I wish to offer some insight but because of the nature of my employment I will be less specific than I could be.
Suffice to say I have I lifetime of experience in Offshore drilling and exploration and over 12 years in deepwater and i have had personal contact with crew from the DW horizon where 11 young men lost their lives.
There is understandably a groundswell of outrage at the consequences of this unfortunate event and a morbid fascination by many who lack operational experience on the generic failure of BOP.

I contribute much of this to managed spin on the part of BP who as you correctly point out are well resourced to ride out the financial impact of the fatalities and ensuing spill.

Informed analysis from within the industry , which should be be borne out by the official investigation, is that certain basic procedures were by passed during the temporary abandonment procedure.

Whether or not this was sanctioned by all levels of management and statutory authority will be at the core of any investigation , and the inevitable outcome will be greater rigor from the US Minerals Management Service or whatever agency replaces it with well engineering approval.

For those who do not have experience of offshore drilling procedures , I need to explain that any well plan is a fluid document,even when production drilling occurs in formations/strata whose characteristics are already known , there are always variables which cause deviation from planned procedure and require constant , round the clock evaluation and management of change –there are far more variables than any other process I know of.

When the total cost of operating a rig like the Deepwater Horizon & its ancilliary services exceeds $USD 800K per day , then there is inevitably financial pressure on the rig based management which can lead to the best decisions not being made.

You are to be commended in raising NZ awareness of the upcoming deepwater drilling and I agree that our current minister and his government need plenty of unsolicited advice in this and many other matters.
As I nation we could all do well to look at the Norwegian model and legislation.
with a similar population base they have retained control of their resources, developed a skill base and engineering prowess that now leads the world in deepwater & harsh environment drilling , whilst maintaining a high wage & tax structure and comprehensive social services.

I’m no geological expert , but what evidence i have seen and knowledge I’ve gleaned is that the NZ EEZ has enormous potential , largely under explored,for Oil & gas and that it is most likely that this will be in deeper waters .

So obviously do the Pioneers of deepwater drilling Petrobras, Exxon Mobil & Anardarko who are coming & soon it would appear.
Continental Airlines are commencing direct flights Houston -Auckland in the near future most likely because the moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico has freed up deepwater rigs for projects elsewhere.

Please keep up the good work and the pressure on govt., but all need to realise that the financial and geopolitical pressures associated with energy mean that deepwater drilling , globally is inevitable.

No amount of return is worth the risk to the environment.

The guy says there’s a bacteria that will eat the oil, and then it dies off when there’s no more oil to eat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VfypUzx1tI

It is gobsmacking to me that while the entire world waits to see if anyone has the technological ability to cap Deepwater Horizon’s horrors, New Zealand is awarding deepwater contracts with an EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] barely in existence yet.

If this is Gerry Brownlee’s she’ll-be-right, our naivety is not just astounding, but astoundingly dangerous.

One risk in the Great South Basin I have not seen discussed is of an iceberg damaging or destroying a drilling platform. Icebergs have already reached the Otago coast and larger chunks of ice floating around in the storm ravaged southern ocean are more likely with global warming.

Michael Clare highlights the risks to the Hibernia oil platform, the world’s largest offshore drilling facility. (Exxon involved here too)… 190 miles off the coast of Newfoundland in what locals call “Iceberg Alley”

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53212

watch it live….

Thank you for this excellent and prosaic article.

I have been struck by the ‘disaster’ in the Gulf of Mexico, not for the fact that the well drilling went awry, not for the shortcuts and gambling, but by the fact that the choking primary spill is just the first part of the distillation process not usually seen in all it’s glory. It’s more usual to have to conceive of the highly distilled petroleum products being spread thinly all over the environment, leading to amorphous problems like global warming and islands of plastic rubbish floating on the hi-seas. It’s hard to think, for example, of aviation kerosene as some dark tar like mass from several thousand feet below the ocean floor. I have also enjoyed the excellent theories that abound, ranging from North Korean submarines to, on the other hand, dropping a “bunker buster” nuclear device down the well. (That’s sure to fix it.)

I was involved in an engineering project upgrading a large smelter in the South Island. I was fortunate enough to meet engineers from around the world. Many of them commented that working in New Zealand was very much like working in third world countries they had previously been deployed to. It was often said to me that New Zealand appeared to have a thin veil of sophistication.

The rather easy part in the Petrobras deep water permits is selling the development rights. The government is seduced by the promise of easy rights money. Typical of moneymen and merchant bankers they have discounted royalties, given tax breaks to make us an “attractive” deep-water destination. In effect they are gambling with the future well being of our environment.

Do we have the will – or ability – to deal with the oil multinationals ?
Clearly not! And of course with the establishment of any gambling enterprise there is never any real accounting for the social and environmental harm.

http://www.theoildrum.com/