It takes a tragedy like the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico for the truth to emerge about just how oil companies - and BP in particular - operate. It was after Hurricane Dennis on July 11, 2005 when a passing ship spotted BP's huge $1 billion oil platform, Thunder Horse, listing precariously to one side, looking like it was about to sink.



A valve was put on backwards and caused flooding during the hurricane before any oil had even been pumped. There was also a dodgy welding job that left underwater pipelines brittle and full of cracks. Had they started pumping the oil, it would have been another Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.



Thunder Horse was a warning of just how unwilling BP were to learn from their mistakes. "They were very arrogant and proud and in denial" said Steve Arendt, a safety specialist appointed by BP to investigate the company's refineries after a deadly 2005 explosion at its Texas City facility. "It is possible they were fooled by their success."



And successful they were. BP grew into the industry's second largest company, behind Exxon Mobil with soaring profit, fat dividends and a healthy share price. They were bold and Tony Hayward once said they do "the tough stuff that others cannot or choose not to do".



When Tony Hayward became BP's chief executive in May 2007, he promised to get the company back to basics. A plain-spoken geologist and longtime company man, Mr Hayward dispensed with the limousine used by his socially prominent predecessor, John Browne, and closed the concierge desk in the lobby that organised dry cleaning and theatre tickets for the BP employees.



Tony Hayward promised to fix the safety problems that contributed to the downfall of his predecessor John Brown. Brown led the company from 1995 to 2007. Though the company would continue doing the "tough stuff" it would make safety its "No 1 priority". But they didn't.



In 1995, the British government sold the last of its stake in BP to a member of the English upper crust, John Browne, who took over. He transformed the company into a global giant, buying properties all over the world. Under him, BP's share price doubled and its cash dividend tripled. He was knighted and became a member of the House of Lords. But he was ruthless, to cut costs, he outsourced many operations and fired thousands of employees, including many engineers.



But his fall from grace started when 15 people died and 170 were injured in a huge fire and explosion at Texas City on 23rd March 2005. The facility was built in 1934 and was poorly maintained. Two months before the accident, a consulting firm hired to examine conditions said the idea that 'I could die today' was very real. To add to his troubles, Brown's reputation was sullied by a lie he told in court papers about his relationship with a male companion and he resigned under pressure in 2007.



A year later, 167,000 gallons of oil leaked from BP's pipelines in Alaska and once again, the cause was preventable. Investigators found corrosion in under-maintained and poorly inspected pipes. BP eventually paid more than $20 million in fines and restitution.



Meanwhile, serious problems were developing offshore at BP's Thunder Horse platform. The engineering consultant who worked on it said BP bosses rushed its construction. They moved it to the gulf before it was ready, to show shareholders that the project was on time and on schedule. Gordon Gekko would have been proud. They had to rip it out, retrieve and fix heavy pieces of equipment lying on the sea floor, some weighing more than 400 tons. Altogether, the blunders cost BP and its minority partner Exxon Mobil hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs and set back production by three years.



Revisiting Texas City in 2009, inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found more than 700 safety violations and proposed a record fine of $87.4 million - topping the earlier record set by BP in the 2005 accident. Most of the penalties were because BP had failed to live up to the previous settlement, they hadn't fixed the problems.



Accidents continue to happen in Alaska. On May 25, a power failure led to a leak that spilled about 200,000 gallons of oil. Mr Waxman whose committee is investigating the Deepwater Horizon accident said "BP cut corner after corner to save a million dollars here and a few hours there and now the whole Gulf Coast is paying the price".



But what's this? Gordon Gekko isn't smiling, the shareholders are not happy. BP stock is falling every day and there's no dividend. His "Greed is Good" philosophy has backfired - cutting corners for profit didn't work this time. And we look at the aftermath and weep.

Hillary Clinton has agreed to investigate claims that BP accepted 'blood money' from the Libyans over the freeing of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi who killed 270 people. Remember how suspicious you were when suddenly he was smiling and waving goodbye on a plane heading home to Libya with only 3 months to live? Well he's still alive and kicking, over 12 months later and they now think Dictator Colonel Gaddafi made a deal - if Britain sent him home, he'd allow them to drill for oil in the Gulf of Sidra.



Less than two weeks ago, LIbya's top oil chief raised the prospect of the company buying shares in the crisis-hit oil company. Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya's National Oil company, said he is to recommend that the country's sovereign wealth fund take advantage of the weak share price following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. 'BP is interesting now with the price lower by half and I still have trust in BP - I will recommend it to the LIA (Libyran Investment Authority),' he told the Wall Street Journal. It's just been announced that BP is set to begin drilling in the Gulf of Sidra.



Could this sorry saga get any worse?



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1294215/BP-shares-rise-6-hours-firm-say-closer-capping-oil-leak-rival-Exxon-plans-takeover-bid.html

A disgusting thought but nothing surprises me Toot

Unlike most of the expert posters on here, I am not an expert on the politics

or agenda of the gulf oil spill, but I would appreciate some comment on a

little information that I have elicited.

