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Nearly 400 feet long, the Horizon had formidable and redundant defenses against even the worst blowout. It was equipped to divert surging oil and gas safely away from the rig. It had devices to quickly seal off a well blowout or to break free from it. It had systems to prevent gas from exploding and sophisticated alarms that would quickly warn the crew at the slightest trace of gas. The crew itself routinely practiced responding to alarms, fires and blowouts, and it was blessed with experienced leaders who clearly cared about safety.
On paper, experts and investigators agree, the Deepwater Horizon should have weathered this blowout.
This is the story of how and why it didn't.
Deepwater Horizon the Final Hours - NYTimes.com
Seeded on Sun Dec 26, 2010 5:23 AM EST
Article Source: The New York Times- Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.
- Public Discussion (14)
Less advanced and less expensive drilling rigs all over the world have withstood fires and blowouts before and after the Gulf of Mexico BP's Mega Oil Spill. Very strange indeed, the crew on DWH could not handled the initial blowout and the subsequent fire outbreak with all the best of facilities.
Just as all the "floodgates" of the pre-drill govt regulations and hazards prevention were automatically and mysteriously flung open to allow BP to drill at the worst possible (with regard to geohazards) location, the coincidence of so many safety equipment failing at the same time to contain the blowout and fire outbreak is simply amazing.
Was the BP's mega oil spill a "Make It Happened On Purpose" (MIHOP) disaster? As the evidences and pieces of truth are stitched together, the emerging picture seems uncannily similar in "plot" with a MIHOP 911? See the picture behind the "Official Version" ?
- 5 votes
#1 - Sun Dec 26, 2010 5:54 AM ESTThis is the first account I'd read from the people who were on the Deepwater Horizon. I certainly felt sorrow for those caught up in it. There seemed to be a sense of disbelief that a disaster this size could happen and it seemed to keep them from responding in time.
It's hard to imagine so many things going wrong at once, but I have trouble imagining a plot to make failure deliberate. It seems like a accumulation of poor decisions leading up to the blowout, failure of key safety devices, and a failure of people to act decisively because of a fear of overreacting.
- 3 votes
It's hard to imagine so many things going wrong at once, but I have trouble imagining a plot to make failure deliberate. It seems like a accumulation of poor decisions leading up to the blowout, failure of key safety devices, and a failure of people to act decisively because of a fear of overreacting.
Que, I too had trouble believing this disaster was allowed to happen until these facts surfaced:
Interior Department's Mineral Management Service (MMS) gave BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" that exempted it from a detailed environmental impact analysis in 2009. What's more, BP was engaged in lobbying efforts to expand such exemptions only eleven days before the Apr. 20 explosion.
An acoustic switch could have averted the disaster, and, Kennedy said, "[i]n 2000, the Minerals Management Service while weighing a comprehensive rule making for drilling safety, deemed the acoustic mechanism 'essential' and proposed to mandate the mechanism on all gulf rigs."[2] -- But "between January and March of 2001, incoming Vice President Dick Cheney conducted secret meetings with over 100 oil industry officials allowing them to draft a wish list of industry demands to be implemented by the oil friendly administration.
Cheney also used that time to re-staff the Minerals Management Service with oil industry toadies including a cabal of his Wyoming carbon cronies. In 2003, newly reconstituted Minerals Management Service genuflected to the oil cartel by recommending the removal of the proposed requirement for acoustic switches.
http://www.wbur.org/npr/127561853/reporter-documents-show-years-of-bp-neglect
If you combined that with
the massive shares sell-off by Tony Hayward & at least 4 other directors (London and New York), Goldman Sachs and many other executives unlisted.
Former EPA attorney Jeanne Pascal had been unsuccessfully in debarring BP for the last 12 years (someone in TPTB blocking her effort)
Clear bathymetric data and geological evidence that the Macondo Wells were the worst possible location to drill safely (or best possible location to look for trouble)
Multiple near-disaster misses (out-of-well control situations) and so many red flags on the way to disaster
Halliburton bull-out of Boots & Coots for $240.4 million on 12 April 8 days before the blowout. http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/investing/halliburton-snaps-up-boots-and-coots/19435689/
Stockpile of Millions of barrels of Corexit and still being manufactured by and in stock after it was removed from a list of approved treatments for oil spills in the U.K. more than a decade ago.Turns out that Rodney F. Chase, who sits on the board of Nalco, was also a BP board member. Likelihood that he still holds shares in both companies is very high. So it wasn’t JUST nepotism, it was a for-profit choice. http://www.protecttheocean.com/bp-corexit-japanese-connection/
BP had been investing a lot of research time and money to pursue genetic modifications that would enhance natural microbial abilities to eat up oil spills on both land and sea - http://www.disclose.tv/forum/blue-plague-in-the-gulf-t34732.html
anyone independent enough, would come to the logical conclusion that the battleground for a disaster was well prepared but not the prevention part (all the defenses left wide open). How come? Isn't Prevention better than Cure? Perhaps CURE or Disaster is a better windfall for some, especially those who happened to know well before the disaster to prepare the coffins?
Sorry Que, the more I dug into this disaster, the dirtier is this oily business.
- 2 votes
The BP Corexit Japanese Connection – Why Toxic Solvents Were Used & Covered Up
With all of the deceptions, all of the many layers of big-money connections, there’s only one thing certain: If BP is saying something, WE MUST QUESTION the validity. If they tell a small truth, it’s to cover up the big picture, a bigger liability.
