Cap To Fix Leak Leaks
The ABC is carrying an AFP report that covers what has become “standard operating procedure” for BP, incompetence: Leak forces BP to delay cap test
After finally getting the green light to begin pressure tests, BP said it would have to postpone the procedure for a second time to repair a leak in a system of triple blowout preventers being used in the operation, known as rams.
“In preparation for commencement of the well integrity test, the middle ram has been closed and a leak has been detected in the choke line of the three-ram stack,” BP said in a statement on its website.
“It has been isolated and will be repaired prior to starting the test.”
BP has since discovered that miracle cure, a wrench, and tightened the connections, something that would have been a hell of lot easier if it had been done before they lowered the unit a mile under water. You may remember that one of the many faults with the original blowout preventer was a hydraulic line that was loose.
Mark Fiore has a new animation out that is tangentially related.
2 comments
As you’ve said, Brian, I’m thinking that much of the general incompetence and lack of coordination that’s been on display isn’t unique to BP, but is a result of the whole “virtual corporation” model that’s become standard post-Reagan. Outsource everything, turn your employees into migrant workers, trash institutional memory, “what have you done for me this quarter?’… you know what I’m talking about. It’s all a symptom of the exaltation of Finance uber alles. And this philosophy now seems to extend to our semi-privatized civil service and military as well, as we’ve seen after Katrina, in Iraq, and in a thousand smaller examples.
Look Ma, see how “efficient” we are now?
It’s been fairly obvious for a while, PJ, that they don’t have a pipefitter on their “team”.
One of the scariest things in the world to a computer hardware guy is seeing a programmer with a screwdriver. I get a feeling that they have had geologists designing the “plumbing”.
As near as I can tell, they don’t actually have any full-time employees who really work with the equipment, Almost everyone on the rig was a contract employee hired for that job.