Apparently everybody in the USA, from Obama down, is desparate to cure the

problem, caused by BP.

It appears that there is a big move to overcome the temporary cure of sending

the spilt oil to the bottom of the ocean with the application of toxic chemicals.

some 2 months ago the EPA gave BP officials 24 hours to choose a less toxic

chemical to dissapate the inshore oil deposits. At that time Green Earth

Technologies Ltd offered their expertise & their non-toxic G-Marine product

to treat the oil residue in the shallow shoreline & beach areas. This treatment

has now been passed by the ETA as a totally green Surface Washing Agent

created from 100% bio degradable plant fats & has been offered to BP.

Apparently it is under consideration. My question, is why would you have a

product approved by ETA laboratory, be under concideration & not being used,

in favour of a known toxic chemical?

NEW ORLEANS — BP said Thursday that it had capped its hemorrhaging well, at least temporarily, marking the first time in 86 days that oil was not gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.



A video image Thursday afternoon showed no oil flowing.



Oil stopped flowing around 2:25 p.m. when the last of several valves was closed on a cap at the top of the well, said Kent Wells, a senior vice president for BP.



The announcement came after a series of failed attempts to cap or contain the runaway well that tested the nation’s patience. Mr. Wells emphasized that pressure tests were being conducted to determine the status of the well, which is now sealed like a soda bottle. BP and the government could decide to allow the oil to flow again and try to collect all of it; they could allow the oil to flow and, if tests show the well can withstand the pressure from the cap, close the well during hurricanes; or they could leave the well closed permanently.

...

Read More

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/us/16spill.html?_r=1&src;=un&feedurl;=http://json8.nytimes.com/pages/national/index.jsonp

Thank God for that Clay.

We all know that the leak has been blocked. BUT, BP have already allowed

a flow equivalent to more than the total contents of Sydney Harbour. Does

anybody know the answer to my question?

Nonetheless, experts question BP's sustained commitment to Corexit, given apparently superior alternatives.



"Why wouldn't you go for the lesser toxic formulation?" said Carys Mitchelmore, an assistant professor of environmental chemistry and toxicology at the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science. Mitchelmore testified on Capitol Hill this week about dispersants and co-authored a 2005 National Academy of Sciences report on the chemicals.



BP spokesman Jon Pack defended the use of Corexit, which he said was decided in consultation with EPA. He called Corexit "pretty effective" and said the product had been "rigorously tested."



"I'm not sure about the others," Pack said. "This has been used by a number of major companies as an effective, low-toxicity dispersant."



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/business/energy-environment/13greenwire-less-toxic-dispersants-lose-out-in-bp-oil-spil-81183.html?scp=3&sq;=bp%20using%20toxic%20chemicals%20to%20clean%20up%20oil&st;=cse



BP is not considering or testing other dispersants because the company's attention is focused on plugging the leak and otherwise containing the spill, Pack said.

The choice of dispersant's is not easy as there are unfortunate hazards to most. So between the decisions of our cracked and out of control government, more cracked and out of control activist groups, known and unknown qualities of dispersant's known and proposed, we have folks doing their best to trying to stop the problems. Disperse with known or unknown dispersant's seems to be the question.



BP definitely has concentrated on ending the leak as it promised to do. Now we may see that BP will start to concentrate more on the cleaning efforts. The actual effort of plugging, rather than capping is still ongoing and will hopefully work for safer and more permanent stopping of the leak than the cap.

.........................



http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/gulf-dispersants/



Toxic Oil Dispersant Used in Gulf Despite Better Alternative



* By Brandon Keim Email Author

* May 5, 2010 |

* 5:18 pm |

* Categories: Environment, Government



British Petroleum and government disaster-relief agencies are using a toxic chemical to disperse oil in the Gulf of Mexico, even though a better alternative appears to be available.



As the Deepwater Horizon oil spill spreads, BP and the U.S. Coast Guard have conducted tests with Corexit 9500, a chemical designed to break oil slicks into globules that are more quickly consumed by bacteria or sink into the water column before hitting shore.



The decision has been a controversial one. A few scientists think dispersant's are mostly useful as public relations strategy, as they make the oil slick invisible, even though oil particles continue to do damage.[color=blue] Others consider Corexit the lesser of two evils: It’s known to be highly toxic, adding to the harm caused by oil, but at least it will concentrate damage at sea, sparing sensitive and highly productive coastal areas. Better to sacrifice the deep sea than the shorelines.[/color]



But even as these arguments continue, with 230,000 gallons of Corexit on tap and more commissioned by BP, a superior alternative could be left on the shelf.



Called Dispersit, it’s manufactured by the U.S. Polychemical Corporation and has been approved for use by the Environmental Protection Agency. Both Corexit and Dispersit were tested by the EPA, and according to those results, Corexit was 54.7 percent effective at breaking down crude oil from the Gulf, and Dispersit was 100 percent effective.



