling, Local and state officials, and enviromental scientists working on how to deal with the oil that had spilled and solutions for the event that BP was unable to stop the leak in a timely manner.

He Didn't. He wasted valuable time.

helgrenze wrote:Obama should have immediately had the EPA, Fema, Experts in the field of deep sea drilling, Local and state officials, and environmental scientists working on how to deal with the oil that had spilled and solutions for the event that BP was unable to stop the leak in a timely manner.

I think you'll find all these people were involved right from the beginning if not in the forefront then in contingency plans. Actually when you come to a multi national the size of BP I would expect they have better specialist knowledge on this subject than the US government does.

The real scandal here is why BP ever thought it was a good idea to put oil pipes down that deep, with no way of mending them.
And who let them do it? Oh, that would have been Obama's predecessor. He was involved in the oil business wasn't he?

helgrenze wrote:

tp_1983 wrote:So you think it is red tap that is stopping anyone from stopping this leak?
Its nothing to do with the leak being a mile deep? I suppose the scientists at BP know exactly what to do, the government just won't let them.
This is actually a very technical issue and no one knows exactly what to do.
I'm sorry to disspaoint you this is the real world, not DC comics. Super Obama can't just get on a train to the coast, read the hand book to mending deep sea dropped bollocks en route and then knock some heads together and save the day.

No the elimination of red tape would help though. The Scientists at BP are baffled... this, apparently, is not something they planned for. Our Government gave them all this time to resolve the situation.

This was BP's mess to fix almost 7 weeks ago. They FAILED! They continued to propose ideas after their "go to" plan flopped. Yesterday a reporter asked a BP rep if they had an idea of how much oil continues to leak into the Gulf. His answer was how much oil they had captured with this latest attempt. But it seems this is nothing more than a stop-gap anyway because they have this captured oil, but have no idea on what to do with it. The Plan... BURN IT.

Obama should have immeadiatly had the EPA, Fema, Experts in the field of deep sea drilling, Local and state officials, and enviromental scientists working on how to deal with the oil that had spilled and solutions for the event that BP was unable to stop the leak in a timely manner.

He Didn't. He wasted valuable time.

I don't blame the well on Obama. I blame him for not handling the federal side of the cleanup efforts properly and coordinating with the states, for not acting like what he should be-the chief executive. He's not the chief legislator. He's the chief executive. Rung the ing departments in ing crisis mode. Why is Napolitano even near this? Wait why is Napolitano even employed at this point? Why is Holder running around threatening people, including the companies working on the relief wells who weren't parties to the spill? Its stupid and slows everything up because everyone is going to cross their T's 5 times before doing anything and NOT WORKIGN ON THE PROBLEM, but its the response of someone who doesn't know how to run things and get something done.

Red tape is not for the well. Red tape clearing is for the cleanup efforts. red tape clearing is to get the MMS /Interior Department to get their act together. They issued four confluicting reg orders in about a week. Everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off because there is no one in charge.

tp_1983 wrote:
The real scandal here is why BP ever thought it was a good idea to put oil pipes down that deep, with no way of mending them.

This is the crux of the argument right here; the problem is that no-one really has any idea of how best to fix it since this type of drilling has never been carried out before. BP really are flying by the seat of their pants here; no amount of Obama jumping up and down will make any difference.

You can't blame Bush for what this "multinational" corporation did not plan for.
There are other companies drilling in similar conditions and at similar depths. (Fraz can correct me if I am wrong.. I believe he knows more on that than I do.)

And since you brought up Bush... Obama's response was almost identical to Bush's Katrina response. He waited, because he didn't seem to understand the problem.... Because no-one else around him understood it either.

filbert wrote:

tp_1983 wrote:
The real scandal here is why BP ever thought it was a good idea to put oil pipes down that deep, with no way of mending them.

This is the crux of the argument right here; the problem is that no-one really has any idea of how best to fix it since this type of drilling has never been carried out before. BP really are flying by the seat of their pants here; no amount of Obama jumping up and down will make any difference.

You have to have it fixable prior. Its like space. once the accident happens you're ed.

Frazzled wrote:

filbert wrote:

tp_1983 wrote:
The real scandal here is why BP ever thought it was a good idea to put oil pipes down that deep, with no way of mending them.

This is the crux of the argument right here; the problem is that no-one really has any idea of how best to fix it since this type of drilling has never been carried out before. BP really are flying by the seat of their pants here; no amount of Obama jumping up and down will make any difference.

You have to have it fixable prior. Its like space. once the accident happens you're ed.

Well quite. There's a huge amount of arrogance assumed on the part of BP here, no doubt.

Frazzled wrote: Its like space. once the accident happens you're ed.

Good example. BP used a rig that had problems before. The relief valve was not tested at that depth. They had no contingency plan in case of a blowout. At a depth where preasure is too much for human life, you have to plan for any failure.
Why do you think it takes so long to build a space capable rocket?

