EcocentricOil
As expected, BP announced this morning that human whipping boy Tony Hayward will be stepping down as CEO, to be replaced in October by the American Bob Dudley. Hayward will be nominated as a nonexecutive director of TNK-BP, the company’s Russian oil and gas venture—meaning that Hayward is literally being exiled to Siberia. (Though …
EcocentricOil
When Tony Hayward became CEO of BP in 2007, replacing a disgraced Lord John Browne, he was taking over a company in turmoil. BP was still recovering from a 2005 fire at its Texas City refinery that killed 15 people—one of the worst industrial accidents in recent memory, and a result of Browne putting profits over safety. Hayward—a …
EcocentricOil
A quick post before I head back out. Yesterday evening BP had begun closing down the valves on its new containment cap, in preparation to pressure test the integrity of the wellbore—and find out whether the well might be able to be fully capped. Overnight, though, they hit a snag—the kill line, one of three valves on the cap that the …
EcocentricOil
Call it oil spill interruptus. A day after Coast Guard Admiral Thad W. Allen—on the advice of academic and government scientists led by Energy Secretary Steven Chu—abruptly stopped a planned attempt to halt the flow of oil from the new containment cap and measure the integrity of the wellbore, the all-important test is now back on. …
EcocentricOil
When he spoke at a briefing yesterday morning, Coast Guard Admiral Thad W. Allen told reporters that it would be a “very consequential 24 hours.” At the time BP had just connected the new, tighter cap over the blown well and was ready to begin pressure tests that—if successful—would have been one of the last steps to finally stopping …
EcocentricOil
A brief update on BP’s containment procedures while I wait for the presidential oil spill commission to begin its second day of hearings here in New Orleans. (By the way, you can watch the hearing, which begins at 9 AM Central, here.) Yesterday evening BP managed to successfully connect the new containment cap—the 3 ram stacking …
EcocentricOil
Greetings from New Orleans, where I’m about 1200 miles closer to BP’s complex containment procedures above the site of the Deepwater Hozion sinking—yet I’m pretty much still dependent on subsea camera web feeds like the rest of you. I’m here to check out how the spill—and the cleanup—are progressing, and how the community is …
EcocentricOil
Of course, when we say “early,” it is important to remember that we’ve now passed Day 80 of the oil spill, and up to 150 million gallons of crude have already leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, if not more. But BP may be close to finally ending the leak. On Saturday, the company began a complex multi-day operation that involves removing the …
EcocentricUncategorized
Well it only took about 80 days. On Thursday the Gulf coast woke up to some good news—the relief wells seen as the final tool to end the oil leak are proceeding faster than projected, and BP has raised the possibility that they may even be completed by July 27, far earlier than expected. Speaking to NBC and the Wall Street Journal in …
