Titans of Industry category archive

McClatchy:

In his memo to Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, Michaels (assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health–ed.) said his agency has witnessed numerous problems at several work sites and staging areas through the Gulf Coast region.

“The organizational systems that BP currently has in place, particularly those related to worker safety and health training, protective equipment, and site monitoring, are not adequate for the current situation or the projected increase in clean-up operations,” Michaels said in the memo.

“I want to stress that these are not isolated problems,” he continued. “They appear to be indicative of a general systemic failure on BP’s part, to ensure the safety and health of those responding to this disaster.”

Michaels added that BP “has also not been forthcoming with basic, but critical, safety and health information on injuries and exposures.”

Every railroad in the US has a set General Rules of Conduct. Early on in them, often the first one, begins with

Safety is of the first importance in the discharge of duty . . .

Andy Borowitz has more:

In a new video that is light on his usual threats but heavy on admiration, Osama bin Laden admits that he is “professionally envious” of oil giant BP’s massive oil spill, saying that it puts his efforts to create destruction and chaos to shame.

“There are times in an evildoer’s life when one has to stand back and admire a job well done,” Mr. bin Laden says in the video. “BP, you blow me away.”

Borowitz via John Cole.

Over at the Mudflats, Professor Rick Steiner has a cum mortem (can’t’ call it a post mortem cause the patient ain’t dead yet) of BP’s wild well.

Read it.

Via Bob Cesca.

BP PR OMG WTF.

Derrick Z. Jackson reacts to BP’s ass-covering PR campaign. A nugget:

The most intriguing paragraph of the BP ad was, “This is an enormous team effort. More than 2,500 of our operational and technical personnel from around the world are working tirelessly in coordination with the U.S. Coast Guard, and federal, state and local government agencies.’’

But until Deepwater Horizon exploded, BP’s idea of working tirelessly with government agencies was lobbying them to bypass environmental-impact reviews for well permits.

Fake Twitter accounts satirize BP.

The wild well, on its way to our part of the world:

Via Bob Cesca.

Addendum:

The embed was working; I tested it both at Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog and here.

I suspect UStream’s servers got overloaded.

Look at it, if only for a moment. It is most depressing.

BP=Bumbling Phools.

Addendum-dee-dum-dum:

Video moved to Livestream. New embed linked.

A dream, mistily perceived as through the rainbow of an oil-coated window: Tony Hayward, water skis, no wetsuit, Gulf of Mexico.

Numbers. Thin air.

In its 2009 exploration plan for the Deepwater Horizon well, BP PLC states that the company could handle a spill involving as much as 12.6 million gallons of oil per day, a number 60 times higher than its current estimate of the ongoing Gulf disaster.

In associated documents filed with the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the company says that it would be able to skim 17.6 million gallons of oil a day from the Gulf in the event of a spill.

(Via Atrios).

Meanwhile, across the street:

The whistleblower is Kenneth Abbott, a former project control supervisor contracted by BP who also gave an interview to “60 Minutes” on Sunday night. In a conversation last week with ProPublica, Abbott alleged that BP failed to review thousands of final design documents for systems and equipment on the Atlantis platform — meaning BP management never confirmed the systems were built as they were intended – and didn’t properly file the documentation that functions as an instruction manual for rig workers to shut down operations in the case of a blowout or other emergency.

Abbott alleges that when he warned BP about the dangers presented by the missing documentation the company ignored his concerns and instead emphasized saving money.

And down the hall, it’s rounding the Keys and heading up the coast:

Click here for a larger image.

The Guardian has more.

Zandar is calling it “Lake Palin.” Wonder if that’s what I’ll be swimming in this summer.

I have been receiving Popular Mechanics for some reason or other. I sometimes find something interesting in it, but certainly not enough to renew the subscription that came to me from I know not where. I’m not planning to build my own submarine or jump off a mountain in a homemade flying suit any time soon.

This issue is different: I learned from it that the supply of anti-venom used to counteract bites from venomous snakes in the United States and throughout the world is drying up. The anti-venom is not much in demand because not all that many persons get snake bites; but it’s absolutely necessary for those who do.

Why the shortage? The drug companies consider the market just too small and aren’t interested in making the stuff.

Unlike other types of drugs, the ones we see advertised on cable television, the drug companies cannot mount ad campaigns to convince persons to ask their doctors for some anti-venom they way they try to convince persons to ask their doctors for sleeping pills.

Do you have trouble sleeping an night? You might have snake bite. Ask your doctor about Antivenomax, the diamondback pill!.

Remember,

Red on black,
friend of Jack.
Black on red,
Antivenomax–
the diamondback pill.

Nah. Won’t work.

So if a venomous snake bites you, you may just be on your own.

Here’s more from the U. K. Independent newspaper.

It looks as if BP accomplished their latest tactic for plugging the wild well.

BP succeeded Sunday in capturing some oil and gas by inserting a mile-long tube into the main Gulf of Mexico leak, but did not say what percentage of the gusher was being contained.

They’ve slowed, not stopped, the bleeding, and the patient is still in jeopardy. From the same story:

Fresh analysis of enormous plumes of oil just under the surface of the Gulf meanwhile suggested the spill was far worse than previously estimated.

Videos via Bob Cesca,

Remember back in grade school jamming soda straws together and then trying to suck up your Coke (that’s Coca-Cola, wise guys) through them?

That worked really well, now, didn’t it?

BP officials say they have decided to first try sucking oil away from the gushing Gulf well with a tube that will be inserted into the jagged pipe leaking on the seafloor.

Company spokesman Bill Salvin said BP hopes to start moving the 6-inch tube into the leaking 21-inch pipe — known as the riser — on Thursday night. The smaller tube will be surrounded by a stopper to keep oil from leaking into the sea.

Raw Story reports:

The retired chairman of an energy investment banking firm told National Geographic in little-noticed comments Thursday that efforts to stop the oil leak under the Gulf of Mexico could prove fruitless and than oil could gush into the ocean for years.

Matthew Simmons, retired chair of the energy-industry investment bank Simmons & Company, said that BP and the US military’s engineers are more or less clueless about cutting off the flow.

“We don’t have any idea how to stop this,” Simmons said. The former banker mocked a proposal to try and plug the leak with trash, saying it was a “joke.”

Listen to Neil King of the Wall Street Journal recite the failures on the Diane Rehm Show (starting about 10 minutes in): A summary of the high points of the litany:

• Halliburton–shoddy cement seal.
• Transocean–“blowout preventer” with leaks and a dead battery.
• BP–choosing to proceed when, four hours before the explosing, sensing equipment showed that something really freaky was going on down below.

I would not recommend listening to the entire hour of the Diane Rehm Show. It’s pretty depressing.

Shooting junk, the BP way (when I was a young ‘un, “shooting junk” connoted a different type of shot):

It occurs to me that it might be time to reread When the World Screamed.

Via BartBlog.