@CM_1
In a 2 dimensional world you will only find 2 colors namely black and white. Accordingly it’s easy to find the guilty if somebody made a catastrophic mistake, they either are guilty or innocent. Unfortunately in the real world it doesn’t work that way and that’s my point in case.
My original posting opened with quote 'Lets summarize [B]beyond[/B] the technical details’
It’s the whole framework of operational and regulatory decisions that’s needs to be analyzed before coming to final conclusions. Once again BP is responsible, no question about that, but who else is partly to blame too? And what happened that this accident could evolve the way it did?
Reducing this matter to BP only and asking it’s CEO questions like ‘could you provide us with the names of the responsible individuals’ sounds to me like a lynch mob out looking for the highest tree available. We reduce this to a 2 dimensional black and white scenario and afterwards everything will be fine. Right? > Wrong!
If anything good should come out of this accident and it’s subsequent dealings then we should broaden our horizon and start formulating questions like who else was in charge and why didn’t the top down ‘safety before cost’ approach that BP apparently started didn’t kick in the way it was supposed to do.
Yes BP’s got a bad rep, and yes they messed this thing up major big time. But that’s nothing new in a world that is driven by vested interests and shareholder value. Do you honestly think that you can just change the system by finding the perpetrators?
Reason dictates that we should look beyond technical details. Frankly I don’t care what false decisions were made with respect to operating this drilling procedure. That’s after all for the engineers to decide and I am sure that every qualified expert will come to his own conclusion. What makes me shiver is the way in which other competitors in the oil field blatantly state ‘we wouldn’t have done it that way, that’s highly risky’ The immediate question that first pops up in my mind is 'O do you. How’s that?'
What makes the chain of command in the rest of the oil industry apparently that different from BP’s? They all work with the same subcontractors, operate in the same surroundings, and are overlooked by the same governing bodies. Yet until this accident occurred nobody has stepped in and said ‘Look BP that’s not how it’s done on our turf, the ball stops right here’ Why?
Take Transocean for instance. Greenhorn formulated it expertly in post 3085, quote:
'The DWH and its crewmembers were the sole responsibilty of the USCG licensed OIM on board at the time. He could and should have saved the DWH and [B]his[/B] crew by just saying NO WAY IN HELL I’M DOING THAT! '
That’s not letting BP getting of the hook, it’s just sensible thinking.
The same sensible thinking also dictates that is it time to rethink the standard practice of subcontractors flagging out their drill rigs in other countries. If a rig and it’s crew are mission critical with respect to safety then they should all adhere to the same high standards, which is at present certainly not the case. It is all to easy to circumvent US regulation by registering your ships elsewhere and thus reduce overall cost be it tax wise or staff wise.
So yes, I am trying to get a better understanding off the way this business works by re- framing the whole concept. If you still think that that is a way of letting BP of the hook then that is something for you to decide.