Macondo well was rushed to drill less than 9 months (after acquiring the lease) without the normal seismic survey, high resolution geohazards survey and detailed reservoir mapping/evaluation. It was definitely not a normal exploration well, meant for immediate deep water production. More likely a rush to a predicted failure.

Would anyone blow away $36 million on an expensive well without proper studies which would take more than 2 years? We bet there was no proper exploration and development plan for the Macondo prospect unlike the ThunderHorse, Kaskida and Tiber fields.

With such haphazard rush to drill, what was the real objective? To be the sacrificial lamb to prop up the oil prices from lows of $35/bbl? To save the Thunder Horse project which just started producing on 14 June 2008 after countless problems of deep water production? To shore up investors' confidence on the first deep water production facility which took 9 painful years and >$5 billion to produce 175,000 bpd?

This obvious "NOT exploration objective" is too hard to miss.