On Sun, 2 May 2010 18:37:29 +1000, "Grumpy"
wrote:


"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 01 May 2010 23:50:37 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:


Facts will eek out. I think I know the BP manager in charge
(contractor).
I sure don't want to call him. Another friend runs robots to put on
trees
and repair bottom stuff.

===========
The problem is that *NO ONE* is coming clean on what
happened. For example, was a BOP [blow out preventer] even
installed?
http://www.andrewhalcro.com/exclusiv..._out_protector

There were supposed to be other "fail safe" shut-offs, but
it is apparent these did not function either. A robotic sub
reportedly attempted to activate one of the secondary
shut-offs with no success. Is it possible that they were
unable to locate because there are none, or were "quakers"
or "dummies" installed to save money.


Ive worked in and around the oil fields for many years, and frankly I
cannot imagine in my worst moments, any oil company NOT using a BOP in
any drilling operation of this sort. Frankly..they are far far too
critical for even minor "kicks" and all manner of other uses while
drilling a well.

It would be like having a motor vehicle without a reverse gear.

Gunner



I agree with you Gunner. Not even the little two bit gas rigs in southern
Alberta back in the seventies were that stupid. They used to get up to all
sorts of shifty tricks to make a buck as the oil companies screwed the last
cent out of every contract. They often would start drilling ahead as soon as
they had set cement. As the holes were often only a couple of thousand feet
deep, they would be into the Milk River sand before the cement had set up
properly. They have some pretty high pressure pockets in that formation,and
every once in a while somebody would run out of luck and hit one before the
surface pipe was well set in. It would blow the drill string,surface pipe
and BOP's out through the monkey board usually striking a spark and setting
the whole bloody lot alight. It would then burn for days untill they got
another rig in to drill a relief hole and kill it all.
Because it was on land,and in south central nowhere, it didn't get much
publicity. The rig hands generally saw it coming and watched it all from the
next township. The sky was lit up most of the time from flares anyway so no
one paid much attention to another fire.

By the late sixties, the companies got a lot smater and had there guys
wathing things and the practices improved a lot

Indeed. Hell..when I was working on bull**** rigs, we used BOPs on gas
laden wells when we pulled pump strings..this back in the late 70s. The
oil companies got a hell of a lot smarter..cash talks really well in the
patch and ****ing money away on putting out a well fire eats way way
into the bottom line, so they got religion. BOP rental was very very
cheap insurance and then it became law.

Gunner

"Lenin called them "useful idiots," those people living in
liberal democracies who by giving moral and material support
to a totalitarian ideology in effect were braiding the rope that
would hang them. Why people who enjoyed freedom and prosperity worked
passionately to destroy both is a fascinating question, one still with us
today. Now the useful idiots can be found in the chorus of appeasement,
reflexive anti-Americanism, and sentimental idealism trying to inhibit
the necessary responses to another freedom-hating ideology, radical Islam"

Bruce C. Thornton, a professor of Classics at American University of Cal State Fresno