Gulf Nightmare

[Jack Klarich]

Its too bad this happened too many people depend on the water to make a living and not to mention the wild life that will die and the clean up, we will all pay in the end at the pump, JMO Capital Jack

 

[Redfish-Joe]

Good thing it floats on water. I think the critters below will be OK. We could jerk both knees and stop ALL drilling, all refining, all power plants, etc. Oh wait! we wouldn't be able to ride our HDs. The oil companies don't do this on purpose. Stuff happens. This isn't a perfect world.

Unfortunately some of it will disperse from the main slick and sink after a while.

 

[Mattman4403]

So what do you all think about the wonderful oil leak we have here off of Louisiana?? I believe they should have gotten these oil companies to come up with a proven way to shut these wells off before they were allowed to drill in deep water. Better eat some shrimp , oysters , and crabs before it's all ruined. Going to hurt a lot of people,businesses,,even the restaurants down here.

On top of each well head is a stack of valves. There should be two blow out preventors in the stack The way they work is two opposing cylinders actuate and crush the well casing sealing off the well.

Then the control valve at the bottom of the stack can be closed and the crushed well casing replaced. During the fire when the signal was sent to the BOP they failed to fire. They have been attempting to fire the BOP with remote control submarines but neither will fire. People in Houston are trying to figure out why they will not fire and close off the pipe.

 

[walleye]

Every well has a blow out preventer. Every well is suppose to test daily the ability to close both the pipe rams as well as the blind rams. Obviously this was not done or the odds of all other options failing is astornomical. Why can't they remotely manually close the BOP at the well head on the ocean floor? My guess is a bad valve that was never tested during the install or during the drilling operations. Whatever happened is unacceptable and has given the drilling and energy industry a black eye. The energy industry employs a large number of good paying jobs. Mistakes like this can cause our entire economy to suffer very badly. 1000's of jobs are at stake as well as our future from foreign dependancy if we have to halt offshore exploration. What a mess. Never should have happened...

 

[gator508]

I really started to go off on this, but this is the toned down version.

Domestic oil production is important to our economy and future energy independence, however...the oil industry should be a better steward of it's industry. The design and operations of BOP's are ancient. Newer independently powered valves coupled through critical interlocks should be used on wellheads.
Our politicians and the oil companies have sold us a bunch of manure when it comes to enviromental impact and worse case senarios, as this event proves. The same old thing, money in the pockets of the oil companies and our elected officials is the reason.

OK, I'm done for now!

 

[jaceddie]

Our thoughts and prayers are with them.

 

[cromwell]

Well they got less than a month to secure the well head and clean up the mess BEFORE the real problems begins to make it worse. Did everyone forget Hurricane season starts soon!!!!!

 

[Jack Klarich]

And now they are saying the mess will swing round the Keys and come up the East coast

 

[Mavagrand]

Its too bad this happened too many people depend on the water to make a living and not to mention the wild life that will die and the clean up, we will all pay in the end at the pump, JMO Capital Jack

Perhaps BP can put some of these fellas to work on the clean up.

 

[oldhippie]

Nobody likes this tragety, but we all sure like to live the lifestyle that most of us do that requires petroleum. The energy companies do all they can to avoid these accidents and I agree even one is too many. But I am not for stopping drilling. Being dependant on foreign oil is far more dangerous than the risks involved in domestic exploration. There are safegards in place to prevent these types of accidents, obviously something or somebody failed. It should never have happened and should not be allowed to happen again. There are plenty of area's onshore to explore that are less dangerous to life and environment. Remember, we have accidents in the space programs, Nuclear plants, mining industries, refineries, on the highways daily and countless other examples. We can't simply stop, we just have to keep getting better. My thoughts and prayers are with the families that lost people as a result of this. JMO.

I agree. I hope they get this under control soon and make any changes required to ensure this doesn't happen again.