On 5/14/10 22:47 , Drifter wrote:
Peter, I'm curious. just where did you find all this info?


Read it again.


I
think you better check all your facts. don't follow the company
line printed else where. and, BTW, Halliburton is based out of
Abu Dhabi, and a badly run company. BP is only second to Exxon,
on their safety/spill record. and,as for Adare, his use of explosive,
depleted the oxygen on a well head. then the head was capped. it's
the same way as done today. remember all the burning wells during
the gulf war? blow and cap is faster and safer. as you said, i spent
a few years in the oil fields over seas. my family has an interest.

Drifter...






On 5/14/2010 3:19 PM, D. Peter Maus wrote:


It is true that their record is good, and BP certainly trumpets this
attitude in its ads, but former employees and inspectors, including
some from Alaska, have suggested that BP cuts corners when nobody is
looking. At least one former employee has suggested that certain
mandatory high-pressure well tests, which are specified to last 5
minutes, were frequently shut off after just 30 seconds when
inspectors were not present. With a behind-the-scenes operation like
this, their safety and environmental record was a sitting duck.

There are also safety and equipment regulations present in other
countries (such as certain kinds of pressure valves - sorry to be less
than specific, but I think you kwow what I refer to) that the U.S.
does not require. A company who prides itself on safety, with or
without regulation, should employ these methods anyway.

It seems to me (and I would have to go looking for this information to
verify it) that I have also read or viewed that Halliburton's concrete
casements have been responsible for the large majority of failures of
these structures in recent years; with a record like that, if I were
an oil company concerned with safety and the environment, I would be
very hesitant to use their services.


There are only two companies in the world that offers those services.
One is Halliburton. The other is Schlumberger, which is not a
domestically owned company, so environmental rules would be difficult to
enforce.

That leaves Halliburton. There is no one else offering these services.



I am not sure how a company can anticipate the sudden presence of a
large expansive methane bubble, but it appears that this was not an
isolated incident and that they happen with some frequency. Proper
outfitting and procedures - specified from the top down - probably
could have avoided this problem.

There is no way to specify from the top down, because, often the forces
encountered are so far outside expectation, experience, or imagination,
there is no specification. Mother nature in her fury is not something we
can predict, nor manage. If we could, we'd be powering New York with
lightning.

We've gotten so used to controlling natural events, as a species, that
we sometimes forget that there are things outside our ability to
control, outside our ability to manage, or even deal with.

Methane bubbles are the nature, and one of the great risks, of the oil
business. I worked for a petroleum geologist some years ago. And I
expressed these same concerns, and as an active broadcaster at the time
(he owned the radio station) his interests were served in answering my
questions. So he took me out onto the platforms where I was allowed to
ask straight forward unvarnished questions from non-PR types...ie,
working crew on the platform. Since he was a scientist and not a
wildcatter, I got a nowhere near exposure than when I asked the same
questions of those actively producing. One of my clients owns oil wells,
and I get a lot of first hand, there, too. And it's a much different
perspective.

The risks are enormous. And the forces being dealt with are equally
enormous. And nearly impossible to predict. Even when estimates are
expanded to 10 times expected pressures and more, they can be inadequate
to what's really encountered. You must bear in mind that the technology
is often developed on the spot in direct response to conditions that
can't be predicted, and are fueled by Mother Nature's moods.

Companies like Red Adair came into being to bring solutions to wells
that can't be controlled. Adair's solution is to dynamite them shut and
destroy the well. A massive resort to violence. Because management is
impossible.

It's a business full of risks. That's why there are only two companies
doing it. Halliburton and Schlumberger. BP hires the best, with the best
track record. That's Halliburton. Schlumberger does not have the
resources, the experience or the ability to do what Halliburton does.
Nor do they give enough of a **** about the consequences of an accident
to put them in charge of such a well as Deepwater Horizon.

You should see a Schlumberger site. Halliburton's sites are surgical
theatres by comparison.

But, again, we're dealing with Nature and her whims. **** happens.

Nonetheless, BP has the best track record.

The award, had it been issued, would have been earned.



Having said this, while I am strong believer in the buck stopping at
the top, I think there is enough evidence that each player among the
top three shares some responsibility. It would be nice if they could
sort it out amicably among themselves, but in lieu of that, I suppose
we'll have to go through a protracted process to resolve those
proportionate shares.


There's no doubt it's going to be a legal mess. And there's going to be
a lot of punitive action clamored for. But likely, that will be
politically motivated. Not equal to the actual damage.

But here's something that's not being discussed: The amount of this
spill is about the same volume of petroleum that seeps into the Gulf
through the silt, every day. And that seepage has been going on for
centuries. The ocean, and nature have found a way to deal with that
seepage. And a protracted oil slick hasn't developed from the hundreds
of years of seepage in the Gulf.

Which goes a long way toward explaining that about 35% of the oil that's
been spilled is no longer in the slick. It's already disappeared. Not
just dissipated. Gone. It, too, has been gobbled up by the ocean. Some
of it's settling out, and attaching to the silt, as with natural
seepage. Some has dissipated. Some has been consumed by natural chemical
processes, and some has been consumed by biological entities. All of
which points to the growing understanding that the damage, as expected,
will be less than predicted, with far, far shorter endurance than
claimed.

