On 06/18/2010 06:48 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: > > Apparently, when BP was constructing the first gigantic cap for the > well, some geologists experts from other oil companies were warning > them that it would not work because hydrate ice would form and block > the pipe. You'd think they would know that!
What makes you think they did not know that, or at least suspect very strongly that it would happen? I've seen very reasonable arguments that everything BP is doing is just window dressing, stuff to fill the time between now and when they get the relief wells drilled. They can't do anything to make that process go faster, and they can't very well appear to be doing nothing in the mean time, so they've been running through a series of "attempted fixes" each of which had very low probability of success. They knew the probability of success was low, but the main point was to *appear* to be doing something. The cost of the failed fixes may seem mind bogglingly large to mere mortals, which might make it hard to believe they'd go ahead with them despite being *almost* *certain* that they wouldn't work -- but the cost of this disaster, and the amount of money BP has to throw around, totally dwarfs what they're spending on the fixes that don't work. They are known liars and slime balls, so in attempting to analyze what they're doing and why, you should disregard everything they, themselves, say about it. Look at the results, not at the PR. And the result of their "attempted fixes" so far has been that they've avoided being accused of doing nothing, which would certainly have happened if they just set about drilling relief wells below the sea floor, and let the oil flow as fast as furiously as it wanted until they got those wells drilled. ** ** ** Alternatively, the guy at the top is a Saddam Hussein type who doesn't want to hear the word "no", and so he genuinely had no idea how dangerous their position was before the blowup, and has had no idea how small the real probability of success has been for each of their attempted fixes.
