He just wants his life back!!

[Amber Lamps]

Originally Posted by Apoc

Thats the thing, a blowout preventer stack failing is unheard of. As horrible as the spill is, its a circumstance which really hasnt come up before. On a single derrick land drilling well, a BOP stack has 3 seperate defense mechanisms. I have no idea the specs on the one they were using, or whats usually used offshore, but im sure its more then 3, a lot more.

Its easy to lay blame, and say they cheaped out on equipment, but its a situation that nobody thought possible before now. BOP's dont fail. Or didn't, before this happened.

I worked on drilling rigs. I've worked on out of control wells. BOP's are your last line of defence, they ARE the back up plan. Noone could concieve that you'd need a backup plan for the backup plan that was already considered failsafe.

Always remember that we are dealing with primarily pencil pushers here that are doing good to change the oil in their bikes. They have no real experience with working on mechanical things and are mouthing off about things that they have zero practical experience with.

If BP can prove that was using the absolutely most expensive BOP ever made, will that get them off the hook? If they can prove that they followed absolutely every rule in the book, will that make this okay? I seriously doubt that you're going to find that BP was doing anything improper or out of the ordinary on a corporate level. If there is blame, it'll probably have to fall on someone that was on the platform itself. Some peon that was surfing the net when he should have been working, someone who didn't do his maintenance checks correctly, someone goofed off because it was too hot, too cold, raining, he was hungover, etc.