July 13, 2010

I wonder if...

...anyone else sees the irony. Watch this video. Try to spot the oval-shapped decal on the side of the new BOP. If you can read it, I think you'll find it quite ironic.



Start watching about 59 seconds in. The decal is visible only briefly and it is difficult to read. There was better video on the TOOB last evening, but those don't seem to have made it to the web.

Underneath the Transocean logo on the decal, we find the words Think Twice, Act Once. Apparently some kind of safety slogan, and probably one that Transocean discovered in one of those "write our new safety slogan" contests they run to promote employee buy-in. 

Too bad it's just lip service. Transoceans safety culture is a sham.

Transocean is the drilling contractor that owned the Deepwater Horizon. The drilling practices leading up to the Macondo blow-out are a product of BP policy, but compromising safety for the sake of expediency, going along with unsafe practices in order to please a client, and hiding a history of failed blow-out preventers apparently are Transocean policies. 

The product, as reflected in the Macondo blow-out, is 11 dead and the worst environmental disaster in the history of the industry. Transocean can now claim at least partial ownership in the two worst blow-outs in the history of Gulf of Mexico petroleum exploration (the other being the 1979 Transocean-owned Sedco 135 BOP failure, which caused the Ixtoc I spill.).

In fact, Transocean has a history of BOP issues, which have concerned regulatory bodies around the globe but for some reason failed to catch MMS notice.

Transocean not only doesn't think twice when it comes to safety... they don't think at all, and MMS turns a blind eye. BP isn't the only scoundrel in this disaster.
~~

2 Comments:

Old NFO said...

It's all about cost cutting... BOPs are expensive... sigh...

Mule Breath said...

True NFO, but the Sedco 135 BOP became very expensive. You'd think the 10-year-old Deepwater Horizon would have the "Newest and Improvedest"