WASHINGTON – Bad wiring and a leak in what's supposed to be a “blowout preventer.” Sealing problems that may have allowed a methane eruption. Even a dead battery, of all things. New disclosures Wednesday revealed a complex cascade of deep-sea equipment failures and procedural problems in the oil rig explosion and massive spill that is still fouling the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and threatening industries and wildlife near the coast and on...
The news keeps getting worse from the British Petroleum oil catastrophe in the Gulf. The UK Telegraph reports: The view from space indicates that the oil may be leaking at a rate of 25,000 barrels a day, dwarfing the figure of 5,000 barrels that US officials and the British oil giant BP have used in recent days. That would mean that some nine million gallons may already have escaped from the underwater well following the...
BP faces fresh questions over the cause of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill after it emerged that problems with the type of equipment that led to the disaster were first reported a decade ago. In June 2000, the oil giant issued a “notice of default” to Transocean, the operator of the rig that blew up last month. The dispute was over problems with a blowout preventer, a set of iron slabs that should...