by Ian Buchanan

Created on: December 31, 2010

It’s hard to underestimate the damage caused by the oil spill in the Gulf, and the catastrophe rightly dominated the news for several months: nobody can ignore the damage done by 5 million barrels of oil, but the rhetoric that accompanied this disaster did no credit to wisdom and deliberation to prevent future incidents. The biggest offenders of all was the Federal Government and the Administration.

Rather than call on everyone involved, and the enormous knowledge in the country at large to solve the problem, the Administration pounded on the owner of the Deepwater project, BP which had 65% participation, relentlessly, holding BP accountable for solving the problem on the Administration’s schedule. There had never been an event of this magnitude, and at the outset nobody knew how to cap the well.

While the spill was immense, and the impact on Louisiana in particular was dramatic, it could be argued that the Administration attacked a foreign company to deflect from the onslaught of bad news on the domestic political front.

In reality BP held the lease on the property, but the drilling was actually performed by Transocean. Halliburton was in charge of mixing and pumping the cement that, according to a law suit, was inadequate.

The Government is holding BP responsible for the costs to clean up and compensate those affected by the spill. However, other companies involved in the project include Anadarko Exploration & Production LP and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation; MOEX Offshore 2007 LLC; Triton Asset Leasing GMBH; Transocean Holdings LLC and Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling Inc., Transocean Deepwater Inc.; and Transocean's insurer, QBE Underwriting Ltd./Lloyd's Syndicate 1036.All of these companies have also been indicted, but, strangely Halliburton has not. Anadarko and MOEX are minority owners of the well that blew out. Transocean was also a part owner of the rig that BP was leasing.

It seemed the most important issue at the outset was to apportion blame and vilify a respectable foreign corporation. The priority should have been to call on the abundant technical resources within the industry, and beyond, to find a faster solution than was possible as the burden was placed squarely on BP.

Disasters of any kind need to be addressed as a function of human response, and the first priority needs to be the incident itself. The litigation process from catastrophic events go on for years, and there is little doubt that all the companies involved will be held responsible for enormous compensation claims, but in this instance, apportioning blame for the spill seemed to be more important than speedy cooperation.

It can only be hoped that lessons will be learned from this debacle, at the very least that there is no place for political posturing at the expense of solving the problem.

(Some information retrieved from Wikipedia) 

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