FT story on how the oil industry has resigned itself to tougher drilling rules from the US. So while BP mournfully proclaims that the Deepwater Horizon disaster will change the industry forever, most companies are saying only that the US’s looser rule set is now being tightened up to global standards, and that none of the changes will particularly prevent future accidents.
How so? BP simply ignored a bunch of industry best practices on Deepwater, so a wake-up call for them but not for others, who refuse to take such risks.
And yeah, outside the US, most national regulators are buying that story from the oil industry, so no great copycat stampede globally for moratoriums on drilling. Instead, the big rule-set reset is mostly limited to US-based drilling, “where the industry had for decades resisted tougher rules”—apparently with great success.
So, as far as System Perturbations goes, this one seems limited—for now—to the politically entity in question.
;)