Friday, August 13, 2010

British Petroleum & The Maconda Well

Who HASN'T heard of this disaster? The news of it went global in less than 24 hours. Whatever you might have heard or read, it's a man-made disaster on a scale with Mother Nature's own disasters. It was so bad, our Congress actually moved quickly to investigate it! You know it's bad, when the lead-bottomed politicians get the lead out :)
As I was going over different articles about the BP spill(double checking my facts) in the Gulf of Mexico, one stood out like a sore thumb- the spill was being compared to Hurricane Katrina!!! Oh, for fuck's sake! Some idiot tried to equate BP's astounding lack of expertise and judgment to the nearly total annihilation of New Orleans and surrounding communities on shore and off shore!! Not to mention the deaths- images of floating corpses still haunt me at night. As green as I am, not even I would dare to compare a renewable underwater ecosystem damaged by the oil spill to what amounted to the destruction of an entire city and its inhabitants in under 10 hours.
I HAD to get that off my chest. I didn't even read that stupid piece o' crap.

Well, it turns out that at the beginning, the very first day in fact when this news broke, that all the finger-pointing that day REALLY WAS BRITISH PETROLEUM'S FAULT!, NOT Deepwater Horizon or Halliburton's. Sheesh!
Who bought the lease to drill the Maconda Well? BP. Who sought out the equipment manufacturer's engineering specs? BP. Whose employees manned the rig? BP's! Who ignored all the engineers' recommendations for drilling the deepest well in the Gulf of Mexico so far? BP- they're still trying to find out who really is responsible, though Tony Hayward is being let go Oct. 1st. It was this denial of responsibility that enraged us Americans.

2 months later, BP's public relations team finally posted a letter in my city's newspaper, gushing their sorrow and remorse. A bit late, but better late than never, I say. And then Tony Hayward reopened the wound with his callous statement, "I just want my life back." Shortly after that, Bob Dudley arrived here in Houston. Hayward, the man at THE TOP of BP, just never seemed to get a grip of how to handle this. Here in Houston many engineers of oil companies in the city, offered their aid, expertise; many professors of engineering in our world class colleges- from Rice University, Baylor, University of Houston...and from the rest of the state. Hell, TEXAS is THE defining state for oil exploration! And BP blew them all off.

After Dudley arrived, Hayward went to Washington, D.C. to attend his hearing before Congress. I watched the whole proceeding. Apparently the solicitors told him not to answer direct questions, which pissed off nearly all our members of the House of Representatives! Tony only had one defender, a Republican, and the rest of the Republicans were so enraged by that defender that they threatened to remove him from office! We, our country, needed to hear that the HEAD OF BRITISH PETROLEUM HELD THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS COMPANY'S numerous errors in judgment.
Alas, it was not forthcoming.

I've always admired British fortitude, forthrightness, and getting the job done. Unfortunately, British Petroleum exhibits none of those sterling qualities. How far the mighty have fallen! This makes at least 3 countries who've contracted with BP for oil & natural gas drilling- India, Russia, & the USA, where BP did everything on the cheap and created their own disasters, leading the govt. to convene an inquest as to how they happened.

I submit that BP be dissolved and become just a little ol' chain of gas stations using some other country's oil!

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