Enviro: Offshore Oil: BP's contracted Transocean Ltd had bad record in safety

Ben Casselman writing in the Business section of Wall Street Journal, "Rig owner had rising tally of accidents" (May10,2k10), tells of a severe downward trend in incidents around unsafe conditions and practices, after the company took over a rival in a deal tagged at $18 billion.

The sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which triggered the spill spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, caught the energy world by surprise. The operator, Transocean Ltd., is a giant in the brave new world of drilling for oil in deep waters far offshore. It had been honored by regulators for its safety record. The very day of the blast on the rig, executives were aboard celebrating its seven straight years free of serious accidents.

But a Wall Street Journal examination of Transocean's record paints a more equivocal picture.

Nearly three of every four incidents that triggered federal investigations into safety and other problems on deepwater drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico since 2008 have been on rigs operated by Transocean, according to an analysis of federal data. Transocean defended its safety record but didn't dispute the Journal's analysis.

In addition, an industry survey of oil companies that hired Transocean perceived a drop in its quality and performance, including safety by some measures, compared with its peers, though it still scored tops in one safety category.

Already the largest deep-water driller, Transocean in November 2007 took over rival GlobalSantaFe in an $18 billion deal. A Journal analysis of records maintained by the U.S. Minerals Management Service found that Transocean's share of incidents in deep water investigated by the regulator has gone up since the merger, even after accounting for its increased size.

The April 20 fire on the rig, the explosion, and the spill, plus the toxic dispersants injected into the Gulf waters to break up the oil agglomeration resulting from the event, has proven catastrophic to the environment, to the way of life and income of workers and owners of small businesses who fished that environment, and to the lives of those killed on the rig Deepwater Horizon, where executives were celebrating that day. Drunk, I woud imagine. Did drunkeness have something to do with the accident?

In any case, drunk, stoned or sober, I think some of those executives and minions shoud go to jail for a long time, and personally pay large fines for their endangerment of others and their negiligent incompetence. Of course, BP shoud continue its efforts at clean-up and also pay large corporate fines to the govt, as well as compensation to those affected for every damned thing BP has ruined.