In Defense of British Petroleum

I find it peculiarly interesting how chic it is to bash British Petroleum over this Gulf oil leak. The venom frenzy has led me to wonder if anyone out there is interested in taking the side of BP. When I say "anyone", I mean "anyone who doesn't stand to gain from a successful British Petroleum." I have decided to try and see some things from their point of view and to offer a few thoughts from my point of view.

1. Gulf oil exploration, at any depth, serves the interests of all Americans. - Unless, of course, you don't mind being held hostage by a group of very rich men that wear towels on their heads, or a lunatic or two from South America. The more oil that is harvested from our home turf, the less we need from under the sands of the Middle east or from the jungles of South America. Even if you drive a Prius or a scooter, you use gasoline and create the demand for crude oil.


2. Oil exploration, especially offshore, is frought with dangers and difficulties. - Imagine being out in the ocean on a relatively small platform, working around equipment that would be dangerous even on dry ground. Imagine the difficulties in sending a drilling stem down into the depths while the waves churn around this platform. Given all of these things, I think it quite remarkable that things like this spill in the Gulf haven't happened more often.


3. It's not easy to fix things a mile under the ocean. - The simplest tasks on land are made very difficult or near impossible one mile under the ocean. Men can't go there. The weight of all that seawater creates operating pressures that humans cannot endure. Also, the temperature at that depth is around 30°F. Troubleshooting and repairing equipment is not the piece of cake we might assume it to be. I, for one, am amazed at what they've been able to do thus far with the ROVs.


4. Handling this incorrectly could create a problem far worse than the present one.  - This blowout preventer, even in its non-functioning state, is still throttling down the flow of oil. Do something stupid (i.e., explosives), and you will both increase the flow and most likely create a situation that is unfixable.


5. Environmentalists are, in part, responsible for this problem, too. - Their demands that offshore drilling sites move further and further away into the depths and onto the ragged edge of drilling technology make them partially responsible for this accident. Partially, I said.


6. The government, in large part, is responsible for the problem. - A lot of people are saying that the government's failure in overseeing the oil exploration industry in general is to blame. I say the government, which includes every president, senator and congressman--Democrat and Republican--that has served for the past several decades, is responsible for not encouraging, by any means, America to move toward alternative, renewable fuel sources. Competition with Big Oil has been stifled, buried under piles of special-interest cash. Who knows what great ideas have disappeared under this pile of money.


7. The death of BP will not be a good thing for Americans. - It is very possible that the repairs, cleanup and settlements will do BP in. I don't know exactly how many Americans are employed by BP, but the number is substantial enough that the failure will shock the American economy. It would be a cruel thing to take delight in seeing so many suffer just to see BP get its comeuppance.


8. This is--plain and simple--an accident. - Nothing that humans have ever organized or participated in has been free of error, mistakes or accidents. And in the thousands of offshore rigs that have been employed over the last few decades, this is the first incident of this type. That seems to be a pretty good record.


9. Sometimes, technology has a hard time keeping up with progress. - Learning to drill in deep water does not come with a prerequisite knowledge of how to deal with every contingency, every possibility. Even anticipating what might happen doesn't mean you'll get the whole picture and be prepared to deal with it. BP is developing, at a phenomenal rate, new hardware and new technologies to deal with this spill. The best minds across the industry have been at work on this from the beginning.

My defense of BP is solely motivated by my desire that they be treated fairly in all this. I will not join the dogpile. What I'm hoping to see is that the threats, name-calling and blame-casting will cease and that everyone will pitch in to get this fixed and cleaned up. A few people will continue to posture and position themselves against BP, hoping the public will not see through the veneer that covers their disinterested, self-serving heart. Threats to "keep a boot on the neck of BP" come from such people. I prefer to look at it this way: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.