re:BP - Thanks a ton

[verboten]

"At 5,000 barrels a day, in two months' time it's going to be a bigger spill than the Exxon Valdez,"

Two Air Force planes will spray chemicals to help break up the Gulf Coast oil spill, Pentagon officials said Friday as they considered what more the military could do to assist.

Can you imagine what these chemicals are going to the environment? Get ready for 3 eyed shrimp.

BP has no clue what to do and our Government has just taken over the clean-up. Too big to spill. Our latest bailout!

[Lauryn200]

Originally Posted by wahoo

Well,
The oil spill in the Gulf is going to severely impact high HP cars I fear. The backlash against offshore drilling (and this time, rightfully so) will drive the administration to a different energy policy. We all know what that did to cars in the 70s. Smoke 'em while ya got 'em.

What is everyone's thoughts on this?

Won't be that bad..being a kid I remember in NYC having the even and odd days.Depending on what your license plate number was/started with.Depended on what day you was allowed to fill up your tank.

What a fiasco...I don't see that happening.

[Lauryn200]

Originally Posted by v6sonoma

It's more likely to have an affect at the pump. With BP having to shell out 1 million a day to clean it up and having to drill a second well guess who those costs are going to get passed off to. And don't think the others won't follow.

BP Gas $3.50 87octane ---by next week.....LOL

Gas already looked like it jumped up a notch since Friday.

Prices are ranging in the NYC area from $3.05 to $3.13 for regular.

[dickholloway]

Originally Posted by verboten

"At 5,000 barrels a day, in two months' time it's going to be a bigger spill than the Exxon Valdez,"

Two Air Force planes will spray chemicals to help break up the Gulf Coast oil spill, Pentagon officials said Friday as they considered what more the military could do to assist.

Can you imagine what these chemicals are going to the environment? Get ready for 3 eyed shrimp.

BP has no clue what to do and our Government has just taken over the clean-up. Too big to spill. Our latest bailout!

Your right on the money!!

Funny that the reason BP is now a big "unsafe" corporation in the USA instead of a small third rate "unsafe" corporation in England is Hillary's and Monica 2" stud Billy....who approved the FTC mergers and let them buy both Arco and Amoco. Everyone knew BP would destroy two good companies when this happened. BP slid mega $ and some women probably under the table to Billy for sure. Love those democrats....right all you repubs sticking up for BP? Drinking buddies!!

[RipGear]

Originally Posted by hamidar05

I am glad to see we have some oil men setting this straight. What are the chances a rig/platform would suffer this type of catastrophic failure, I hear there is a lot of safety engineered into these things? Or do sometimes safety/procedures get a bit lax? Also, has anyone seen any interviews of the folks that were working to see if they have any ideas of what happened? I have heard some really bad theories, and am not so sure the truth would come out, or if the whole situation would not just be used for politics?

The impact is going to be bad, all the way around no matter what views you have, a tragedy indeed. God bless the folks that lost their lives and their families.

Hello Hamidar05,
All of the primary drilling components have at least one backup and normally there are two backup systems. It is not common for this type of malfunction to happen, there are several thousand wells in the gulf and this is the first major blowout in a long time. The safety procedures when drilling are never lax, everyone on the rig knows their life is on the line if things go wrong. I am not sure if anyone on the drill floor survived the blowout. These would be the people to talk to, we will find out when the names and positions of the 11 are released. In my opinion, the pipe shear ram on the subsea blowout preventer failed. There is only one shear ram and no amount of backup operating systems will make a broken part function (including an acoustic pod). It's like trying to make a broken fan work using different power outlets. You have alot of backup power outlets and even though they work, the fan still won't. The men working topside were probably hitting the shutoff function and it didn't work.

I do agree that we may be affected at the pump, but it will be hard to tell as prices always increase during the summer.

[USAFJeeper]

Originally Posted by SSE 4 2SS

Then I get to drive my Camaro all the way from south of Austin, to Gillete Wyoming...Gotta attend a class there,..

My Uncle works somewhere in Wyoming now. He has been in the oil industry most of his life. He used to do rigs, then he worked some fields in Texas. David Mayes is his name, if you see him tell him his nephew "Little Billy" says Hi

[RipGear]

Originally Posted by dickholloway

Your right on the money!!

