Monthly Archives: May 2010

Amidst the puffing, pontificating and finger-pointing in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, two large questions loom: Who will the Feds hold accountable? How can our government assure us that a big oil spill will never happen again? Quick … Continue reading →

Rookies make rookie mistakes. With all due respect. For the last fifteen years, I’ve been the operations manager for a small Gulf of Mexico oil and gas company. I’ve had more than a few sleepless nights in that time, whether … Continue reading →

President Obama, quick to criticize George W. Bush for his appointment of a lightly-qualified Michael Brown as FEMA director, apparently learned little from his predecessor’s mistake. In today’s press conference, President Obama claimed to know nothing of MMS Director Liz … Continue reading →

The Daily Beast’s Rick Outzen is like a dog with a bone. Rick (along with a legion of other self-imagined experts on the ‘net) is getting a lot of mileage out of the notion that an acoustic switch (see diagram … Continue reading →

Bob Woodward, Meet the Press, Sunday, May 23

With great fanfare, President Obama dispatched Interior Department “S.W.A.T Teams” to all 29 active deepwater drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Their charge: Perform a thorough, complete drilling inspection of each deepwater rig. Key on the BOP [blowout preventer] … Continue reading →

Deepwater Well Construction 101 The Times-Picayune sketch above conveys quite a bit of information – most of it correct – about how the BP blowout well was constructed. It also gives a couple of hints as to possible failure mechanisms. … Continue reading →

Only by being rational about assessing the environmental threat from the Deepwater Horizon spill can we be prepared to deal with the consequences. Journalists, scientists, Congressmen and bureaucrats have been jockeying to see who can make the most calamitous prediction. … Continue reading →

It’s a lie, a gross distortion or a paranoid delusion. Take your pick. In a Daily Beast article, blogger Matthew Yglesias does his best to shoehorn a few bits of truth into the Obama gang’s favorite narrative: “It’s Bush’s fault!” … Continue reading →

Yesterday FoxNews.com carried an opinion piece written by your humble correspondent: “We Can’t Stop Drilling Off America’s Shores”. It’s sort of a rewrite of a RedState piece from a couple of weeks back: “Q: Why Was BP Drilling in 5,000 … Continue reading →