AP INVESTIGATION: Oil self-regulates around globe

[maddezmom]

STOCKHOLM (AP) - The U.S. government is not alone in ceding responsibility to the oil industry for the design of key safety features on offshore rigs, a trend coming under scrutiny worldwide following the deadly blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

Across the globe, industry-driven regulation is the norm, not the exception _ and critics are calling for a re-examination of a system that puts crucial safety decisions into the hands of corporations motivated by profit.

An Associated Press investigation shows other nations harvesting oil and gas from offshore fields, including Britain, Norway, Australia and Canada, have moved in the same direction: Governments set the general safety standards that must be met, but leave it to rig operators to work out the details.

The shift away from more heavy-handed regulation started about two decades ago and was based on the notion that oil companies best know the risks of offshore operations _ and how to minimize them.

more:http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=33&sid=1961477

and so what we get are cost saving measures that lead to mega disasters:

Costly, time-consuming test of cement linings in Deepwater Horizon rig was omitted, spokesman says
Source: NOLA.com

BP hired a top oilfield service company to test the strength of cement linings on the Deepwater Horizon's well, but sent the firm's workers home 11 hours before the rig exploded April 20 without performing a final check that a top cementing company executive called "the only test that can really determine the actual effectiveness" of the well's seal.

A spokesman for the testing firm, Schlumberger, said BP had a Schlumberger team and equipment for sending acoustic testing lines down the well "on standby" from April 18 to April 20. But BP never asked the Schlumberger crew to perform the acoustic test and sent its members back to Louisiana on a regularly scheduled helicopter flight at 11 a.m., Schlumberger spokesman Stephen T. Harris said.

At a few minutes before 10 p.m., a belch of natural gas shot out of the well, up a riser pipe to the rig above, igniting massive explosions, killing 11 crewmembers and sending millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf. The rig's owner, Transocean, blames failed cement seals, installed by Halliburton, for the disastrous blowout.


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Schlumberger's Harris said the contractor was ready to do any such wireline tests, but was never directed to do so. The team had finished doing tests on the subsea layers of earth being drilled five days earlier and hadn't done any work since, Harris said.

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BP spokesmen did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the decision to send Schlumberger home without conducting a cement bond log or on the cementing schematic Probert gave the Senate committee. And Halliburton didn't respond to questions about the accuracy of Probert's diagram.


more: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/costly_time-consuming_test_of.html

[Rex]

1. Helliburton is STILL allowed to destroy America...why again?

Did someone LIKE the fact that they electrocute soldiers and poisoned their food? We need a brick on Dick's leg...

[Hannah Bell]

2. They own the world, so who would regulate them?

[dipsydoodle]

3. In the UK

the Health and Safety at Work Act reigns supreme over everything.