Judge: BP contract shielded Transocean in spill, page 1

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Topic started on 27-1-2012 @ 02:18 AM by Wrabbit2000

Judge: BP contract shielded Transocean in spill

www.foxnews.com

NEW ORLEANS – The rig owner involved in drilling the ill-fated well that blew out in the Gulf of Mexico and spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil will not have to pay many of the pollution claims because it was shielded in a contract with well-owner BP, a federal judge ruled on Thursday. The ruling comes as BP, the states affected by the disaster and the federal government are discussing a settlement over the nation's largest offshore oil spill.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Related News Links:
abcnews.go.com
www.newsday.com
www.npr.org

edit on 27-1-2012 by Wrabbit2000 because: (no reason given)

reply posted on 27-1-2012 @ 02:18 AM by Wrabbit2000

I find this outrageous myself. BP found ways to game the system for their own limits and I recall people at the time suggesting we needn't worry because there were others who would also be made to pay.

Now, a Judge has found that a contract makes that absolutely false and those we thought may share the burden to clean up OUR GULF are actually protected under the company we cut deals with.....thinking that wasn't the case.

The ways this is just wrong are hard to count, but the fact it IS wrong is something I don't think there can be too much doubt on.

Our Gulf is sick and won't be healthy again for a very long time. I fear it may never be fully restored in the natural recovery it's been left to. How tragic and unthinkable.

www.foxnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply posted on 27-1-2012 @ 03:06 AM by IFeelForty

That's the way of things I'm afraid. in a disaster, we get stuck with the bill ( see obamas new deal with the banks ) and when there is a prophitable discovery or innovation it's not us that get the benefits.

God bless Amerika

reply posted on 27-1-2012 @ 06:08 AM by Arbitrageur

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

I admit I don't have all the latest on the investigation, but I did follow it for a while, and it appeared to me at that time that it was the BP executive who BP sent out to the rig who bypassed a lot of safety procedures that had the largest hand in causing the disaster.

I really don't know how much blame Transocean should have in this if any, but having formerly worked on offshore drilling rigs myself in the gulf of Mexico, I personally have some idea how things work out there. I suspect that BP has more responsibility than anybody else and that's the way this is shaking out, so I don't necessarily see it as so bad that BP has most of the burden.

Transocean isn't getting off scot-free, as they are still liable for potentially billions:

the decision leaves Transocean facing potentially billions of dollars in civil and criminal penalties under the Clean Water Act

It looks to me like this is actually working out pretty fairly given my understanding of what happened. I'd actually be outraged if Transocean was held responsible for BP's faults. If BP screwed up, which they did, then they should bear the brunt of the responsibility, which they are. This isn't as bad as you think it is.

The spill is terrible, I agree. But holding BP responsible isn't so terrible. They ARE responsible as far as I can tell.

reply posted on 27-1-2012 @ 06:25 AM by IFeelForty

reply to post by Arbitrageur

They aren't exactly being burdened...at all, compared to what they could handle

www.courthousenews.com...

reply posted on 27-1-2012 @ 06:31 AM by Lee78

May I add an important piece that seems off topic but it isnt? On allowing me to do so though i hope you read it word for wofrd in full though.

Here is a link to a thread on ATS regarding Sea Bratt, a dispersant overlooked and swept under the carpet to allow corexit to be used when they knew the side effects.
Take it how you want, i am only sharing it with you.

Sea Bratt Alternative for corexit

edit on 27-1-2012 by Lee78 because: (no reason given)

reply posted on 27-1-2012 @ 07:55 AM by marg6043

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

First of all this makes no sense unless I am missing something here, BP is not American base but the person that they have the contract with is this means that any agreements that BP have in contract with the driller will be voided because the company in question is American base and will have to abide by American laws.

Unless as usual BP and the American government have secret contracts that we the citizens are no privy to and that is where all the protection comes from.

For that we the people should be angry and make our own government accountable for what they are doing behind the tax payers back.

I for one will not touch eat or drink anything that comes out of the gulf.

reply posted on 27-1-2012 @ 10:37 AM by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by IFeelForty
reply to post by Arbitrageur

They aren't exactly being burdened...at all, compared to what they could handle

www.courthousenews.com...

I'm not sure what you think that says...I read it and it doesn't seem to support what you say. The legal system isn't designed to handle 200,000 individual lawsuits flooding in so it's not unheard of to use the method described in that link to prevent that from happening. And if you read the article (did you?) it says that the people who aren't satisfied with the settlement they receive from following the procedure can then file a claim.
So all that article really says is that ultimately they CAN file a claim, but they need to try to go through the mass settlement procedure first. Whether you're part of the legal system of a claimant who will never get their claim heard on a timely basis because there aren't enough judges or courthouses, you should understand why this doesn't seem unreasonable.

The only part of that I found alarming was BP's claim it should have been a government decision to use corexit so they don't feel responsible for that...I disagree and even if the government had been involved in the decision, BP should be liable from damages corexit caused. However I didn't see where the court has accepted BP's claim in this regard.