The Exxon Valdez spill was supposed to have destroyed the oceanic
environment for 100 miles around the spill for the next 150 years.

Today, it's a thriving aquatic environment, teeming with life. The
oyster and crab beds are richer than ever, and the local lifestyle is
better than before the spill.

Doesn't mean it wasn't bad. Just that it wasn't as cataclysmic as the
hand wringers were claiming.

This one won't be either.

Coast worried as pivotal Summer season nears.
http://www.clarionledger.com

Underwater Katrina Lurking? Huge underwater oil plumes.

It Affects Mississippi, it Affects ME!
It Affects millions of people in other States in America too.At least
Twenty Percent of America's Seafood comes from the Gulf of Mexico.Do you
want imported Seafood from Asia, other countries?
cuhulin

Michigan Joins other States in health care LAWSUIT.
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/r...?ArtNum=289310

That is GOOD News.
GOOD on yer Michigan, GOOD on yer!

Whose Country is This?
One thing is for Sure, the CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC Of AMERICA IS NOT the
Born in Kenya! TERRORIST USURPER'S COUNTRY!!!

http://www.devilfinder.com
Constitutional Republic of America

NOT a Damn democracy!!!
cuhulin

On May 16, 1:08*pm, wrote:

NOT a Damn democracy!!!
cuhulin

I hope you don't really feel this way.

Of Course I feel that way.I do NOT Lie.

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news.../14/109847.htm

I Want the Gulf Stream to haul Every Bit of that British POLLUTION to
Britain and Dump Every Bit of that Crap on Britain!!!

I do NOT LIE about that either.
cuhulin

On May 16, 4:33*pm, wrote:
Of Course I feel that way.I do NOT Lie.

You really condemn democracy?

bpnjensen wrote:
On May 16, 4:33 pm, wrote:
Of Course I feel that way.I do NOT Lie.

You really condemn democracy?



I can't speak for Cuhu.

But James Madison certainly condemned democracy. So did Mencken and
Saki and many others. And so do I.

If the majority is allowed to seize your property or make its
opinions into law whenever it so chooses, how is that different from
an autocracy? (With an autocrat, bad as that system is, at least you
have a _chance_ that the ruler will be wise or benevolent or both.
With democracy, there is no chance whatsoever.)

That is why the founders opposed democracy and gave us a
constitution that would protect us from it, just as much or more as
it protected us from would-be kings.

They tied down the government with the stringent chains of the
Constitution, which, especially the Tenth Amendment, severely
restricted the areas in which government could do anything at all.

But politicians, notably Lincoln and the Great War Criminal but also
many others including G.W. Bush and Obama, have found that, through
bluster, intimidation -- and packing the court (and the law schools)
with those whose main goal was avoiding the founders' strictures --
they could get away with trashing the Constitution on almost every
level.

The result is that we now do indeed have the "democracy" that the
founders were trying to avoid; with the thoughtless majority easily
manipulated into doing almost anything the ethnically distinct media
masters want them to do.

The result is that we openly tolerate the invasion of our southern
border while we slaughter innocents by the hundreds of thousands in
the Middle East who never constituted even a slight threat to America.

The result is that we have a National Security surveillance state
which arrogates to itself the right to "monitor" almost everything
we say and do, and spy on our formerly private transactions and
interactions.

The result is that we now have almost totally given up the right of
freedom of association and must hire and buy and sell and send our
children off to school all in accordance with our masters' latest
arcane formulations based on the race and ethnicity of their "subjects."

The result is indefinite detention without trial.

The result is "extrajudicial rendition."

The result is Predator drone attacks on apartment buildings
containing mothers and children.

The result is the openly admitted ordering of the assassination of
an American citizen by one of those Predator drones.

Yes, I condemn "democracy" as it currently exists in the country
which is, quite anachronistically, still called by the name "United
States of America."


With all good wishes,


Kevin Alfred Strom.
--
http://kevinalfredstrom.com/

Kevin Alfred Strom wrote:


Yes, I condemn "democracy" as it currently exists in the country which
is, quite anachronistically, still called by the name "United States of
America."


With all good wishes,


Kevin Alfred Strom.

We are a liberal democracy. Not a pure democracy.

You're a pompous old fart, aren't you?

On May 16, 6:52*pm, bpnjensen wrote:
- On May 16, 4:33*pm, wrote:

- - Of Course I feel that way.I do NOT Lie.

- You really condemn democracy?

BpnJ arguing {reasoning} with Cuhulin - priceless ~ RHF

What is Democracy without the full and complete
participation of the Common Man . . .

The Tyranny of the Elite (the few) over the Masses.

Equality For One : Must Be Equality For All

for all are equal and all are one ~ RHF

RHF wrote:
On May 16, 6:52 pm, wrote:
- On May 16, 4:33 pm, wrote:

- - Of Course I feel that way.I do NOT Lie.

- You really condemn democracy?

BpnJ arguing {reasoning} with Cuhulin - priceless ~ RHF

What is Democracy without the full and complete
participation of the Common Man . . .

The Tyranny of the Elite (the few) over the Masses.

Equality For One : Must Be Equality For All

for all are equal and all are one ~ RHF
.

If people are stupid and uninformed they should have no right to vote.
They do more harm than good.