Funny that the reason BP is now a big "unsafe" corporation in the USA instead of a small third rate "unsafe" corporation in England is Hillary's and Monica 2" stud Billy....who approved the FTC mergers and let them buy both Arco and Amoco. Everyone knew BP would destroy two good companies when this happened. BP slid mega $ and some women probably under the table to Billy for sure. Love those democrats....right all you repubs sticking up for BP? Drinking buddies!!

Try to keep politics out of this, you do know that Transocean is the driller right? Transocean employees were operating the rig when the blowout happened. BP contracted Transocean to drill the well. Also, Cameron designed and manufactured the blowout preventer that is currently not working on the sea floor. There are alot of companies involved, but BP is the largest so they are taking the heat. On a positive note, they are large enough to help support the major control effort that is underway.

[TahoeCamaro]

Looks like I'm not going to our beach house this summer...

[SSE 4 2SS]

Long post but tired of the ill informed opinions of people that have no clue of the industry or what actually occurs out here...

Originally Posted by hamidar05

I am glad to see we have some oil men setting this straight. What are the chances a rig/platform would suffer this type of catastrophic failure, I hear there is a lot of safety engineered into these things? Or do sometimes safety/procedures get a bit lax? Also, has anyone seen any interviews of the folks that were working to see if they have any ideas of what happened? I have heard some really bad theories, and am not so sure the truth would come out, or if the whole situation would not just be used for politics?

The impact is going to be bad, all the way around no matter what views you have, a tragedy indeed. God bless the folks that lost their lives and their families.

The chances of this happening are obviously very remote. A little research will reveal the number of wells that have been drilled in the Gulf of Mexico over the last 40 or more years. It boggles the mind. To give a basic idea, the average well drilling contract is 30 to 45 days, per rig, then it's off to other locations for more wells. Occasionally a rig will run a well to completion, (ready to transfer oil via pipelines) but in most cases, the well is drilled, and regardless of what is found, it is "plugged and abondoned...The oil companies will hire another rig at a later date to come back and complete the well...There used to be literally hundreds of rigs working in the Gulf, but U.S. regulations and insurance cost due to hurricanes has driven the majority of the drilling companies and oil companies out of the gulf to international locations. I can't and wont try to speak for other companies, but there are redundant systems in every area of our BOP's.(and theirs) Without getting too technical, there are at least four sets of pipe rams, one of these being shear rams, and three sets of either fixed or variable pipe rams, used for different sizes of pipe. There are inner and outer choke and kill valves, and two pods (control devices) The pods link the surface function commanded to the subsea stack.... As was mentioned by Ripgear, an acoustic device is strictly a remote control telemetry system used only on MUX, Multi-Plex fiber optic systems to allow a crew abondoning a rig to still function the stack, if the stack still has any integrity. The dual systems are for safety and operational ability. Not all of this is required by law, but the drilling and oil companies took it upon themselves to install it at great expense...As in every aspect of life when humans work, there is unfortunately some complacency that enters... History is cyclic and we tend to get get lax as we forget...Very, very hard working and prideful people are generally what you find on offshore rigs... We work hard, and play harder, though the playing is reserved for time on the "beach." 14/14, or 28/28 hitches are the norm...We work at least 12 hours a day every day, for the entire hitch, and often quite a few hours more than that... Rigs almost never ever stop working, holidays, "emergencies" at home etc... the rig keeps on working....

Originally Posted by scritchy

Not to go too far off-topic but there is a very specific (and scary) reason they picked the limit for liquids that they did. That one is far from a knee-jerk reaction but a response to an actual threat.

It was just an example, and there are multitudes of devices, liquid included that could be engineered with less than three ounces of fluid to do things that would scare the hell out of anyone that ever flies.

Originally Posted by v6sonoma

It's more likely to have an affect at the pump. With BP having to shell out 1 million a day to clean it up and having to drill a second well guess who those costs are going to get passed off to. And don't think the others won't follow.

There are some rigs operating today that are collecting day rates that are far beyond most peoples comprehension... A million a day won't hurt any of the big operators.

Originally Posted by verboten

"At 5,000 barrels a day, in two months' time it's going to be a bigger spill than the Exxon Valdez,"

Two Air Force planes will spray chemicals to help break up the Gulf Coast oil spill, Pentagon officials said Friday as they considered what more the military could do to assist.