We’ll give you more about this as we have the time, but for now, know that BP and Corexit are financially intertwined, as are the Japanese, who actively hunt whales and dolphins for meat and to sell to amusement parks. Like their filthy oil, this stinks!
http://www.protecttheocean.com/bp-corexit-japanese-connection/
- 2 votes
Halliburton bull-out of Boots = Halliburton buy-out of Boots
- 1 vote
#1.2 ,
the massive shares sell-off by Tony Hayward & at least 4 other directors (London and New York), Goldman Sachs and many other executives unlisted.
Is there a link for that info ?
yes nonStitiousZealot
http://bklim.newsvine.com/_news/2010/07/15/4683478-a-pattern-of-massive-shares-sell-off-by-bp-directors-prior-to-expected-disasters
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/06/month-oil-spill-goldman-sachs-sold-250-million-bp-stock/
"BP's valuation carries more uncertainty than ExxonMobil's or Shell's because the firm is less integrated, with more of its earnings coming from the [exploration and production] business than from potentially offsetting refining operations," the site's analyst wrote. "Like its peers, a sustained drop in oil and gas prices can hurt upstream earnings. Lower crude-oil feedstock costs could help refining margins, but refined product pricing lags could quickly swing refining profits to losses. BP's global business faces potential disruptions caused by political risks, particularly with its heavy exposure to Russia. Disruptions caused by environmental and operational constraints could further limit earnings potential."
http://nwoandsecretsocieties.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/bp-chief-tony-hayward-sold-shares-weeks-before-oil-spill-so-did-goldman-sachs-and-halliburton-made-sure-they-bought-a-company-that-cleans-oil-and-gas-fires-before-the-spill/
The chief executive of BP sold £1.4 million of his shares in the fuel giant weeks before the Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused its value to collapse.
By Jon Swaine and Robert Winnett
Published: 12:10AM BST 05 Jun 2010Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his holding in the company one month before a well on the Deepwater Horizon rig burst, causing an environmental disaster.
Mr Hayward, whose pay package is £4 million a year, then paid off the mortgage on his family’s mansion in Kent, which is estimated to be valued at more than £1.2 million.
Goldman Sachs sold $250 million of BP stock before spill
By John Byrne
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010Firm’s stock sale nearly twice as large as any other institution; Represented 44 percent of total BP investment
The brokerage firm that’s faced the most scrutiny from regulators in the past year over the shorting of mortgage related securities seems to have had good timing when it came to something else: the stock of British oil giant BP.
According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 shares of BP in the first quarter of 2010. Goldman’s sales were the largest of any firm during that time. Goldman would have pocketed slightly more than $266 million if their holdings were sold at the average price of BP’s stock during the quarter.
Other asset management firms also sold huge blocks of BP stock in the first quarter — but their sales were a fraction of Goldman’s. Wachovia, which is owned by Wells Fargo, sold 2,667,419 shares; UBS, the Swiss bank, sold 2,125,566 shares.
- 2 votes
I hardly see how any of that is even suggestive of a conspiracy to cause a
disaster . BP's stock is very volatile and is often being traded by companies
like Goldman Sachs because that is what investment banks do . Did you check
what the price was when they bought those shares compared to when they were sold ? That would tell you about investment goals or stop loss targets being reached .
nonStitiousZealot
The stock sell off benefited individuals; more like extra bonuses. The business spin-off is more. There are other reasons besides monetary.The massive shares sell-off indicated that they knew of the impending disaster before hand.
- 2 votes
Whenever I meet someone on the vine who is dead set on his particular
conspiracy theory and won't consider additional evidence I have only one
comment to make . Here it is : Whatever .
“The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.” ~ Winton Churchill
Truth will prevail. Some will take longer to reach it.
- 2 votes
The Spill, The Scandal and the President
The inside story of how Obama failed to crack down on the corruption of the Bush years – and let the world's most dangerous oil company get away with murder.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-spill-the-scandal-and-the-president-20100608
- 2 votes
#2 - Mon Dec 27, 2010 6:07 AM ESTDuring the Bush years, the Minerals Management Service, the agency in the Interior Department charged with safeguarding the environment from the ravages of drilling, descended into rank criminality. According to reports by Interior's inspector general, MMS staffers were both literally and figuratively in bed with the oil industry. When agency staffers weren't joining industry employees for coke parties or trips to corporate ski chalets, they were having sex with oil-company officials. But it was American taxpayers and the environment that were getting screwed. MMS managers were awarded cash bonuses for pushing through risky offshore leases, auditors were ordered not to investigate shady deals, and safety staffers routinely accepted gifts from the industry, allegedly even allowing oil companies to fill in their own inspection reports in pencil before tracing over them in pen.
"The oil companies were running MMS during those years," Bobby Maxwell, a former top auditor with the agency, told Rolling Stone last year. "Whatever they wanted, they got. Nothing was being enforced across the board at MMS."
Salazar himself has worked hard to foster the impression that the "prior administration" is to blame for the catastrophe. In reality, though, the Obama administration was fully aware from the outset of the need to correct the lapses at MMS that led directly to the disaster in the Gulf. In fact, Obama specifically nominated Salazar – his "great" and "dear" friend – to force the department to "clean up its act." For too long, Obama declared, Interior has been "seen as an appendage of commercial interests" rather than serving the people. "That's going to change under Ken Salazar."
- 2 votes
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