BP Deepwater Horizon: Important

A post at The Oil Drum and linked here is, quite literally, explosive stuff. As the poster notes;

"Anyone that is still a BP apologist after these damning pieces of evidence have been brought forth is not worthy to hold a job in this industry & should seek employment at a bologna sandwich factory, because you have deceived yourself beyond the point of being helped. BP executives, engineers, drilling supervisors on site & in their chain of command that had any thing to do with anyone of these actions should be brought up on charges of negligent homicide & multiple counts of negligent destruction to private, state, & federal property & have to answer for these indefensible decisions."

The people at The Oil Drum aren't a bunch of mouthy knownothings; au contraire, the posters and commenters there are well-known in the industry as highly experienced and knowledgeable professionals, as witnessed by the story broke by Reuters this morning that used the information in the post and string to start its investigation. You need to read this.

UPDATE: Why is this story enormous? Check out this link that runs on from the original above. It seems that Schlumberger (SLB) were acutely aware of the clear and present dangers at Deepwater Horizon, told BP all about it and BP ignored the advice given to them by the world's top oil services company. Here's an extensive excerpt from the post that explains what happens when SLB people went to visit the rig, literally hours before the explosion:

"BP contracted Schlumberger (SLB) to run the Cement Bond Log (CBL) test that was the final test on the plug that was skipped. The people testifying have been very coy about mentioning this, and you’ll see why.

SLB is an extremely highly regarded (and incredibly expensive) service company. They place a high standard on safety and train their workers to shut down unsafe operations.

SLB gets out to the Deepwater Horizon to run the CBL, and they find the well still kicking heavily, which it should not be that late in the operation. SLB orders the “company man” (BP’s man on the scene that runs the operation) to dump kill fluid down the well and shut-in the well. The company man refuses. SLB in the very next sentence asks for a helo to take all SLB personel back to shore. The company man says there are no more helo’s scheduled for the rest of the week (translation: you’re here to do a job, now do it). SLB gets on the horn to shore, calls SLB’s corporate HQ, and gets a helo flown out there at SLB’s expense and takes all SLB personel to shore.

6 hours later, the platform explodes."

Reuters has now picked up on this story and run with it too, bringing real journalistic gravitas to the breaking news here. Here's a part of the Reuters note:

Schlumberger says its crew left Horizon day of fire

Wed May 19, 2010 8:56pm EDT

SAN FRANCISCO, May 19 (Reuters) - Schlumberger Ltd (SLB.N), the world's largest oilfield services company, said on Wednesday it had a crew on the Deepwater Horizon that departed only hours before the explosion and fire that engulfed the rig.

The company, which had not previously revealed its work on the Horizon, said in an emailed statement that continues here