I have blogged this as well but it's interesting reading..

THIS IS FROM BOBBY CHRIST, WHO OWNS A LARGE ROV (REMOTELY OPERATED VEHICLE) SUBMARINE COMPANY THAT SERVICES THE OIL INDUSTRY BASED IN ROBERT LOUISIANA (THE SAME PLACE WHERE THE BP COMMUNICATIONS PEOPLE ARE LOCATED).



OK - everyone is asking for my "politically charged email" that I shelved - so if I insult anyone, well, feel free to

kick me in the shin at the next family gathering.


Well, you shouldn't have asked... But since you did, the quick answer is
that Dad and I plan on salvaging the U-166 and driving it over to the leak
to send a torpedo down the drill bore hole to plug it. But in the mean
time, here's the long answer (perhaps better described as a 'diatribe'):

1) Transocean is the biggest drilling company in the world. They know what
they are doing and they have procedures upon procedures to stop this kind of
thing from happening. In my opinion, this accident (as I'm sure the final
investigation will prove) was 100% human error brought on by economic
incentives to cut corners. I am pretty sure that Transocean was on a
day-rate contract; therefore, the pressure was obviously coming from BP.
Everyone I speak with in the drilling industry, quite frankly, was surprised
that it only killed 11 people. A blowout of this proportion usually kills
everyone on the drill floor (there are usually over 20 people on the drill
floor during drill operations). Blowouts are violent events.

2) The reason BP was drilling at that location is there is a lot of oil and
gas in that formation. It is under very high-pressure and is not easily
contained. From some insiders, I understand that the gasket sealing the
blowout preventer from the drill string (or pipe) was damaged several weeks
before the explosion and the crew knew about it when they got pieces of the
gasket at the surface through drilling fluid return to the surface (don't
quote me on this, though, as I got that from one of the drill techs that had
just left the rig a few days before it blew up). So, the cement plug was
improperly set, there was what is called a 'kick' (i.e. a burp of gas) that
cleared the heavy drilling fluid from the well bore that removed all
impediments from the oil & gas getting to the surface (other than the BOP)
then the BOP didn't close - probably because the gasket debris was caught in
the valve thus blocking it [again, this may or may not be accurate - but
this isn't a court of law - Stephanie and Chris, please analyze this for
evidentiary standards...]. I believe that when the accident investigation
comes out we will find that the alarm was raised by the troops that the
subsea pressures were not steady (i.e. the formation plug was not holding),
but that the decision was made to keep on going (i.e. there will be a 'fall
guy', but the real culprit is lax safety compliance [the proper regulations
are already in place] due to economic pressures and lack of proper MMS
oversight). "It will be all right" (because most times it is). But when
all of the screw-ups align concurrently, "Boom".

3) It is extremely difficult to cap a high-pressure well on the surface. It
is darned near impossible to do it at 5000 feet depth of seawater.

4) BP has the best and most experienced well control team in the world on
this project. They are from Wild Well Control and I know most of the team
of engineers that are on that project. They are throwing everything they
have at the project. But the only realistic means of stopping the flow of
oil from this formation is through a relief well. What they are attempting
right now is simply 'containment'. Transocean, upon the sinking of the
Deepwater Horizon, moved two rigs over the site immediately. They know the
score. It could have been worse - the rig could have landed on top of the
BOP.

5) The structure (oil sands) that are driving this blowout are 18,000 feet
below the sea floor. It takes a drill bit a long time to penetrate the
Earth that far for the relief well. It is measured in feet per day - and is
slow going.

6) These high-profile attempts at capping, in my opinion, were/are more for
show to the public that BP was/is doing something than are for practical
means of capping. But as my old gray-haired Dad always says [as the
airplane is going down in flames], "Do something - even if it's wrong".

7) In the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, microbes quickly consume the
oil (which is naturally occurring anyway). The reason the Exxon Valdez
spill stayed around so long was due to it being in cold water. Nature will
return to normal - it will take less than five years. And by the way, oil
leaks around here all the time. See the attached pictures: A) I worked the
DBL-152 spill South of Port Arthur in November 2005 - 1.7 million gallons of
#6 fuel oil which never [or minimally] made the press. B) Picture I took [I
am omitting my customer's name] in January 2007 after taking off from that
vessel - note what is coming from the sea floor and that didn't make the
press [that went on for 2.5 years before plugging]. C) Picture I took South
of Grand Isle from a turned over platform that fell on top of the wells
[that went on for 5 years and just got plugged last year]. There was a real
doozy in the Main Pass Area East of SE pass in mid-2007 that consumed the
entire platform and buried it 300 feet in the mud and sand (the gas was
bubbling over 16 feet high at the surface at one point - and it wasn't
coming from the borehole, the ground was literally erupting with Gas!). I
have a great 3D sonar point cloud mosaic we took two weeks ago of a bubbling
well South of Grand Isle from a platform destroyed by Gustav. All of these,
however, were from low-pressure production wells. I could go on and I have
gigabytes worth of pictures/video. Oil seeps naturally into our lakes and
streams and always has. It's part of nature.

8) The real problem is the marsh grass. The US Army Corp of Engineers has
been diverting the Mississippi River for about 100 years essentially sinking
the remainder of South Louisiana East of the Atchafalaya River to prop up
New Orleans (more people means more votes). So, if the marsh grass is dead
and gone [due to the oil spill] then there will be nothing stopping the Gulf
waters from driving North to the Mississippi River and Dad will have
waterfront property in Houma (I don't, however, think it will increase his
property value).

9) When an airplane crashes, the FAA finds out what was the problem and
fixes it. It doesn't stop air commerce. Shutting down drilling is not the
answer - it only sends oil producers to a more regulation-friendly area
outside of US waters and kills our oil-based economy. And it makes a bad
economic situation here in Southern Louisiana even worse for no reason other
than ignorance and "We are doing it because I said so...".

10) Steve and I had five [very profitable] jobs scheduled (including a drill
job off of the coast of Alaska for Shell - which the White House shut down!)
when the DH blew up. These jobs have delayed one-by-one as the oil
companies are scared of the knee-jerk reaction coming out of Washington:
"Airplane blow up. Airplane Bad. Ground all Airplanes."
"Car blow up. Car bad. Stop cars from driving."
"Railway car derail spilling chemicals. Railway car bad. Stop railway
car."
"Drilling rig blow up. Drilling bad. Stop drilling."
"Drill rig blow up in deep water in Gulf of Mexico? I know - Stop shallow
water drilling in Alaska! No skin off of my back and give me good ratings
at polls. And I can tell Larry King I'm a tough guy."

The Obama Administration rescinded a shallow water drilling permit today.
That accomplished nothing except putting people out of work and spiking oil
prices.

[and here is my enflaming politically charged message] If President Obama
was from Louisiana, he would know how to react to this in our stoic
Southern way. "Plug the well, birm up to stop the oil from hitting the
marshes then clean up. Bill BP then eat crawfish while the oysters
regenerate." But he isn't. He is from Chicago. I believe that he doesn't
know and he doesn't care that he doesn't know. But now he is in charge of
the oil spill. And it will take months for the EPA to analyze the
environmental impact of building sand birms [to stop the oil] and then weigh
it against the possible impact of the oil incursion. The oil is already
here. But guys in Washington need something to do...

We know how to drill safely. This is a human problem - not a technology
problem. Tighter inspections and oversight are the answer - until nuclear
and environmentally-friendly alternative fuels take over from fossil fuels
(which is the obvious long-term solution). But that ain't happening in my
lifetime. It's going to be G3's problem.

In the mean time, rebook your beach vacation to California - or take along a
bottle of detergent to the beach.