June 19, 2010

About Those Relief Wells

By Bruce Thompson
Right now, the hopes of the nation rest on the successful drilling of two relief wells aimed at "plug[ging] the damn hole" in the Gulf of Mexico. On Thursday, the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing featuring BP's CEO, Tony Hayward. In its invitation to Mr. Hayward, Congressman Bart Stupak wrote:The Subcommittee anticipates that its members may have questions requiring technical knowledge of the Deepwater Horizon rig operations, well design, and safety measures and, accordingly, we ask that you be accompanied by a BP employee or official with sufficient knowledge to answer these questions under oath.In the event, the drilling engineer Mr. Hayward brought with him was never even sworn in to give testimony. Yet right now BP is drilling two relief wells that are the only deep-water offshore wells authorized by the government since the imposition of a drilling moratorium instituted at the behest of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The hearing did not...(Read Full Article)