Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
|
and meanwhile again, this time back in congress, it appears that the results of some of the initial investigations into what happened with the deepwater horizon and why those things happened are starting to come out. this particular sequence of bad things concerns the famous...well read on:
Quote:
Stupak: Oil well's blowout preventer had leaks, dead battery, design flaws
By Steven Mufson and David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 12, 2010; 12:58 PM
A senior House Democrat said that the blowout preventer that failed to stop an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico had a dead battery in its control pod, leaks in its hydraulic system, a "useless" test version of one of the devices that was supposed to close the flow of oil and a cutting tool that wasn't strong enough to shear through joints that made up 10 percent of the drill pipe.
In a devastating review of the blowout preventer that BP said was supposed to be "fail-safe," Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said in a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday that the device was anything but fail-safe.
Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) pressed BP on why it had assured regulators in its exploration plan that it could deal with a spill 50 times larger than the current one when the current one seems to have defied control technology. "The American people expect you to have a response comparable to the Apollo Project, not Project Runway," Markey said.
Stupak said that the committee investigators had also uncovered a document prepared in 2001 by the drilling rig operator Transocean that said there were 260 "failure modes" that could require removal of the blowout preventer.
"How can a device that has 260 failure modes be considered fail-safe?" Stupak said.
It was the second day of congressional hearings into the causes and consequences of the three-week old spill that began when a BP exploration well blew out and set fire to Transocean's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, killing 11 people.
Stupak delivered a detailed critique of the blowout preventer, which was supposed to be the last line of defense against the type of spill now spreading across the Gulf of Mexico. Stupak said that the blowout preventer's manufacturer, Cameron, told committee staffers that the leak in the hydraulic system, which was supposed to provide emergency power to the rams that should have cut through the drill pipe and seal the well, probably predated the accident because other parts were intact.
Stupak said that the problem suggested inadequate maintenance by BP and Transocean.
The Democrat also said that the shear ram, the strongest of the shut-off devices on the blowout preventer, was still not strong enough to cut through joints that connected the 90-foot sections of drill pipe and made up 10 percent of that pipe length.
Meanwhile other details about the rig accident were emerging in an investigation being conducted in Louisiana.
There, an official conceded that the Minerals Management Service, the beleaguered federal agency that oversees offshore drilling, learned in 2004 that fail-safe systems designed to shear through overflowing oil pipes could fail in some circumstances -- but did not check if rigs were avoiding those circumstances.
In a hearing in a hotel ballroom in the New Orleans suburbs, Michael Saucier, a regional supervisor for the service, was grilled for more than an hour by a board of federal officials investigating the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, which was about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast.
The hearing provided the spectacle of one federal agency drawing embarrassing admissions out of another: Some of the toughest questions came from Coast Guard Capt. Hung Nguyen, a figure with a military haircut and a crisp blue uniform who is co-chair of the panel.
Nguyen asked about a 2004 study on blowout preventers -- devices set on the sea floor, and designed to shear through oil pipes in an emergency. In some case, the study found, the devices were not strong enough to cut especially thick pipe, or ultra-strong pipe joints.
Nguyen asked Saucier if those problems might have affected the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer, which failed to stop the flow of oil.
"We don't know what happened. We don't know what was actually installed?" Nguyen said. "And whether the shear ram was capable of cutting the drill pipe, do we?"
"I don't have the numbers on that, no," Saucier said.
Nguyen asked Saucier about how the Minerals Management Service ensures that blowout preventers actually function. Saucier said the government relies heavily on the oil industry: The American Petroleum Institute guides the design of blowout preventers, and government inspectors rely on oil-company tests to be certain the devices work once installed.
"Manufactured by industry, installed by industry, with no government witnessing oversight of the installation or the construction, is that correct?" Nguyen said.
"That would be correct," Saucier said.
"Seems to me [there is] self-certification here, by industry," Nguyen.
After Nguyen finished, the strongest defense of the Minerals Management Service's methods might have come from the industry it regulates.
Ned Kohnke -- an attorney for Transocean, which owned the Deepwater Horizon -- was allowed to question Saucier, and asserted that the rig's operators had strong incentives to make sure their blowout preventers work.
"These people are depending on these tests, and their equipment," Kohnke said. "If there's some cutting of corners, they're at the corner that is being cut. It's in their interest that these tests be performed correctly and completely."
Fahrenthold reported from Kenner, La.
|
washingtonpost.com
and in other bureaucratic infotainment, it appears that interior thinks that maybe, just maybe, it'd be a good idea to split minerals management into two mineral managements, one that actually does some regulating/control and the other that collects royalties. here the ny times is noticing that perhaps...maybe....JUST MAYBE...the relation between oil corporations and "regulators" has been a Problem. too "cozy" they're saying.
Obama Officials Seek Better Policing of Oil Industry - NYTimes.com
yeah.
go capitalism. go the state that is its administrative extension.
remember the marxist view of the state? it's not wrong...want proof? here it is.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|