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July 23rd, 2010:

Technician: Deepwater Horizon warning system disabled

washingtonpost.com By David S. Hilzenrath

Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 23, 2010; 10:56 AM Video Engineer: Deepwater Horizon alarm ‘inhibited’ The chief engineer on the Deepwater Horizon tells a government panel that warning systems on the drilling rig were inhibited because the crew did not want to be disturbed in the middle of the night. » LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER
By David S. Hilzenrath

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 23, 2010; 10:56 AM

KENNER, LA. — Long before an eruption of gas turned the Deepwater Horizon oil rig into a fireball, an alarm system designed to alert the crew and prevent combustible gases from reaching potential sources of ignition had been deliberately disabled, the former chief electronics technician on the rig testified Friday.

Michael Williams said he understood that the rig had been operating with the system in “inhibited” mode for a year to prevent false alarms from disturbing the crew. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Bees round the BP honeypot

By Wilt Staph

It’s all happening in the utmost secrecy, but it is now clear that determined efforts are underway to keep BP out of American hands. That ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips all have the financial resources to launch a hostile bid is not in doubt and the acquisition of BP’s huge assets would be a coup for any one of the three largest American oil companies. The move would also be very welcome to the White House – the President could characterise it as bringing American assets back into American hands. A substantial part of BP was previously Amoco – and there was no more American company than that. The submergence of Amoco into BP was seen as something of a  national humiliation by some Houston oil men and they would love to fly the stars and stripes over Amoco’s’ once assets again. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Shutting Down Offshore Drilling in the Arctic

Posted by Bryan Walsh Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 4:41 pm

While the White House, Congress and the oil industry fight over the controversial deepwater drilling moratorium, a federal judge quietly made a significant decision on the next frontier of offshore oil and gas exploration: the Arctic seas. Yesterday U.S. District judge Ralph Beistline blocked energy companies from developing oil and gas leases worth billions of dollars in the Chukchi Sea in northwest Alaska. Beistline ruled that the agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service had failed to properly assess the environmental impact of natural gas development on the region—even though there are trillions of cubic ft. of natural gas in Alaska’s offshore deposits and energy companies who bid on the leases like Shell have talked about their desire to develop gas. (The $2.7 billion, 2.76 million acre leases were sold in February 2008 under former President George W. Bush, despite fierce opposition from environmentalists and some Alaskan native groups—and were kept active under President Obama.) Though Beistline didn’t invalidate the original lease sales, as some environmental groups had hoped, the ruling stops all activity under the lease and requires the government to perform additional environmental reviews. “This ruling acknowledges the lack of information that [MMS] had about what drilling could do to the Chukchi Sea,” says Layla Hughes, the senior program officer for Arctic oil and gas policy at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). “It’s pretty amazing the way this turned out.” read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Shell FuelSave reminiscent of Formula Shell debacle

By John Donovan

Here we are again in the midst of a major Shell advertising campaign with huge colour adverts in the UK national press for a new Shell wonder fuel, this time invented by “Shell Fuel Scientists”: Its called Shell FuelSave

Its like a walk down memory lane for those of us who remember the launch of another wonder fuel by Shell in 1986, Formula Shell, based on new technology and with a scientific image deliberately conjured up by Shell.

There was only one small problem. The new wonder fuel ruined many car engines and it did so on an international basis.
read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.