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

Duh

[S.O.B.]

Does this really surprise anyone?

Re:Duh

[gt_mattex]

No.

What I would really like to see is the risk analysis report. How cautionary were the warnings of the engineers and how did the pencil pushers at the top translate this as an acceptable risk?

Re: Duh

[Black Parrot]

and how did the pencil pushers at the top translate this as an acceptable risk?

Apparently they just changed "unable" to "able".

Re:Duh

[Peach Rings]

Well since BP's unconscionable business practices are being thoroughly exposed, you don't necessarily have to give them a second chance. There's a point where their organization is so flawed that it would be an unacceptable danger to have these people continue to drill when millions of lives can be affected. The best solution may be to dismantle BP's US operations entirely and let it serve as a warning to the rest.

Re:Duh

[HiThere]

FWIW, I believe that under law the top level executives and the board of directors ARE personally liable. But somehow the prosecutors don't find those targets appealing, and they get to choose which cases they prosecute.

It doesn't *have* to be corruption. That's only one possibility. Personally, I think it is, but only if you give corruption a very wide interpretation. If a DA prosecutes someone powerful, whether they win or lose their career is probably over. Same for the Attorney Generals, but with a tougher criterion for powerful. And judges also, for whatever reason, tend to give favorable treatment beyond the bounds of law or reason to the more powerful.

They *laws* are fair (in the sense recognized by François Villon: simplified"The law forbids both the rich and the poor from sleeping under the bridge."), but the enforcement isn't even fair in that sense.

Liability caps

[Darkness404]

How does this come as a surprise since the government limits BP's liability to just a drop in the bucket for them? Yeah, they are thinking about retroactively removing it, but seriously, anytime you reduce the liability to an artificially low number, you are just asking for trouble.

Re:Liability caps

[Lunoria]

If because of these fees BP has higher priced oil than say Exxon, people will flock to Exxon and ignore BP. Of course due to governments creating artificial monopolies, kickbacks, bailouts and the like this doesn't happen for many businesses.

More likely, Exxon will simply raise their prices to be the same as BP's.

Re:Liability caps

[Jeremy Erwin]

Any damages applied to them would simply be passed on to the consumers.

BP has competitors. If BP "passes on" the damages to consumers in the form of higher prices, those competitors can easily undercut BP's prices.

Re:Liability caps

[feepness]

Any damages applied to them would simply be passed on to the consumers.

Not a problem in my book. The consumers create the demand for the oil in the first place.

Re:Liability caps

[osu-neko]

We have anti-monopoly laws and investigators to deal with these kinds of things.

Hehe!

Oh dear, you were being sarcastic, right?

Re:Liability caps

[roman_mir]

Oil is a commodity and commodities are the freest market in the world, largely devoid of government control. Their costs tend to based on what the market will bear, not what the government mandates.

- pure nonsense. Look at BP, previously known as Anglo Persian Oil company, or the guys who pumped oil in Iran before the fifties and then, when the Shah was removed and a democratic government came to power, this company went crying to Governments of UK and US and those governments killed democracy in Iran and helped the oil company to get a more favorable contract.

If that is not government 'control' or help, then what the hell is?

--

Nixon set price controls on food and where did this lead? It lead to food manufacturers making sure that the government provides strong subsidies to the farmers to grow corn and soy and wheat (and cotton, whatever) and this destroyed the health of first Americans and second of citizens of many other countries because in order to keep with the inflation, instead of setting the food prices at market rates, the companies had to concentrate on cutting costs only and this lead to the health disaster that is provided by fructose.

Re:Okay... so now what?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You honestly think BP will face more than token consequences and maybe a name change?

Re:I have to wonder what goes on inside BP

[AnonymousClown]

Did they not honestly believe that a disaster could occur? Did the right people not talk to each other? Or was the urge to cut corners simply so great that people ignored the risk?

From the ABC interview with one of the survivors, the BP people were arguing with the Transocean people, insisting that it would be ok to skip some phases of sealing the well because they wanted to move the schedule up. I wonder what that BP manager was thinking.

If BP is like every other big monster multinational corporation, there were multiple departments or divisions arguing with each other and with the contractors. As far as they were concerned, they knew what was the thing to do and everyone else was a bunch of stuffed shirts and the contractors were morons.

As far as the contractors were concerned, the BP guys were big corporate paper pushing morons that if they knew anything, would be working with the contractors.

The 'BP' in the above statement can be searched and replaced with any big corporation and their outsource "partners".

Don't confuse malice with corporate bureaucracy, internal fighting, politics, and the arrogance of people in the field and in the offices.

Now, this being the typical corporate fuck up, everyone will be pointing fingers at the others stating "We told them so!" but the were: too stupid, political, arrogant, or didn't listen and therefore the disaster happened. If only they listened to us.

The CEO will still get his hundred million dollar paycheck but the peons are probably gonna be axed without much compensation. It's good to be king - CEO.

"I wonder what that BP manager was thinking."

[Colin Smith]

20% bonus if I come in ahead of schedule. etc etc etc.

 

Long jail sentences for management chain

[stomv]

Fines don't amount to much, even if they're huge -- shareholders get hurt, but the decisionmakers don't get hurt enough.

The solution: long jail sentences, from the CEO on down to middle management. If you knew about this and were anything but a prole, you need to go to jail. A policy like this and management will consider safety far more important than they do now.

P.S. Same goes for Massey up in West Virginia, etc.

Re:President Obama

[QuantumRiff]

the united states used to dissolve the charters of thousands of corporations a year. Way back when, it was a valid punishment for fucking up. Then, suddenly, corporations became people too.

This is good for the United States

[arcite]

Face it, your populace have turned into a bunch of overweight zombies. Bush, Obama, whats the difference? The corporations own your government and your asses. Where are the protests in the streets? Where is the outrage? Are you all just going to accept this disaster and go fill up your car with gas and go buy some more junk food (as usual)?

Oh wait a minutes.... you guys got lawyers by the hundreds of thousands, that will SOLVE all your problems. Just sue yourselves while you're at it, you could use the Ca$h I'm sure....

Perhaps,... just perhaps this epic MAN-MADE eco disaster will wake up enough of your patriots (are there any left anywhere in the world these days?) to take back the agenda and start acting like you deserve the moniker, Superpower...

BTW, this isn't a flame, I'm a Canuck and I believe that the US is the greatest country on the planet...Americans are awesome, Hell, I even work for the US government (via third party)! In conclusion; Show some vision will ya? WAKE UP!

Re:I have to wonder what goes on inside BP

[ultranova]

I don't know about that. BP Stock has dropped by about 33%. That's enough for any public company to axe the CEO. Remember, the CEO still serves the board, and the board serves their bank accounts.

The CEO and the board both serve their bonuses, nothing less, nothing more. And they are going to get bonuses, after which the CEO - if he's going to be fired - will get a golden parachute.

Personal responsibility is for the serfs.