Oil Spill

I have consciously refrained from posting my thoughts on the recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as I waited for events to unfold. I now feel comfortable sharing my thoughts.

First, you will be shocked that I believe Barrack has handled his role well. His constituency was ready to use this accident as a reason to demand a complete ban on off shore drilling. That would be an extreme over reaction. I am pleased the president did not over react and only agreed to delay future approvals until the current accident is understood better. That was a cool headed decision that was unpopular with his tree hugging base.

I am a "drill, baby drill" proponent. It makes absolutely no sense to import oil from enemy nations when we have untapped resources here in America. It requires years to drill and begin production, so delaying current off shoring drilling applications a few weeks or months has little impact on the amount of oil we import in the near future. After the 60 Minutes report last Sunday, it has become apparent to me that we need to know what happened on BP's Horizon oil platform.

60 Minutes featured an interview with a Senior Technical Manager who narrowly escaped the platform after the explosion. He recounted 2 serious issues that may have led to the destruction of the platform and the subsequent spill in the gulf. The first was a work error committed a couple of weeks before the event that possibly damaged the BOP (Blow Out Preventer) that failed after the accident, spilling millions of crude into the gulf. He witnessed the accident that damaged the device and saw chunks of the damaged rubber seal come up from he device. Yet, BP did not stop to repair the device. In fact, they also ignored ths AND the failure of 1 of 2 BOP controllers.

The second issue he witnessed was that of a BP manager who overruled Trans Ocean's manager on the process used to cap the well and ready it for production. This change removed a concrete plug and the "mud" used to fill the well prior to production. The absence of the mud and plug may have allowed the oil and gases from the well to escape and cause the catastrophic failure of the platform.

Both of these potential errors seem to be critical bad decisions we have seen before. Remember the shuttle Challenger? Bad decisions were made in that case all in the pursuit of a schedule. The similarities seem all to consistent with each other. Just the mere suspicion that a bad decision was made on safety concerns in order to meet a schedule should deserve an investigation. Since BP owns many other deep water wells in the gulf, some with environmental risk far greater than the Horizon platform, an understanding of what went wrong is critical before new wells are approved.