The Drill Is Gone

Energy: An administration never enthusiastic about offshore drilling is using the Gulf oil spill as an excuse to suspend Arctic exploration. Who could've seen that coming? Now we'll be more dependent on foreign oil.

Suspicions in some quarters that the administration was being deliberately lax in its response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in order to pursue a larger, anti-domestic energy agenda were met with derision. But if not deliberate, the effect is the same as the administration prepares to shut down our search for new oil.

President Obama on Thursday announced a suspension of offshore drilling in the Arctic until the causes and solutions to the Gulf spill are found. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a report delivered to the White House on Thursday that he will not consider applications for permits to drill in the Arctic until 2011. Shell Oil was poised to begin exploratory drilling this summer on leases as far as 140 miles offshore.

The irony here is that it's been the reluctance of Congress and the White House to allow more onshore development of our vast untapped oil and natural gas energy reserves that has forced oil companies such as Shell and British Petroleum to go farther and farther offshore to drill deeper and deeper in riskier waters.

"I am frustrated that this decision by the Obama administration to halt offshore development for a year will cause more delays and higher costs for domestic oil and gas production to meet the nation's energy needs," Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said in a statement. As with nuclear power, domestic oil exploration will now be consigned to the "study forever, develop never" category.

There’s a much simpler explanation than sabotage. BP failed to insert a concrete safety plug before removing the original mud...

That was the sabotage mechanism. All they had to have was secret knowledge that more oil pressure existed than was detected by the openly acknowledged studies.

...because they were in a hurry to move the rig to a new site (half million dollars a day or something).

That was the sabotage cover story.

The onsite engineers were opposed to the shortcut and eleven paid with their lives.

That's proof it was a Left-wing operation. To collectivists, life is not only cheap, it's utterly irrelevent. Not to mention that it was precisely these onsite engineers who could have testified that BP knew the pressure was too high for the shortcut. What a coincidence.

(The following is a complete fiction and has absolutely nothing to do with real people, places, or things.)

BP started drilling of one of the more challenging oil wells, at a great depth. They have the equipment and experience to attempt these major operations. Everything was on schedule, until recently. The current ‘administration’ was losing face, losing control, and was anxious for this well to go online. Since they had already planned to tout it as the largest deep sea well in the entire universe, it could bring the cost of gas at the pump down some, just due to the fact it went into Production.

This would calm down the ignorant masses, and allow the administration to selectively control oil drilling and production rights. As with Chrysler and GM, the dealerships would go to ‘friends of the administration’.

So, the MMC (With it’s new and inexperienced appointee ) was anxious to support the President’s wishes. She authorized waivers for various details of the finishing work, to speed up the completion of BP’s drill and install.

The use of one concrete seal/plug between the bore casing and the outer casing (the annulus). Skipping the step where mud is pumped down, and just using water.

The BP suits took this news to the rigs, and informed the crew and chief. The crew threw a fit, as the depth of the site and the pressures involved would logically require MORE seals, and not less. The BP Suits they just needed them to sign off and say they thought it probably was OK. The BP suits told the crew they would get off-rig a lot quicker if they went along with the plan.

The outer cement seal didn’t hold. Oil and gas started leaking out around the footing of the wellhead, rising to the surface and expanding quickly. The crew started noticing the problems (rising pressures, etc), and were extremely upset, as well as terrified. The BP suits got the heck off the rig, leaving the crew to try and save it.

Some of the gas bubbling up from below, was ignited by something on the rig. A huge explosion took place, starting with the oil on top of the water, and the gas which was surrounding the whole rig. This blew the seals on the floats. Fuel on board the rig then caught fire, and eventually caused some more explosions. The rig sunk to the bottom.

So, by Obama inspiring a relaxation of the rules, to achieve political goals, he has stabbed himself in his own foot. I love irony.

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