Wow... I have been busy lately and haven't read things here in awhile.
Just got back from a trip to Saudi and found you guys have been busy.
To answer some things brought up...
As was pointed out, nobody on the planet has technology to drill in deepwater except the oil industry.
No diver can go down there, no submarine can go that deep. It is left up to the remotely operated vehicles to do that.
Remember, it's cold down there, too.
The government has nothing even close to it. I laughed when they said they were going to bring in the Navy.
What does the Navy have to assist with the disaster? Nothing.
And why are oil companies drilling in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico, in the South Atlantic off Brazil, in the East Atlantic off Africa, etc.?
Uhhh... because everyone likes filling up their gas tanks. BP is not the only people drilling at these depths.
Shell, Petrobras, Chevron... the list is quite extensive. 5,000 feet is not something special these days.
A lot of the rigs are rated to go to 8,000 to 10,000 feet. We're working on equipment here to go to 20,000 psi and handle 200degC temperature.
This is high tech stuff!
I really can't believe that everyone expects the government to be the answer to everything.
People in government are just that... people. People make mistakes, are lazy and whatever else is bad about human beings.
There are no 'secrets' in the petrochemical or oil industry. You can study petroleum engineering in a lot of universities all over the world. You can work for any one of the many oil companies and service companies in the industry.
What 'secrets'? I work in the industry.
There are no secrets. In fact, everyone in the industry shares their technical knowledge in open forums.
Now, the government.... well....
Come on guys... a gallon of gasoline has the most available energy in such an easily handled small volume. It beats out anything else for ease of use, ease of transportation and energy. That's why it is still the energy source of choice.
Everyone keeps talking about alcohol... yeah, right... less energy available.
And it is much more expensive to make.
And I'm all for the new 'clean energy' sources. But we're going to have to turn off a lot of stuff if we plan on using only wind power or solar power or algae power or whatever... Gas, coal and oil fuel most of our power plants.
OK, maybe France has the right idea. They run their country on nuclear plants.
Explosive to 'push it down 300 feet'? How do you make a 'rock plug'?
Setting off a bomb will just fracture the rock around the well and the remaining pipe at the seabed.
As was mentioned, you'd just make the problem much, much worse.
The BOP stack and pipe they use on these wells will handle 15,000psi if they are in good working order. These obviously weren't...
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to defend BP.
It is apparent that corners were cut, mistakes were made and information that should have told them they had a problem was ignored or thought to not be significant.
As for corporations profit motive... well, who demands they make a profit?
The shareholders... we do... and, in general, most corporations have been driven to short term profits as opposed to long term goals because the shareholders demand it.
So, we the people want the oil to run our lifestyle, we want companies to be profitable so our money makes money and wow... best of all, we voted in those folks in the government....
FWIW,
Kirby
