David Lock

If BP managed to force down a decent amount of high explosive into the hole and pressed the button wouldn't this cause enough damage to block the hole?

dl

dpb

i assume it could go wrong,forcing it to come out everywhere

David Lock

They push the explosive a long way down the hole to avoid this. dl

Chip

David,

The problem is that oil wells operate under massive pressure and this is what is hampering the operation. It is pipe damage that is causing most of the problems and not the well head as far as I can gather which at the depth it is is very difficult to control.

Chip

Leslie

I bet it would make the hole even bigger and much more difficult to block later.

Les

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Nice to see the American protestors standing on the British flag.

Aside form the obvious stupidity given that BP is a public limited company if we did that to theirs there would be an international incident.

SirFozzalot

...and the fact that the drilling rig (Deepwater Horizon) is owned and operated by Transocean which is a Swiss company, how come BP seem to be taking ALL the blame?

tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

few cans of 'no more big gaps' job done.

hodgy0_2

not sure what the yanks are complaining about

lots of free oil lapping the coast -- result


(PS happens all over the world, every year, never makes the news)

corradoboy

But the Merkins have voted and eco-mentalist into the big house Still a major improvement on the last nutter

Leslie

He has not been that quick off the mark though for a greenie!

Les

RA Dunk

Transocean is actually an American company, I worked for them for five years.

One thing which is baking my noodle though is why did the BOP (Blow Out Preventor) not do its job and seal/close the well?

SirFozzalot

I tried to find out about Transocean and everything I could find was pointing towards it being Swiss managed, although my initial thought was that it was American.

All the anger is being thrown at BP. The US company invovled are let off?

I was thinking the same thing about the BOP. These are the reasons they are installed. Apparently it failed a test not long before the accident.

Leslie

They must be running out of ideas how to stop it by now!

Les

GlesgaKiss

I saw this too. How pathetic.

Typical Americans getting so vocal. They have a right to be angry, but I bet they drove to those protests in their 5 ton SUVs. Lol Some of them are now calling for ALL offshore drilling to be stopped in the U.S.

Another bright idea is siezing BP's assets and having the U.S. government take over in trying to stop this. Are they insane? You have BP, one of the world's largest oil producers with the best experts in the field working on this, they're throwing all the cash and resources they can at it(hats off to them btw) and they want to intervene?

To be honest I don't see what all the fuss is about. This should never have happened, but it has, and all BP can do is deal with it as best they can, which they are doing. The upkeep of the rig was surely down to Transocean anyway? They can say BP 'rushed' them but, to be honest, who wouldn't say something like that in the current situation.

RA Dunk

Maybe they have registered as a Swiss company for tax reasons or something nowadays I dont know? But they are an American company with the main office based in Houston.

The BOP is the ultimate failsafe to stop anything like this from happening in the first place, why it didnt work I couldent tell you, but it should have.

I cant see why it all comes back to BP though as due to the BOP not operating it's probably as much Transoceans fault as BP's for their safety critical equipment failing.

Maybe the rig exploded that fast that they didnt get a chance to close the BOP off but if that was the case the Driller should have noticed an increase in the well pressure which led to it all.

RA Dunk

As far as I know all drilling has stopped for six months, My brother is a chief engineer on a supply vessel over there he was telling me this last night.

Companies (especially Transocean) will pay off there crews in the blink of an eye the minute they have no work for them, so there could be a snowball affect from all of this.

GlesgaKiss

I thought they were just stopping all new drilling operations, rather than all oil rigs already operating out there? I may have picked it up wrong.

RA Dunk

Hmm TBH I couldent tell you, my Brother said they were (or have) stopped all drilling operations for six months to avoid this from happening again.

As for ongoing contracts and new contracts I dont know.

GlesgaKiss

Oh dear. Funny how, as you were saying, they don't mind the likes Exxon operating off some developing country's shores with the 'risk of this happening again', but in the U.S. it's different?

Also, spills in those areas tend to be ignored, despite the cost actually being higher because the people living there have less, or vitually no support from the government since the countries an much less developed.

David Lock

How deep can a human go with pressure suit on? dl

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

It really does stink to me; If this was ExxonMobil I somehow doubt the claims the US are making against Bp would be quite so Vocal.

Much like Toyota and errant floor matts....which also affects pretty much every American car supplied with poorly secured floormats. And the amount of times US companies "bury" or cover up potentially damaging issues, yet stir up a s**t storm should a non-US company fall foul by the smallest margin (granted this oil spill is not a small thing).

I love the fact that BP stated publically that they'll clean it all up...then the next day Obama said he's going to make them do it...useless feckwit, didn't any of his advisors even notice that BP already said they would?

Forgive my cynical thinking, but: Who is doing the majority of explority operations in US waters? Is it mainly the foreign companies (Shell, BP, Petrobras Transocean etc) or US owned ones (Chevron, Diamond, Ensco etc.) ? And when it re-starts will the American companies get preferenece, or will there be an excessive tax levy placed upon the non-US companies. If you get my drift.

It will be interesting to see how claims and damages awarded by US courts will compare to other US oil spills, notably ones blamed on US based companies.

GlesgaKiss

Ali-B - I think it's best to be cynical when it comes to matters like these. I think you're spot on there.

chrisevo2000

I don't hear much,about the 11 lives that were lost.Typical.
As for Americans stomping on the British flag
They have a cheek!
Their government go into whatever Country they please and rape their oil resources,our's included,under the guise of "helping out" and it is fair game.
Chris

dpb

Good time to buy shares ?

GlesgaKiss

Possibly, only you can decide really. One of the most attractive things about BP was the dividend, but now that's likely to be cut or cancelled I would think.

It is funny though how these 'analysts' on Bloomberg and CNBC were upgrading BP to a buy last week but today they don't want to touch it with a bargepole. So they were prepared to pay a great deal more for the same thing last week for what reason? Because this 'top-kill' procedure was believed to be working? Now a little bit more oil(in the grand scale of this disaster) has leaked and there are people questioning BP's survival! Lol, you couldn't make it up! But it just shows you the madness of the stock market and the reason it is down at this level.

Even if the clean-up, fines and compensation come in at the upper end of estimates, BP will not have to pay it all in one go. It will be spread over many years and be easily paid out of earnings.

But the dividend is surely an issue for any investor? Right now it would be a long-term value based investment I think. You might have to sit through further downside on the share price, but years down the line they may be worth substantially more. Those are the risks to weigh up.

All IMHO.

The Americans are just getting ridiculous now. People thinking the top man should resign. Why??