It is one thing to make a mistake and another to be unprepared to fix it. That is particularly true with the means of correction are at hand.

BP plc (NYSE: BP), Transocean (NYSE: RIG), and perhaps a number of regulators are faced with the improbable explosion and sinking of their Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

What is clear now is that there were a number of possible solutions to the problems and the attempted implementation of them has taken days and perhaps weeks when the “fixes” might have been available more quickly.

Shut off valves like the ones meant to prevent the spill have failed in the past based on research of a number of ruptured drill pipes over the last two years.

Today, BP will lower a 100-ton containment box to capture oil and allow it to be pushed through pipes to ships on the surface. It took BP, government officials and experts in leaks days to conclude that they should move the contraption to the site of the problem. The AP reports that “A crane late Thursday lowered the containment vessel designed to collect as much as 85 percent of the oil spewing into the Gulf and funnel it up to a tanker.”

Then there is the plan to build a great underwater dome to capture the flow of oil as it comes to the surface. Oddly enough, such a device, the deployment of which might stop most of the crude from making it to the surface, has never been carefully tested, as if the oil industry believe the there could never be a disaster on a deep water rig. Given that tremendous pressure that runs from pipes under the ocean floor, drilling at great depths always presented usually high risks compared to drilling on land.

Semper paratus, always ready.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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