Halt On US Offshore Oil Drilling Lifted

[Mikey]

Obviously I agree with Tsu and Nick as to the incredible magnitude of suck of this incident; however, it is obvious that these companies do know how to drill correctly - the fact of how shitty this accident was doesn't change the infrequency with which such accidents occur. The problem is, as I've said before and which was echoed by Sionnach and Nick, is poor regulation a/o enforcement. Up to this point, part of that blind eye is (as JKU mentions) how far the Gulf States were willing to bend over for big oil.

it's not like were talking about drilling oil wells into the ground, were talking about drilling deep into the surface of the earth

I have to take exception with this. It is like we're drilling into the ground. The deepest part of the Gulf of Mexico, the Sigsbee Deep, is approx. 4 km deep; the average depth of the Gulf's abyssal plain is 3 km. Compared to the thickness of the crust, combined with the shorter distances deep-sea rigs drill into the crust once they've reached the ocean floor, this makes a negligible difference in the overall depth of drilling compared to land rigs. The problem is that underwater is in essence an alien environment to humans; and when a problem occurs, it is magnified by currents, weather, and wave action, and cleanup is obviously a completely different story.

[Nickswitz]

Yeah, that's kinda what I was getting at with that, I know were obviously drilling into ground at some point, but we can't see the ground were drilling into, half of the time it is not even examined to know what impact something like this would have. Although we need the oil, we need a ton of regulation changes that makes it a lot harder for a disaster such as the one that happened to happen, would it be nice if oil companies could be responsible enough to regulate their own stuff, yeah, it won't happen though. So hopefully they will get some strict regulation as to how to drill and how to maintain the rigs.

[Mikey]

I must have misread you. When you said offshore drilling was "deep into the Earth" as opposed to onshore drilling, I thought you meant that deep-sea rigs drilled significantly further into the crust than land rigs.

[Nickswitz]

I must have misread you. When you said offshore drilling was "deep into the Earth" as opposed to onshore drilling, I thought you meant that deep-sea rigs drilled significantly further into the crust than land rigs.

Oh no, I didn't mean that, I know it's about the same depth, just that the ecology of it is different.

[Tsukiyumi]

Funny that the same "drill, baby, drill" idiot is from the state we should be drilling in. I've seen the plans; their uber slant-drill platform is way safer than drilling in a mile of water. Don't want to screw up the environment in a place where no one even lives or works, though.

[Mikey]

Did BP have the rights to that area or the slant-drill tech? Probably not; and if not, then it's a moot point in the current discussion.

[Sonic Glitch]

Funny that the same "drill, baby, drill" idiot is from the state we should be drilling in. I've seen the plans; their uber slant-drill platform is way safer than drilling in a mile of water. Don't want to screw up the environment in a place where no one even lives or works, though.

But the polar bears! THINK OF THE POLAR BEARS!

[Tsukiyumi]

Did BP have the rights to that area or the slant-drill tech? Probably not; and if not, then it's a moot point in the current discussion.

I disagree. Dangerous deep-water drilling would be largely unnecessary if we could tap the Alaskan fields.

[Nickswitz]

This was a research well that was the problem, not a drilling well for crude oil. So not really, as the research can only be held in the areas they hold it.

[Mikey]

"Largely unneccesary?" How would some other company's use of Alaskan oil affect BP's development of other reserves?

[Tsukiyumi]

"Largely unneccesary?" How would some other company's use of Alaskan oil affect BP's development of other reserves?

That's not what I meant. I mean it would be largely unnecessary as in "we wouldn't need it so badly". BP shouldn't be allowed to screw around in our region at all if they don't know how to solve a problem they created. This was an accident, for sure, but they had no plan in place to deal with it, unforeseen or not.

All about the Benjamins.

[Nickswitz]

Yeah, it was an accident, but forget they didn't know how to deal with it, they were stupid, they didn't fix things they knew had to be fixed, and so something failed.

[Mikey]

I mean it would be largely unnecessary as in "we wouldn't need it so badly".

Understood, but what I'm saying is that the fact of increased Alaskan drilling wouldn't have affected the fact of this Gulf rig being in place. In addition, I firmly believe that increased supply of local oil wouldn't slow further drilling; rather it would serve to lower prices (which would be welcome, of course, but also wouldn't speak to the problem at hand.)

Yeah, it was an accident, but forget they didn't know how to deal with it, they were stupid, they didn't fix things they knew had to be fixed, and so something failed.

Agreed. The problem isn't that BP, Halliburton, and TransOcean didn't know what they were doing; it's that they cheaped out and did the minimum necessary thing, rather than the right thing. While I firmly put the blame on them for that, enhanced regulation a/o enforcement would have prevented that rig from going live until it was up to snuff.

[Tyyr]

I disagree. Dangerous deep-water drilling would be largely unnecessary if we could tap the Alaskan fields.

Dangerous? Tens of thousands of oil wells operating without incident day in and day out for decades and suddenly one accident makes it dangerous? I'm in full agreement with Mikey here. The company's should be on the hook for doing the minimum required thing, and are. We should re-evaluate what the minimums happen to be. We should also be dropping as much blame on the MMS or whatever the hell it is they renamed it for being totally asleep at the wheel. As much as people decry the oil company's emergency plans for dealing with dealing with polar bear and seal casualties in the Gulf I'd point out those plans were handed to a government agency that then approved them without even giving them a cursory read.

It was an accident, a really really bad one. We need to learn from it and move forward, not shit ourselves and then cut off our own noses to spite our faces.

[Monroe]

I think that if they don't know how to safely and responsibly drill at those depths (which they obviously don't), they shouldn't be allowed to.

End of line.

Is someone incapable of driving a car because they get in one wreck?

There are thousands of oil platforms in the world. Sometimes things just go bad.

And the ban only would have affected 33 of them.

If 1/34th of a kind of car explodes and wipes out thousands of square miles of sea I think its time to recall those cars. Get your facts from some place besides Fixed News.