Posted byYou think it’s just BP and Transocean that are worried about the repercussions from the oil well blowout off Louisiana?
When the press is talking about the “worst oil spill in US history” and they start comparing it to the Exxon Valdez spill, you know that everyone involved with that platform is worried.
Reuters provided a list of companies involved that included:
- Transocean – owned and operated the rig
- BP – Project operator, 65% owner, hired Transocean
- Anadarko Petroleum Corp. – owns 25% non-operating interest in the well.
- Cameron International Corp – supplied the blowout preventer
- Halliburton Co – provided services to the rig including cementing
BP’s CEO said:
“We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up, and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honor them. We are going to be very, very aggressive in all of that.”
But Halliburton’s and Transocean’s stock declined on Friday as industry analysts cut their ratings from “outperform” to “market perform.”
Another article, by Associated Press, had this quote from Ken Salazar, the Secretary of the Interior:
“I am confident we will get to the bottom of what happened here. Those responsible will be held accountable.“
The article also said: “President Barack Obama halted any new offshore drilling projects unless rigs have new safeguards to prevent a repeat of the disaster.“
New safeguards may be a good idea. But understanding what happened is also a good idea so that we can make new safeguards truly effective. The blame oriented language of “Those responsible will be held accountable.” May not help us understand what really happened and what we can do to prevent it from happening again.
Let’s hope that a real root cause analysis will be done on this accident so that the whole industry can learn to prevent future blowouts of this magnitude.
After all, we owe it to the 11 missing people and to the environment.
Category: Accidents, Current Events, Investigations
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Good Article,
I work in this industry and I know alot of run him off and ask questions later. or “Your only as good as your last pay check”. People are looking for someone to blame but as the article states, this is not the way forward. The BOP’s which failed are a brilliant system if maintained and functioned properly at regular intervals as required.
Yes People died which never can be forgotten, but how can we prevent this from happening again.
Comment by James — May 26, 2010 @ 3:03 am