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Sunday, May 23, 2010

BP will Pay!


An Oil Rig Burns-Hell on Water

The President of The United States of America has vowed that BP will pay the cost of the oil spill in the Gulf of México, but closer to the truth is the fact that we will all pay in some fashion, shape or form. I hope that the cause of the blow-up of the rig was not someone sneaking a smoke or otherwise ignoring health and safety rules, because the fallout will be massive.

Marine life is the first casualty. The cost of offshore drilling almost always places the marine environment at risk. I took a look at Marine Oil Rig disasters and I am gobsmacked at how many there have been. They have broken away from being towed; they have collapsed; they have blown up; they have sunk; they have been victims of hurricanes. The worst ever disaster was the Occidental Petroleum’s Alpha Piper North Sea Rig that produced both oil and gas, and was destroyed as a result of an explosion in 1988 killing 167 workers. There were also 59 survivors, and one wonders whether it was better for them that they did. The insured loss was Pds 1.7 billion, or $3.4 billion.

In 1979, the IXTOC-1 Well had a blowout in the Bahia de Campeche, Mexico, and 3,500,000 barrels of oil flowed freely from that incident for 9 months, at which time it was finally capped.

In this current disaster in the making the finger pointing goes on while desperate efforts are underway to cap the outflow of the oil. The environmentalists are out in strength saying we told you so, but they get to where they have to go by using the very same product they are condemning. This spill could not have come at a worse time for President Obama who supports offshore drilling in an effort to make America more energy self-sufficient.

It seems to me that if all else fails they should place a very large metal or rubber tube-like contraption over the spill to contain it to one place and to then pump away the outflow as it emerges from the base until a permanent fix is found. This may sound idealistic and over-simplified, but if we all come up with ideas, something has to work.

Meanwhile, the question is floated as to whether retrieving oil from undersea should be scrapped. In reality it should, but as a practical matter it won’t. In the meantime I hope that this spill won’t mean the end of BP.

Copyright 2010 Eugene Carmichael