Potential for big spill after oil rig sinks

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Here comes the excuse to raise gas prices, just you watch! Even if it wasn't actually producing, the news footage of spilled oil is all it takes.

[odinloki1]

Originally Posted by semperarmati

Oil is a 100% natural product, courtesy of Mother Nature.

That would be hundreds of feet underground, not bothering anybody, now it can be destroying ecosystems and killing off ocean wildlife courtesy of us.

[jimboburnsy]

Eleven hard working men with families perished in that accident, which is the primary tragedy.

The rig had reached total depth in a deep gas well and was running pipe. They had an old fashioned blow-out and a fire was touched off and burned out of control.

The first concern is evacuating personnel. Second concern is controlling the well. Third concern is protecting the Gulf of Mexico.

The problem is not an oil spill. This isn't like an oil tanker running aground along the coast of Alaska, exactly. The problem is that a high pressure gas zone about 18,000' ("hundreds of feet" kinda made me chuckle) below the surface is openly communicating with the atmosphere and the rig was carrying about 700,000 gallons of diesel and this could become, if you will permit an understatement, a very big problem.

All that said, BP and Transocean are very sophisticated, very conscientious and very well funded entities and I'm not sure you could select better, more responsible corporations to manage this sort of disaster.

I'm not sure how the loss of a drilling rig (albeit a very, very large and expensive one) and a single natural gas well could logically have an appreciable impact on the price of gasoline, but, if my suspicion that commodity traders don't have the slightest clue about anything is correct, there may very well be an impact.

[odinloki1]

Originally Posted by jimboburnsy

All that said, BP and Transocean are very sophisticated, very conscientious and very well funded entities and I'm not sure you could select better, more responsible corporations to manage this sort of disaster.

When it could endanger their bottom line I find most corporations are severely lacking in responsibility. They don't even need to be if they control a large enough portion of the market because we have no choice if we are to get to work/ heat our homes/have hot water.

This whole thing is an even greater argument to get away from oil dependence entirely and use alternative means of energy, and begin upgrading homes to be more heat efficient.

[Nayabone]

Originally Posted by AnUnidentifiedMale

Whew! That's good to hear. I feel better about the oil spill now. If it's 100% natural, the fish won't mind.

There was no oil spill, keep up and stop making things up...!