Sunday, May 30, 2010

BP, I don’t understand

Now that BP’s most recent attempt to stop the oil in the Gulf of Mexico has failed, they have decided to revert to a revised version of their doomed “top hat” idea from several weeks ago.  They indicate that the “top hat” will be ready in four to seven days.

I don’t understand.  BP is facing tremendous cost every day that the spill continues.  They started trying the current technique four days ago, and for weeks they must have been trying to figure out which trick is really going to work.  Given that the cost of readying multiple techniques at once pales when compared to the cost of the spill, wouldn’t it have made sense for BP to start working on the “top hat” weeks ago?  For part of this project, they need to cut the riser pipe, which I’m sure will take time.  Once again, though, couldn’t they have started trimming the pipe weeks ago?

Saturday, May 1, 2010