Not only did Corexit do a worse job of dispersing oil, but it was three times as lethal to silverfish – used as a benchmark organism in toxicity testing — and more than twice as lethal to shrimp, another benchmark organism and an important part of Gulf fisheries.



As for why Corexit is being used instead of Dispersit, authorities haven’t yet said. According to the Protect the Ocean blog, U.S. Polychemical executive Bruce Gebhardt said the government had used Corexit before, and was sticking with what it already knows. Corexit makes up most dispersant stockpiles in the United States for this reason, though dispersant manufacture can be easily ramped up.



In a 1999 letter, the U.S. Coast Guard told U.S. Polychemical that “product information from planning mode evaluations remain on file to facilitate rapid review in the context of a spill.” In that same year, the EPA added Dispersit to the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan, which determines what will be considered for use in an oil spill.



Relief agencies were not immediately available for comment about Dispersit. In a Tuesday press conference, Charlie Henry, the scientific support coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the potential effects of Corexit’s use in the Gulf are unknown. “Those analyses are going on, but right now there’s no consensus,” he said. “And we’re just really getting started. You can imagine it’s something we’ve never thought about.”



Image: Coast Guard workers spray Corexit on oiled rocks in Berkeley, California, in 2007./United States Coast Guard.

..........................



http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/05/gulf-dispersants/



Toxic Oil Dispersant Used in Gulf Despite Better Alternative



* By Brandon Keim Email Author

* May 5, 2010 |

* 5:18 pm |

* Categories: Environment, Government

...............



http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/scientists-to-epa-say-no-to-nanotech-dispersant-for-gulf-oil-spill-cleanup/19495279



Scientists Oppose Nano-Dispersant for Gulf

Updated: 48 days 9 hours ago



(May 28) -- The massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill has already hemorrhaged anywhere from 18 million to 40 million gallons of oil into the water, leaving federal and state emergency response officials desperate for any way to capture the spreading raw crude and protect the U.S. coastline.



But this week, scientists in the U.S., Canada, South America and elsewhere pleaded with the government not to approve one option: a dispersant that contains unidentified and possibly untested nanoparticles.

...................



http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2010/chem_dispersants_work_at_cost



Chemical dispersants seem to be keeping oil from Gulf shore, but results may range from simply cosmetic to very toxic



PASS CHRISTIAN, Mississippi – The use of chemical oil dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico, which has drawn fire from many environmental quarters, may be helping to destroy the oil slightly faster as well as altering the course of the oil so that it stays in the deep ocean rather than reaching shore. Charles Digges, 04/05-20

Hi bobagain, forgive me being a little pedantic, BUT I can't understand why

BP would carry on with a toxic chemical dispersant when Green Tech., have

a Government tested & approved, non chemical, non toxic product, whick has

already been used extensively to wash oil successfully from coated birds &

animals & is totally bio-degradable???

innes, I thought I had answered that in the various links above. BP is continuing to use a known and identified chemical that they trust. It has some benefits that I highlighted in blue. It is already available in the market in gross quantities.



Second, there has been a lot of resistance to using the Green product. You can read that in the link I provided above and repost here.



http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/scientists-to-epa-say-no-to-nanotech-dispersant-for-gulf-oil-spill-cleanup/19495279



There is a lot of information out there and we should not just depend on the NYT to tell us unbiased information.



I will show my bias right now. I am getting very tired of all this GREEN stuff. It is overplayed and often ridiculous. So I will try to stay very cautious when GREEN is used as a PURPOSE to use or implement. We see some very dumb things to do every day and it is justified by GREEN.

.

Sorry bobagain, I had missed that particular link. I went back over some

of the material I still had on Green Earth & you are correct. Most of it comes

from the Company & is therefore questionable. By way of an excuse, might

I comment that it is hard to form accurate, well advised opinions, when you

are halfway around the World & we must rely on what information our reporters

are keen on to-day. My interest in Green Tech comes, not so much from the

"green" point of view, but from the apparent fact that their oils appear to work

as well as petroleum based products, but are produced from renewable plant

bases.

Thank God for that Clay.



Amen to that toot ........they will claim success if the spill is contained for a minimum period of 48 hours ............

It took a humble plumber to fix the problem.



Six weeks ago, Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, received a late-night call from an apologetic "mystery plumber." The caller said he had a sketch for how to solve the problem at the bottom of the Gulf. Bea, a former Shell executive and well-regarded researcher, thought the idea looked good and sent the sketches directly to the US Coast Guard and to a clearinghouse set up to glean ideas from outside sources for how to cap the stubborn Macondo well.



When Bea saw the design of the containment cap lowered onto the well last week, he marveled at its similarity to the sketches from the late-night caller, whose humble refusal to give his name at the time nearly brought Bea to tears.

"The idea was using the top flange on the blowout preventer as an attachment point and then employing an internal seal against that flange surface," says Bea. "You can kind of see how a plumber thinks this way. That's how they have to plumb homes for sewage."



http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/bp-oil-spill-mystery-plumber-brains-containment-cap/story?id=11182225