1/3 of required federal inspections on oil rig weren't conducted

Federal inspectors failed to conduct nearly a third of required inspections on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the 28 months before it exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, according to government records.

The inspections that were carried out by the Minerals Management Service found no sign of trouble on BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, according to documents posted Friday on the Interior Department's website.

MMS reports, including one dated three weeks before the deadly April 20 explosion, indicate that the rig's blowout preventer was functioning properly, and they make no mention of any persistent problems with surges of natural gas, or "kicks," flowing up through the well and disrupting drilling.

Although the cause of the disaster remains under investigation, experts have blamed the explosion on a natural gas surge. A prominent outside investigator, UC Berkeley engineering professor Robert Bea, said last month that rig workers told him the Deepwater Horizon had battled repeated kicks in the weeks before its sinking. MMS inspectors noted the presence of a kick in October 2008, but none later.

"It appears that the Deepwater Horizon experienced dangerous gas 'kicks' before the April 20 disaster," said David Pettit, a senior attorney and drilling expert for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who reviewed the inspection reports Friday. "It is hard to understand why MMS did not learn about this potentially deadly problem" before the explosion.

Despite federal regulations mandating that inspections be done monthly, the rig operation was only inspected three times over the first four months of this year; nine times in 2009 and six times in 2008. Officials at the Interior Department, which houses MMS, say rigs can miss inspections because they're on the move or because of weather conditions.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-20100612,0,907235.story

Who, the inspectors? The rigs? What a bunch of hooey.

:silly: :crazy: :wtf:

Why is it that the Oil Companies in this country are so awful??

The Oil Companies are in California, Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Mississippi.

The dipsticks who measure their activities are in Washington D.C.

Enough said.

But I assume whoever put up that sign didn't want it to go on and on for three to thirty pages.

California has the highest priced gas in the nation.

Yet we have refineries right in the S.F. Bay Area. We are probably the only geographic location where we are fleeced for oil even as they ruin our health with the "minor outgassing" from the refineries.

Di Feinstein is always "looking into" it for us...

That is what is "on the move."

because they were being wined and dined and XXXX in New Orleans' French Quarter. We know what great hosts those BP guys are.

is apparently composed of 10% oil and 90% gas so I'd guess surges would be inevitable.

RIG on land or sea.
Paid for by the operators of the rig.

Is that too much to ask for???????????

An excellent suggestion.

I'm not sure how strongly you feel on this issue since you only touched on it with two sentences and a fragment, but if you think this is an idea to solve or at least help the situation, maybe you should contact Congress and the 35 congressional leaders. Much bigger waves can be made if you directly contact those in power. They could use our ideas to formulate bigger and better actions, but not if we don't tell them what we want, think, or need...

Contacting our state representatives wouldn't be enough in this situation. It needs to reach a bigger audience with power. I just tried this service on GripeGenie's website (www.GripeGenie.com) called Contact Congress, which would make this SO easy to quickly send your thoughts to whoever (or everyone) in Congress. We should really start acting on any issue we truly stand for where regulations, decisions, and courses of action can achieve what we're seeking.

While posting on these blogs promotes a smaller virtual community, our message doesn't get to those who can really DO something about it! It bothers me because I'm sure the government doesn't read all the article and blog comments about our issues and I'm sure that in the slough just from this site, there are really good ideas and arguments floating around that will never see past the Internet!

The exact effort put into these blog replies and posts is all it takes to contact your state's rep/senator or anyone else in Congress via GripeGenie.com so check it out and make a difference with your comments and ideas!

Create the change you're seeking!

They still had the obligation to comply whether inspected or not. They want to lay the blame on the gov't for not watching their dishonest asses but that better not fly in any court.

Unbelievable.

Not Atlas Shrugged, the libertarian manifesto, but Atlas let loose a little gas. "We couldn't have foreseen this problem based on stuff that came up that shouldn't have been coming up."

done.

2/3 of the reports claiming that inspections happened were done.

:grr:

in a restaurant. Here is his twitter of the event:


BootsRiley Took my daughter to dinner4her B-day recently. Fancy restaurant. Next to us was a couple. Wife intro'd hubby as "a copyright lawyer"(contd)
about 10 hours ago via web

Hubby said "She's lying 4 me. I'm head counsel for BP.But not proud of it." Among other things, I said "It looks like BP'll b shellin (cont)

out a lot of money soon." he said "Not really. We'll wait for the first fisherman to file suit, then settle 2 years later. (contd)

All the legislations heavily on our side." Then he got up to walk away and said, "Because we wrote the legislation."


Bastards.... can you imagine having the balls to say this to a complete stranger? They just don't give a shit.