Oil Rig Bowling

[DogPoundPup]

Hurricane Gustav is getting big and ugly as it is a Category 3 storm as it passes through the Yucatan Channel. It will most likely get bigger, stronger and uglier as it hits some very hot water in the Gulf of Mexico. From everything that I am reading, it is lining up to at least get a spare on the oil infrastructure if not a strike.

(Newshoggers has map a of the relevant oil infrastructure and more commentary)
http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2008/08/oil-rig-bowling.html

[Fumesucker]

1. I got off an oil rig on a helicopter about five minutes in front of a major storm once..

So many people on the chopper that the pilot had to slide it off the helipad in ground effect, it wouldn't take off straight up, we were sitting in each other's laps.

One of those things that are kind of funny when you look back but are anything but at the time.

I used to build rigs, they are stout as hell and will take quite a beating, any critical welds are x-rayed for defects.

We used to x-ray handrail welds for bog's sake.

[ixion]

2. yeah, maybe when the oil companies were building the rigs to suck up free oil from public lands

just maybe they should have designed the platforms to be able to withstand cat5 hurricanes.

but hey, that would be the responsible thing to do. :eyes:

[RC]

3. Cuts into the profits and golden parachutes.

[misanthrope]

4. This is so supremely frustrating because...

...oil companies get to eviscerate overhead for a few days while simultaneously raising prices and there's not a damn thing we can do about it.

The only bright spot I can see is that if oil prices skyrocket as they are about to do over the next five weeks, it translates to consumer unease which translates to an Obama victory in November.

[lonestarnot]

5. Hope you are right and they don't just start drilling on every corner

[misanthrope]

6. Consumer dissatisfaction...

...normally equals problems for incumbents and their party.

[radfringe]

7. according to mccain

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/18/mccain-rigs/


Yesterday, Nancy Pfotenhauer, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) senior policy adviser, claimed that she had been “misinformed” when she falsely stated that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita “did not spill a drop of oil.” Today, McCain made another “misinformed” argument, claiming that oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico “have survived, very successfully, the impacts of hurricanes”:

Q: I’ve been listening to your comments around renewable resources – solar, tide, and wind – you’ve talked a lot about that, but you keep peppering your comments with offshore drilling. But I’m not sure what you think the impact on our environment is based on that.

A: Keep the microphone. I’m aware that off the coast of Louisiana and Texas there are oil rigs, as we well know, and those rigs have survived, very successfully, the impacts of hurricanes – hurricane Katrina as far as Louisiana is concerned.

shouldn't be a concern with gustav, heh? :sarcasm: