BP stock price is down
costs to clean up the oil in the billions

I would not doubt that this was carried out as a form of eco-terrorism.


Sure put a damper on drilling for our own oil and they still cannot figure out how it happened ... because there are so many safety valves between the well head and the platform to prevent just such a catastrophe.

So HOW did it happen? Good questions you brought up, Ranger.

nope- no valves:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575212031417936798.html

It happened due to a gross lack of regulation.

They can't clean up an erupting volcano of oil, 4 states shorelines will be forever destroyed. The oil is spewing.....some scientists estimate nearly 500,000 gallons of oil already covers nearly 4000 square miles and satellite images indicate it is spreading faster than anticipated, it threatens the marine life and sanctuaries in 4 states....it is not a spill, but a continual pulsing volcano of black oil unleashed and virtually no way to stop it.....

BTW, BP was leasing the platform, it was owned by Haliburton.

not good news for either party

Interesting. Dick Cheney's old company is involved in this mess too.

This is a general reply, and not directed at any one response...

Not everything is a conspiracy. Things happen and it probably is due to a few people not doing their job effectively and/or faulty equipment...not enough quality control.

put a few multi layer booms around the area and skim the oil until it can be closed off. why let the oil migrate to the shore?

Did I hear correctly that the oil is now covering an area of about 5,000 square miles? Sound awfully huge to me, but if true that's a hell of a lot of oil booms.

They've got some rough weather, which makes containing the slick (formed by an underwater gusher) a lot harder.

What happened was that the blowout preventer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowout_preventer
didn't work, so there was a blowout, and then an explosion. They're trying to figure out why it didn't work; maybe they will, and maybe not, but I'd bet that they at least come up with a pretty good guess.

Josephus, that's 50x100 miles, let's say, and with over 2,400,0000 gallons of oil spewed (12+ days @ 200,000 gal/day), that's not hard to believe. Sooner or later, it'll hit the Gulf Stream and be carried to the East Coast, too.

SM: Destroyed FOREVER? LOLOLOLOLOL!

here's another article from the wsj talking about the drilling procedure as a possible cause- Just like you said VM, blowout is the top suspect at the moment (a blowout caused by this procedure is blamed for an identical accident that occurred at a Halliburton well last August):

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575214593564769072.html

You mean the "blowout preventer valve" they had ... but that didn't work?

At least, that is what they suspect caused this disaster, because no one knows for certain?

Yeah, that valve.

The one in a series of valves that did not prevent this ecological catastrophe.

VW, yeah forever. Once in the marshlands it's a done deal.

reports say they will try to place a dome over it and collect the oil

"VW, yeah forever."

That's the funniest thing you've ever said.

they should have placed the booms in the area sooner so as it would not spread to this large of an area.

One would think they would have an emergency plan for a situation like this so they would be able to react sooner. How many oil spills, or what have you, do we need to have until someone invents a better/quicker way to clean up?

Is not.