Of course the only thing that would make this whole episode right is if they could undo the spill and all the effects from it, and the unfortunate truth is that is never going to happen.

reply posted on 27-1-2012 @ 12:03 PM by Wrabbit2000

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Of course the only thing that would make this whole episode right is if they could undo the spill and all the effects from it, and the unfortunate truth is that is never going to happen.

I'd settle for simply having an honest accounting of what those people did to our nation and our waters in the Gulf in the name of profits and cost controls. It's absurd and criminal and nothing will apparently happen as a result of it, beyond the slaps on the wrist which has already occurred or been accepted as a cost of doing business.

Lets start though, by seeing how many thousands of square miles of the Gulf of Mexico is a dead zone on the bottom now? We know some of it is, because there are still a few people on Earth which can look that deep and are NOT on the payroll of B.P. to 'conflict of interest' them out of the market for being able to look. BP hired MOST academics and others with the capabilities during the crisis, whether they really used them or not, so anyone looking to hire someone down the road would come to the sudden realization that NO ONE was left to hire!

I'd welcome input from those who live on the Gulf Coast and watched this with their own eyes every day. I'm sure there are many stories yet to be told about how far the abuses and outright criminality goes with BP and the minions they hired to assist in the cover-up of the largest eco-calamity in human history. Sans that input though, I'll just sit here and steam while I watch BP and Transocean...and WHO KNOWS WHO ELSE by the end of this, find their safe exits and their protections from ever truly being held to account for MURDERING THE GULF OF MEXICO!.

The real kick in the pants for this?? Last I saw in recent news, BP is back to drill again in the same damned area as the this accident blew out and shattered the rock for. It just never ends... The RAPE of our planet doesn't stop. It isn't rape to get the resources..don't get me wrong. What BP did when something went wrong is what makes it Rape in this case..and they need to be held to account for the horror they pulled.

reply posted on 27-1-2012 @ 12:35 PM by selfharmonise

It doesn't matter where the corporate is based, if they are duty holder for the site then they are liable.

I am unsure if bp or transocean were duty holder here.

It's usually the operator (bp in this case) or the epc contractor can take this on.

reply posted on 27-1-2012 @ 12:37 PM by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
What BP did when something went wrong is what makes it Rape in this case..and they need to be held to account for the horror they pulled.

It's not just how they reacted when something went wrong, I think they caused it.

In another thread here a guy who's been working on offshore rigs for 25 years said the number of times he's failed to run a log to verify the cement job was good was zero. It costs time and money, yes, but it's the best way to be sure the cement job is good. BP apparently decided to skip that cement bond log to save time and money, so I think they caused it with their greedy penny-pinching shortcuts. If they had run the cement bond log which is more or less standard practice, they would have seen something was wrong.

So yeah I'm all for BP paying restitution to the full extent possible.

reply posted on 27-1-2012 @ 01:13 PM by proteus33

i say make bp pay through nose it was there well not trans ocean. it was bps idea to spray a dispersing agent on oil so the would not get hit with a much higher fine which was based on how much oil was recovered.

reply posted on 28-1-2012 @ 03:58 PM by Wrabbit2000

reply to post by Arbitrageur

That is interesting in what you've said about this from the side of experience in working off-shore. That is one segment I've heard little to nothing from and what little I've ever heard sure hasn't been in MSM.

So as a matter of perspective from working in the industry, the company that had direct site control (Transocean) wouldn't be high on the liability chart right along side BP?

I certainly see the chain of command issues, but this disaster really is on a scale history has never seen before. I don't think I'll ever forget the endless days and weeks of that giant fire hose of oil shooting into the open ocean depths. All that oil went somewhere....and little of it made it the thousands of feet to the surface.. Yet, BP has limits to what they can ever be made to pay and the attitude seems to be that the whole thing is over, done and safely forgotten.

It seems to me, we don't even know how extensive the disaster is (not was) since most efforts at anything have ceased.

reply posted on 29-1-2012 @ 01:38 AM by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
So as a matter of perspective from working in the industry, the company that had direct site control (Transocean) wouldn't be high on the liability chart right along side BP?

I don't think Transocean had much of a hand in causing the disaster. If anything, they may have responded inadequately once the disaster started, I will acknowledge that much. But then it's possible that no response could have been adequate...once these huge forces in the Earth are unleashed, they are hard to stop.

I think this might summarize the cause of the disaster (in my opinion) right here:

www.nola.com...

John McCarroll from Minerals Management Service, a member of a six-person investigative panel holding hearings in Kenner, couldn't hold back his opinion that cement failures allowed the well to flow as he questioned Hafle.

"Don't you think for that size casing, you set up your Halliburton cementer for failure, especially when you had a loss return zone (where drilling mud was seeping into the earth) below the hole?" McCarroll pointedly asked.

"I believe it's a sound engineering practice," said Hafle, who said the internal investigation would have to be completed before anyone knows what went wrong.

"Personally, I would not want to try to attempt that," McCarroll added.

Hafle is the BP drilling engineer, and in my engineering assessment, it's incompetent for him to say that's a sound engineering practice. It's quite clear to me, as it is to John McCarroll, that it doesn't seem like a sound engineering practice at all.

And notice that whole discussion is about BP and Halliburton...Transocean is not a key decision maker involving that bad engineering decision which probably caused the disaster.

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