To go back to the original question, you can't really boycott the oil drilled by a particular company. It's a commodity, BP can sell oil to Shell or Russia and make pretty much the same amount of money as it can selling it to you.

Interestingly, OPEC ran into the same problem when it tried to stop selling oil to the United States (what really hurt us was that they also decided to slow down production across the board).

The real scandal here is why BP ever thought it was a good idea to put oil pipes down that deep, with no way of mending them.
And who let them do it? Oh, that would have been Obama's predecessor. He was involved in the oil business wasn't he?

Hmm.. yes and no.

BP stopped funding -- directly -- both the Libs. and Dems around 2002.. but kept funding certain individuals like Andrew Lindquist. Former director of policy for energy policy for Cheney.

The papers drawn up in the 2 years he was there are still classified as "secret" although there have been leaks which suggest a certain firm.. ... "helped" draw up the papers which included recommendations to allow deep sea drilling and exploitation in areas such as Alaska.

After Lundquist left office he set up his own lobbying firm... astonishingly enough a certain oil firm was amongst his first clients.

Even more astonishingly the firms like BP then benefited hugely from the laws that he'd helped to draft with around $ 2 billion of subsidy going towards helping with the drilling.

Lundquists's firm is... "Bluewater Strategies"... can't make this up can you. They still work as BP's WAshinton lobbyist firm , people who work for them including Eric "I was nearly Obama's health secretary but for those pesky taxes" Washburn.

Of course to get the rights to drill they had to pass checks set by the US Minerals Management Service -- until 2007 the chief of staff of that department with regards to the Gulf of Mexico was one Jim Grant.

.. two guesses which large oil firm he now works for eh ?

There is also, apparently, some general hilarity in the "BP Regional Oil Spill REsponse Plan -- Gulf of Mexico " dated 30th of June 2009. It mistakenly lists a Japanese home shopping website as a primary equipment supplier for BP in the region for 24/7 spill response and even goes into detail about their plans to protect "Sea Lions, seals, sea otters and walruses".. hmm... no cut and paste job from another plan there eh.

Say what you like about these oil firms.. they sure are slick operators.

EDIT : err... ALLEGEDLY. Of course.

A large part of BP's problem is that the former chairman, Lord Brown, was very keen on cost reduction by outsourcing.

It now seems he outsourced what should be core competencies such as the ability to drill and operate safely, and to manage disasters when they occur, rather than peripheral things like marketing.

That said, Americans seem to have a naive belief that the President can and should fix everything through leadership, which of course he can't. Obama is therefore attempting to deflect blame from himself by emphasising the British of British Petroleum.

This is unhelpful because BP is a highly international company like any major multi-national, and secondly it unfairly tars the whole of Britain with the same brush -- we are supposed to be the USA's best allies and look what we get for it.

The reason why the leak isn't getting fixed is because fixing it is very difficult under a mile of sea.

I feel very sorry for the local fishermen and everyone, and they should be compensated. The blame game won't help with that, in fact it makes it harder because by depressing BP's share price they encourage the management to spend cash on a dividend which reduces the money available for compensation.

On another note it is interesting to compare the BP situation with the Union Carbide disaster at Bhopal.

Here, here, Kilkrazy.
It's interesting to note the differing opinions of Brits and Yanks on here.

Kilkrazy wrote:A large part of BP's problem is that the former chairman, Lord Brown, was very keen on cost reduction by outsourcing.

Indeed. With fairly dire results for their safety record... Texas City refinery explosion et al.

..He's also been selected to help the new UK Govt., advising on where cuts can be made....bodes well eh ?

Er....thats how it works. "Outsourcing" is not the issue. Oilfield service companies have been around as long as BP and do their jobs well. But BP was in charge. The issue is BP cut corners to save money and time.

The usual incestuous government/company relationship that occurs here and many places. We need to gut out the culture of government workers becoming lobbyists.

Seeing as other people here read Private Eye, i'll type out one of the back page stories for the amusement of those who can't/don't buy the magazine

BP to plug leak with Blue Whale

"We're hoping we can get a Blue Whale to swim into the area and then into the cracked pipeline which now has a really huge hole in it." said a BP spokesperson. "Our experts think it will become wedged and stop the flow of oil, though some may leak out of it's spout. We are looking for a suitable Blue Whale and are hoping to lure it to the site with a trail of BBQ flavoured plankton."

Asteroid

If the Blue Whale doesn't work, we are considering trying to get an asteroid to smash into the Gulf of Mexico. It has been done before we think, and might plug the leak, though it might mean it destroys life on Earth as we know it but that would be a small price to pay. There are loads of asteroids about...I'm sure we could get one and push it towards the Earth with the Space Station.

