- dedicated to Borehead, Fishwarrior and others fighting for the oppressed “small people” fishing businesses.
A crime is not a crime unless you are caught with your pants down. Yet you wonder why the “big people” don’t go to jail for perjury, for insider trading, murder and other crimes even when caught red-handed. On the other hand, the lesser people or “small people” as BP chairman referred to were punished disproportionally. See the many articles highlighting the high-handed punishments meted out to poor fishermen for failing to observe NOAA’s stringent catch quota and NOAA/NMFS’s unfair treatment of fishermen and the Federal Government’s takeover and redistribution of marine resources at Bore-head007 and fishwarrior columns at Newsvine.com
Nowhere is the disparity in double standards more evident than in the regulators’ kid glove treatment of BP’s gross violations and repeated misconducts. See ex-EPA attorney’s 12 years wrestle to disqualify BP from receiving billions of dollars in government contracts and other benefits for repeated misconducts. Yet despite the high risk of offshore exploration drilling especially in the delicate deep water shelf edge zone, MMS (Minerals Management Services, the federal agency previously in charge of regulating offshore drilling activities) gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from another agency that assesses threats to endangered species and despite strong warnings from that agency about the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf. See US said to allow Drilling without needed permits.
One would have thought NOAA should be more concerned with BP’s gross negligence and misconduct as any disaster like the DeepWater Horizon blowout would have financial, environmental and social impacts far greater than any accidents involving the small fishing businesses. Drilling into a major strike-slip fault zone and an active mud-volcano would be inviting trouble yet BP was never charged for gross negligence. Drilling into the worst possible high risk geohazardous location must be willful negligence of the highest order. Yet BP was never punished. On the other hand, “excessive fines are normal" said Gloucester-based fisheries attorney Stephen Ouellette. "Regulatory compliance is less important to NOAA than collecting money for their expenses." NOAA Attorney Charles Juliand’s cash demand draws ethic fire.
Would BP a technological multinational giant, admit to not knowing the existence of the NW-SE strike-slip fault and mud-volcano it was drilling into? That would be an admission of gross incompetence since the broken geology, faults and mud-volcanoes are clearly evident even on the basis of publicly available information. It is doubtful BP would publicly challenge the forensic and technical analyses given in bklim.newsvine.com.
BP has long denied ever drilling more than 1 well at the Macondo 252 prospect. That is a complete lie. Images of 2 different well-heads were published on 11 Nov 2010 to prove this. More images captured by BP’s ROVs are given here to provide the conclusive proof that the third and deepest well (S20BC) did exist. That well was the only well (out of the three) to have reached the oil reservoir at 18,300 ft bml. Images to prove that BP had not ceased chemical spraying despite public denials were published on 13 Nov 2010.
So when Tony Hayward swore to tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth before Congress, was he not guilty of perjury. If NOAA is toothless in prosecuting BP for their crimes of perjury and mass destruction, then NOAA should also lay off persecuting the “small people” fishing businesses.
The following video-footages and images, establish the fact that the third well (S20BC) exists. Further if the dates on the ROVs’ video are correct then the relief wells must have intercepted the rogue well much earlier than 15 Sept. For BP to be working on the casing of the blown well, the gushing well needed to be bullheaded first by the relief wells. In all probability at least one of the 2 relief wells must have intercepted the rogue well in the first week of July. And while the relief well was bullheading and trying to kill the rogue well, BP was performing a “dog & pony show” on the shallowest well (Well A) which was drilled down to only 5,000ft bml. The whole truth of the 3rd well is reminiscent of “The Emperor Wore No Clothes” story.
Businessweek - 2010-07-02 Bp’s Gulf Well Ahead Of Schedule To Intercept Leak
The target date for intercepting the leaking well and pumping in mud and cement to permanently seal it is still mid- August, U.S. National Incident Commander Thad Allen said today on a conference call with reporters. The well is within 600 feet (182 meters) of intercepting the leak, he said.
“They are ahead of schedule at this point,” Allen said. “I am reluctant to tell you that it will happen before the middle of August because I think that everything associated with this spill and response recovery suggests that we should under- promise and over-deliver.”
Huffingtonpost - 2010/06/28 BP relief well within 20 ft of Gusher, On schedule
HOUSTON -- BP says the rig drilling the relief well that's the best hope of stopping the Gulf oil spill has made it within about 20 feet horizontally of the blown-out well that's gushing crude. BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells said Monday that the rig is going to drill an additional 900 feet down before crews cut in sideways and start pumping in heavy mud to try to stop the flow from the damaged well. It's currently about 16,770 feet down.
Wells says BP is moving extremely cautiously to make sure everything is lined up correctly and the relief well is still on target to be finished by early August. A second well is being drilled as a backup. Wells says the company has a high degree of confidence in the relief wells.
~~~~~end of quote ~~~~~~~
A normal well takes 3 to 4 weeks to drill. A relief well with an inclined trajectory will probably take 6 weeks. So Relief Well C should have reached the 3rd rogue well at 18,000ft bml by the first week of July as suspected. BP was just playing for time and was not sure if the relief wells could successfully kill the well from below even though publicly they still maintained that the Relief Wells were the surest and most reliable way of plugging the leaks. But BP soon found out the hard way what many independent geologists had been expecting of the broken geology; that it was impossible to put the Genie back into the bottle.
From the first week of July till mid September, BP was lying to the anxious world that the Relief Well C was still waiting to intercept (even though it was less than 20 feet horizontally from the rogue well) when it already had and had been trying to bottom kill it without success. Did Thad Allen “lie (knowingly or unknowingly)” to the shocked world in early Sept that the Relief Well Intercept would not happen until mid October. Then suddenly on 19 Sept BP released an official press statement that the Macondo 252 well “had been successfully cemented” which started unannounced on 15 Sept. All were taken by surprise including the BP’s goons at TOD who had spent months discussing and at times arguing intensely on the intricate details of intercepting the wild well. BP sure fooled the world. Was the 19 Sept press statement prompted by political consideration when nothing had changed with respect to permanently killing of the well or rather the leaks from the reservoir? Now that the truth of the 3rd Well is blown open wide, NOAA should have no more excuses in prosecuting BP. Not to do so will be an obvious dereliction of NOAA’s duty.
The following videos show the rare footage of the third well (courtesy of BeePeeOildisaster) and its vicinity:
Figure 138-1 - Undated video with no rov information at all. The video is inverted (shown upside down) to confuse.
10 July 2010 (date of video posting) http://www.youtube.com/user/BeePeeOilDisaster#p/u/282/Qq83rFsVzvc
Figure 138-2 – Shows a casing dipping about 10º into the seafloor, next to a turbulent gas column.
5 July 2010 http://www.youtube.com/user/BeePeeOilDisaster#p/u/266/iOE8SjWzP-A