Related Stories
Blowout: The Deepwater Horizon Disaster
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of CBS News 60 Minutes
Posted: May 24th, 2010
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490...
The gusher unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico continues to spew crude oil. There are no reliable estimates of how much oil is pouring into the gulf. But it comes to many millions of gallons since the catastrophic blowout. Mike Williams, one of the last crewmembers to escape the inferno ... says the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon [oil rig] had been building for weeks in a series of mishaps. The tension in every drilling operation is between doing things safely and doing them fast; time is money and this job was costing BP a million dollars a day. But Williams says there was trouble from the start - getting to the oil was taking too long. Williams said they were told it would take 21 days; according to him, it actually took six weeks. With the schedule slipping, Williams says a BP manager ordered a faster pace. Williams says there was an accident on the rig that has not been reported before. He says, four weeks before the explosion, the rig's most vital piece of safety equipment was damaged ... the blowout preventer, or BOP. The spill has cost BP about $500 million so far. But consider, in just the first three months this year, BP made profits of $6 billion. There are plenty of accusations to go around that BP pressed for speed, Halliburton's cement plugs failed, and Transocean damaged the blowout preventer. Through all the red flags, they pressed ahead.
Note: For lots more from major media sources on corporate and government collusion and corruption, click here and here.
Related Stories
Latest News
Key News Articles from Years Past
