Big Oil to BP: No, you're the problem!
Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 12:03AM 
FT piece.
BP, naturally, keeps selling the Deepwater Horizon disaster as indicative of industry-wide problems, while the rest of Big Oil says otherwise—also to no surprise.
Other firms want deep-water drilling to continue, stating that their practices are better.
What I found interesting about the chart showing where everybody is drilling in the Gulf: Deepwater’s water depth is listed as 5200 feet, but of the 18 other rigs listed, 8 are equally deep or a lot deeper (in the 7-8,000 ft range). Companies drilling at that deeper depth include Shell, Chevron, Anadarko and Noble.
Of the 33 rigs left idle by Obama’s ban, we’re talking costs of about $12m a day.
The industry plans to invest about $170B in deep-water drilling tech and gear between now and 2014, or something on the order of $30-35B a year.
Naturally, BP’s massive screw-up (less the original accident, I would wager, than the incredibly incompetent response since) will perturb the entire industry, because America’s new rules on the subject will have global impact.
Reader Comments (1)
Funny that I was thinking how mum the rest of the Oil Companies have been yesterday. I can imagine the facepalms happening at Shell when their Alaska projects got curbstomped. In other news almost all the resources to deal with spills have been stripped from Alaska and the Puget Sound's ability to deal with more than 1 shipwreck and spill has also gone south.
Here's a follow-up idea to your headsup. That "We" here in the US need to quit playing the victim take ownership of the state (or lack there of) of our government to herd cats, serve up regulation, collect royalties, and ensure compliance, et all. (sorry words are failing me this early in the AM)
-E.