Can you imagine what these chemicals are going to the environment? Get ready for 3 eyed shrimp.

BP has no clue what to do and our Government has just taken over the clean-up. Too big to spill. Our latest bailout!

Yes it will be a big spill, unfortunately, but there have been much bigger spills in the Gulf of Mexico, specifically the Bay of Campeche, Mexico...click out of here and do a little research on the Ixtoc I blowout...
and I have never seen any three eyed shrimp... yet these chemicals have been used to minimize environmental impacts from spills prior to now.

Originally Posted by dickholloway

Your right on the money!!

Funny that the reason BP is now a big "unsafe" corporation in the USA instead of a small third rate "unsafe" corporation in England is Hillary's and Monica 2" stud Billy....who approved the FTC mergers and let them buy both Arco and Amoco. Everyone knew BP would destroy two good companies when this happened. BP slid mega $ and some women probably under the table to Billy for sure. Love those democrats....right all you repubs sticking up for BP? Drinking buddies!!

No politics please... Read the rules for the sight... Now, you and Verboten need to march right on down to the local bookstore, and pick up a book called "Big Oil and What We Must Do to Stop It." Great read and very educational... "now a big "unsafe corporation the USA instead of a.....in England." ...What??? BP--(Standard Oil Indiana, STANOLIND --Amoco, is for the most part, one of the seven original "wicked" sisters, one of the anti-trust companies of Standard Oil...(Rockefeller) of the United States... When Standard Oil was broken early in the 20th century, there were seven companies that were derived from it...They have over the last 50 or so years re-merged, to some degree...Exxon Mobil, Chevron Standard Oil of NJ-- Esso--Now Exxon, Standard oil of NY, SOCONY, Mobil, ExxonMobil, etc etc etc... There is nothing that has ever been of Amoco/Arco/BP, that was small third rate.... and it goes back well over a hundred years, so again, drop the politics...

Originally Posted by RipGear

Try to keep politics out of this, you do know that Transocean is the driller right? Transocean employees were operating the rig when the blowout happened. BP contracted Transocean to drill the well. Also, Cameron designed and manufactured the blowout preventer that is currently not working on the sea floor. There are alot of companies involved, but BP is the largest so they are taking the heat. On a positive note, they are large enough to help support the major control effort that is underway.

Thanks for your input RipGear, People listen to ill informed talking heads on the boob-box and suddenly they are experts in everything... Well so and so said it on the news so it has to be so...Simple concept, research people, ignore the tv critics, and spend a little time doing GOOD research... the information is out there...

[GTAHVIT]

Originally Posted by scritchy

Not to go too far off-topic but there is a very specific (and scary) reason they picked the limit for liquids that they did. That one is far from a knee-jerk reaction but a response to an actual threat.

QFT Nothing Knee jerk about it. Very rationlized and intentional.

Originally Posted by RipGear

Try to keep politics out of this

Last warning.

[TIE FIGHTR]

Originally Posted by verboten

"At 5,000 barrels a day, in two months' time it's going to be a bigger spill than the Exxon Valdez,"

Two Air Force planes will spray chemicals to help break up the Gulf Coast oil spill, Pentagon officials said Friday as they considered what more the military could do to assist.

Can you imagine what these chemicals are going to the environment? Get ready for 3 eyed shrimp.

BP has no clue what to do and our Government has just taken over the clean-up. Too big to spill. Our latest bailout!

This has got to be one of the most ignorant statements I have ever read. I work for a company providing Some of these dispersants. We would not be allowed to discharge them if that were the case! We go through stringent testing rules to be sure. BP is my customer. I can assure you, BP is working very diligently to rectify this.

[Blownhotrodder]

Yea lets stop oil exploration and new wells and instead keep funding our enemies to kill and harm us. That sounds so much better.

[firstmate]

I agree - the real tragedy here is regarding the lives lost and the grief their families have to deal with. I too work in the oilfield, for a company that makes BOP's and most other equipment on a drilling rig or drill ship, NOV.

The rememberance of the people that died listed them as the Driller, 2 Assistant Drillers and some floor hands. There were some others that I don't recall specifically, but I too feel that they were on the drill floor, which was not where you want to be if this happens. It is truly a sad tragedy. my prayers are with them all, the ones that didn't make it, the ones that did, all of the families, and those that have to keep working and have to worry more than they did the day before this happened. God Bless you all...