The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

media misrepresentation

unfortunately from the 18May10 WSJ

Disaster Plans Lacking at Deep Rigs

....In 2008, Chevron was plagued with accidents while using the Discoverer Deep Seas rig in more than 7,000 feet of water in the Gulf. There was a fire, then a leak deep under the sea. Finally the cement and steel casing inside the well collapsed, allowing drilling fluid to flow out of control. Workers stopped the flow only by permanently plugging the well.

Chevron says the well was "safely and permanently" abandoned after the problems. "One of Chevron's core values is the safety of our employees, contractors and neighbors,"

this exemplifies the point i've been trying to make with oxygen on the biotech board. The inference from the story and the quote above seems to be that lack of safeguards and planning have led to accidents in GOM oil exploration and the inability to address those accidents. The facts are quite different from the inference.

When one actually examines the accident reports:

http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/offshore/safety/acc_repo/2008/080427.pdf
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/offshore/safety/acc_repo/2008/080920.pdf
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/offshore/safety/acc_repo/2008/081101.pdf
http://www.mms.gov/incidents/

one will notice that: 1. the fire was in the engine room of the rig and was due to use of an inappropriate o-ring in a fuel line and had no relationship to drilling other than the drilling was being done from the same ship. The fire was quickly extinquished. 2. the incidents were merged together into a single paragraph to make them appear to be related , however, they are actually 3 separate incidents which occurred over a 7 month period and were completely unrelated. and 3. the implied severity in the WSJ article is greatly overstated - at least wrt to the general public. The loss of the well was, of course, expensive but was not catastrophic.