[ot gom mess ad infinitum]
oxygen,
you are correct, i have no reason to apologize to you. I've listened to the 60 minutes replay and reviewed what i wrote. The only thing i'd change is to be more precise in my criticism of some of the text you posted, e.g.:
"...stepping up the drilling pace which compromised the integrity of the drill hole walls, cracking them."
Damage to a wellbore during drilling is fairly common. It does not lead to catastrophic failures such as what happened with the DwH. Based on the context of your post it appeared that there was an attempt to link wellbore damage possibly incurred due to rate of penetration as the cause of the accident. 60 minutes also mentioned that there was a side track drilled because pipe or a tool got stuck. Every account reported in the media and by the company executives in front of the congressional panel has been that the well had reached total depth and the final liner had been cemented. Damage to the wellbore might cause other problems with production and logging but i don't see how wellbore damage could be relevant to the accident if the well has been cemented to total depth. Likewise drilling of sidetracks is common and there is no reason to believe without other evidence that it contributed to the accident. I'd defer to Kadaicher on the natural resources board for a couple of reasons; however, it is clear to me that 60 minutes and you have taken a couple of things that are crafted and intoned to sound bad but but are neither necessarily bad nor unusual and you've applied them out of context in order to derive a conclusion which meets with an agenda which appeals to your personal set of non-scientific beliefs.
You make blithe response about 'not terribly complicated concepts'. While the concept is not complicated to me, the details are quite complex and that's a good part of the reason why development of these resources is expensive. Part of your thesis seems to be that this accident resulted from cutting corners or rushing the job in order to save costs. While that could be the case it is not yet proven in a comprehensive peer-reviewed scientific study nor a court of law. In addition, you obviously don't have a clue about the details yet you believe that you are informed enough to be able to assign cause and sources of failure and suggest superior approaches to addressing the spill. And who to call on to substantiate your opinion regarding the cause - an electronics technician whose job function was not on the drill floor and is only passing on 2nd and 3rd person hearsay, a former employee who was not involved in this project, and some 2008 e-mails that are obviously not specific to this event.
I don't doubt for a minute the technician's description of his personal experiences during the accident. His 2nd & 3rd person recantations of the other discussions range from not necessarily bad or unusual topics to potentially damning observations. However, even in the latter case it is not clear that destruction of the annular seal would necessarily lead to a blowout and you should note that you have not heard from any immediate sources regarding those details. In addition, the blowout preventer is still on the seafloor so any assessments of blowout preventer component functionality or failure are probably inconclusive.
I can assure you as somebody who does work in the industry that any fulltime (i.e. non-fixed term contract) employee of BP or RIG who was on the DwH or is working on the remediation is NOT speaking to reporters. I'm sure any lawyer on this board can explain to you why employees of these and related companies will not speculate about the cause(s) of the accident NOR speculate or comment on remediation of the leak (that's for JBOG). Those lawyers can also explain to you why hearsay generally isn't admissable as evidence (I'm not a lawyer but i suspect it has something to do with objectivity and reliability).
Unfortunately, the absence of knowledgable voices provides opportunity for the paranoid and politically motivated but illiterate of specific details to fill the void of information sought by the naturally curious populus. I have not said that all of the information being put forth is wrong or is provided by technically illiterate people. Between much of the technically detailed fact and the lay-person the 'mass media' tends to inject a level of simplification that distorts truth. In some cases i suspect there is intentional manipulation to portray oil companies in a negative light (i put 60 minutes in this category). Unfortunately, even objective simplification tends to use analogy or use of circumstances which are commonly observed or experienced by the lay person and that has a tendency to lead folks like you to consider themselves as 'well-informed'.
Kadaicher has provided enlightenment to me on some technical aspects (particularly regarding blowout preventers of which i am admittedly far from expert) and provided links to anonymous but credible sounding sources. However, I will still maintain that very few people, and possibly nobody, could have a complete set of data necessary to fully describe the sequence of events. As for blame - that's not my business and i don't really care.
enjoy,
Charlie
