Sunday, July 18, 2010

Doug Suttles is baaaaack!



From The Daily Hurricane:

Here's the rich part. Today, Suttles dodged virtually every inquiry as to exactly what BP intends to do, picking up the new mantra that Wells started yesterday, "Nobody wants to see any more oil going into the Gulf." He said it at least 5 times (seemed like 100). He said the facilities to take 100% of the flow would take until the end of the month, and coincidently, that the relief well would be ready for the kill at the same time. He also said this morning that, in order to open up the well for containment, they would flow oil into the Gulf for up to 3 days. 3 days. Wells said something similar yesterday, raising the spectre of oil spewing into the Gulf on all of our television screens, claiming that they would have to do that to take pressure off of the well before containment could resume. Of course, no one asked the obvious question of why they would have to do that since they have 2 closed systems with chokes tied to the well that they've already used successfully. Unless I'm missing something, they can "relieve pressure" up the existing risers. If they can't do that, they can certainly put the Enterprise back on station, and run a riser with a latching cap to tie directly to the top of the stack.

So the stage is set. It sure looks like to me that BP is refusing to disclose critical data and playing chicken with the government while holding our Gulf of Mexico as hostage. They have every motivation to not produce the well, for all the reasons we've discussed before, most importantly, being able to measure the flow; and the ROV feed of oil roaring back into the Gulf is the gun to the head. The government should compel BP to release all the data from this test. Again, this well, this lease, this oil and gas belong to the United States. This well is in federal waters, and we are all owners here. As owners of this resource, we have a right to see all the information available. BP should immediately release all of the pressure buildup data, temperature data, acoustic data, and seismic data. They should also release their build up models including the Horner plot forecasts that Wells discussed yesterday. Only then can we make a judgment that BP is managing this in the best interest of the United States, not just their own. We need no more reason for this demand than the massive scale of this catastrophe.