Chart of the day: Mismatch on importance of deepwater rigs & lack of disaster plans for same

Classic but sad tale:  Look at the incredible rise in deepwater oil production in the Gulf since the early-mid-1990s.  Just taking 1995 as a base year still gets you a 9-fold increase, meaning deepwater Gulf oil pumping has rapidly become a critical asset of our overall oil production.

And yet the piece declares:

A huge jolt convulsed an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The pipe down to the well on the ocean floor, more than a mile below, snapped in two. Workers battled a toxic spill.

That was 2003—seven years before last month's Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 people and sent crude spewing into the sea. And in 2004, managers of BP PLC, the oil giant involved in both incidents, warned in a trade journal that the company wasn't prepared for the long-term, round-the-clock task of dealing with a deep-sea spill.

It still isn't, as Deepwater Horizon demonstrates and as BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward said recently. It's "probably true" that BP didn't do enough planning in advance of the disaster, Mr. Hayward said. There are some capabilities, he said, "that we could have available to deploy instantly, rather than creating as we go." 

It's a problem that spans the industry ...

The connectivity extended, the regulators apparently didn't bother keeping pace with new rules, not mandating preparation for disaster recovery at these depths.

And so, like so often happens in history, the new rules wait on the right disaster to trigger their emergence.