Lizard People

If that fails we could probably come in from below the pipeline by travelling through the centre of the Earth, going in under the Polar Ice Cap. We could talk to the Lizard People who live there and arrange for transportation through the molten core in special heat resistant suits and come up and plug the leak by spraying molten lava into the pipeline, although this may might have an adverse effect on the soft-shell crabs. cont. p.94

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Frazzled wrote:Er....thats how it works. "Outsourcing" is not the issue. Oilfield service companies have been around as long as BP and do their jobs well. But BP was in charge. The issue is BP cut corners to save money and time.

The usual incestuous government/company relationship that occurs here and many places. We need to gut out the culture of government workers becoming lobbyists.

I'm not saying the people to whom the work was outsourced weren't any good. I am saying that the point of outsources is to not have to do the things you are not very good at -- the motive being to save money.

Once you start down this road, you run the danger of failing to keep the people in house who have the skills and knowledge to manage the outsourcing properly, or perhaps not consulting them properly.

I see this all the time where I work -- it's not oil drilling but the psychology is the same.

Newsweek has a great article up about BP boycotts, how they are seemingly highly ineffective, and how they are morally dubious considering the questionable nature of BPs competitors.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/07/boycott-bp.html

It's a pretty nice writeup.

Oh contraire its outsourcing highly qualified skillsets. The guys they outsourced it to are the premier guys in the industry. Plus they are not cheap. Thats why they were trying to move along because the dayrates for deepsea rigs are really high. Again BP retained the management/primary toolpusher role. They didn't outsource the thing they should have outsourced-management.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ShumaGorath wrote:Newsweek has a great article up about BP boycotts, how they are seemingly highly ineffective, and how they are morally dubious considering the questionable nature of BPs competitors.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/07/boycott-bp.html

It's a pretty nice writeup.

I'd open that but then I'd be forced to read Newsweek and thats just wrong...
Some rumors are going that BP may file in the next 30 days.

Deadshane1 wrote:Does it make any sense to make a point of not buying gas (or anything else for that matter) from BP stations due to this accident?

Are they really doing all that is possible to remedy this spill/leak?

No it was an unfortunant accident. Sure there was probably something that should have prevented it but no one is perfect. Just like a surgeon will eventually mess up a procedure, eventually an oil company will mess up a well.

I can assure you, from inside sources. Yes they absolutely are. They are going above and beyond in certain regards also.

ShumaGorath wrote:Newsweek has a great article up about BP boycotts, how they are seemingly highly ineffective, and how they are morally dubious considering the questionable nature of BPs competitors.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/07/boycott-bp.html

It's a pretty nice writeup.

I'd open that but then I'd be forced to read Newsweek and thats just wrong...

Ask me if I care.

So.. It is now week 7 after the accident.
Obama has only this week made any effort to talk to the families of the men that died on that rig.

The president's private meeting with the families in the State Dining Room is part of his effort to show the public, that he is on top of the situation.

7 Weeks after the fact he is "on top of the situation."

Official numbers on the oil they are now recovering is @620,000 Gallons a day, estimated to be half of what is flowing.
Given even that number, means that more that 300 Million Gallons has already spilled into the Gulf.
Thats over 700,000 Barrels.
Thats more than enough to flood a major city.
To put that into perspective, a 55 gallon drun is roughly 3' tall x 2' diameter... It would take @75 of these to fill a 10'x10'x10' space. It would take nearly 10,000 such spaces to hold all that oil.
Or 140 US football fields, endzone to endzone.
And that is a conservative estimate.

As for a boycott... not needed. BP is being hurt worse by the bad press than any boycott could do.

ShumaGorath wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:Newsweek has a great article up about BP boycotts, how they are seemingly highly ineffective, and how they are morally dubious considering the questionable nature of BPs competitors.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/07/boycott-bp.html

It's a pretty nice writeup.

I'd open that but then I'd be forced to read Newsweek and thats just wrong...

Ask me if I care.

Are you a caring individual Shuma? Do you need to re-examine your life choices and decisions regarding your fellow man? Perhaps you just need a hug?

helgrenze wrote:So.. It is now week 7 after the accident.
Obama has only this week made any effort to talk to the families of the men that died on that rig.

The president's private meeting with the families in the State Dining Room is part of his effort to show the public, that he is on top of the situation.

7 Weeks after the fact he is "on top of the situation."

Official numbers on the oil they are now recovering is @620,000 Gallons a day, estimated to be half of what is flowing.
Given even that number, means that more that 300 Million Gallons has already spilled into the Gulf.
Thats over 700,000 Barrels.
Thats more than enough to flood a major city.
To put that into perspective, a 55 gallon drun is roughly 3' tall x 2' diameter... It would take @75 of these to fill a 10'x10'x10' space. It would take nearly 10,000 such spaces to hold all that oil.
Or 140 US football fields, endzone to endzone.
And that is a conservative estimate.

As for a boycott... not needed. BP is being hurt worse by the bad press than any boycott could do.

All Obama is doing is kneejerk reactions and using this for publicity. He has offered very little constructiveness to the whole situation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM