BP Knew of Deepwater Horizon Problems 11 Months Ago

jkinney3 was one of several readers to send in news of recently discovered internal documents from BP which indicate the company knew "there were serious problems and safety concerns with the Deepwater Horizon rig far earlier than those the company described to Congress last week." According to the New York Times, "The documents show that in March, after several weeks of problems on the rig, BP was struggling with a loss of 'well control.' And as far back as 11 months ago, it was concerned about the well casing and the blowout preventer." Reader bezenek points out this troubling quote about BP's inconsistent risk assessments: "In April of this year, BP engineers concluded that the casing was 'unlikely to be a successful cement job,' according to a document, referring to how the casing would be sealed to prevent gases from escaping up the well. The document also says that the plan for casing the well is 'unable to fulfill M.M.S. regulations,' referring to the Minerals Management Service. A second version of the same document says 'It is possible to obtain a successful cement job' and 'It is possible to fulfill M.M.S. regulations.'"

Comments

Re:News Flash!

[vlm]

Seriously. I don't understand all of the hate being thrown at BP.

Something few people understand, is relative risk. We know practically nothing about this accident, might be a one in a billion chance at a BP operated well. So we give them the corporate death penalty, because they have a lot of money and the workers of the world need to unite, so lets smash them and everyone working there will simply work at their competitors, etc. The problem is, someone else will run the wells, and what if their competitors have a one in a million chance of the same accident? And what makes anyone so certain that their competitors so morally and ethically superior that we need to hand them profit on a silver platter, just because their competitors are unlucky?

The unlucky aspect is interesting. The mob rules mentality is that a James-Bondian villain did this on purpose, thus punishment and retribution is vitally important. What if, after investigation, it turns out to have been random chance? Then all the hostility would have all the meaning of viciously attacking someone for selecting the wrong lottery numbers.

One thing for sure, the world is full of "people" whom jump at any chance to destroy others, regardless of any reason or logic. If they later get the reason or justification, thats nice, but they are by no means interested in it as a prerequisite.