"How could we know; it was unforeseeable"

A geyser of oil has now been spewing from a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico since April 20, 2010. The response from petroleum giant BP has been predictable, and if not so tragic, even comical. Early on BP attempted to down-play the scope of the disaster, suggesting that the rate of leakage was about 1,000 barrels per day (a barrel is 42 gallons). They also sought to deflect criticism and blame with arguments about how it was impossible to foresee how anything like this could ever happen. Phrases like, "how could we know," and "I don't think anyone could have foreseen," were repeated ad nauseum. If this sounds to you like a reprisal of the situation in the immediate aftermath of the failure of the levees in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina, then you have a good memory.

Along with the denial and abdication of responsibility has come the finger pointing, "it wasn't my fault." BP attempted to argue that they were simply leasing the drilling rig that exploded, and that the rigs owners, Transocean, were responsible for the drilling operations. Then Transocean pointed the finger at sub-contractor Halliburton, that performed the cementing of the well casing, only hours or days before the explosion and blowout of the well. For a hilarious take on this game of CEO finger-pointing check out John Stewart's send-up from the Daily Show.

The Coast Guard, which has been involved in spill mitigation and clean-up efforts began to try and further quantify the magnitude of the spill. Their estimates, based on the amount of oil apparent at the surface, suggested perhaps 5,000 barrels per day were leaking from the well head. Again, this was based only on the amount of oil visible at the surface. Not long after these estimates several other attempts to quantify the size of the leak were coming up with much higher figures, more like 10 - 20 thousand barrels per day. Moreover, other reports were indicating that in a release of this kind, at a mile deep in the ocean, almost certainly most of the leaked oil would remain below the surface in the water column, and would not be seen at the surface.

Through most of this BP has and continues to insist that there is no way to know how much oil is actually leaking from the well. The attempted plea of innocence seems to be, "how could we possibly know?" "we're also just innocent victims of this unforeseeable catastrophe." Of course this is just ludicrous nonsense and an attempt to obfuscate the true scale of the disaster. Consider it for a minute, this oil industry giant is able to muster the resources and technical capability to drill a three mile deep hole into the sea-bed that is already a mile beneath the surface of the Gulf. They have submersible robots and monitoring equipment that enable the process to be assessed and managed. Recently released videos rather clearly show one of the leaks, with oil and perhaps methane and other materials seen literally gushing out of a broken pipe. Of course, it is not a supernatural task to analyze such a video and determine with reasonable precision the amount of oil flowing out. Indeed, it is more like a simple high school physics problem. We can further presume that BP has even higher quality videos from which to study the flow rate. Actually, it's relatively simple to come up with a ball-park figure. All you need to know is the diameter of the pipe, and the speed at which the oil is flowing through it. The volume of oil flowing out is then just the cross-sectional area of the pipe multiplied by the flow speed. It is absolutely ridiculous to think that the BP engineers do not know the size of the pipes they are using, nor that they could not reasonably estimate the flow speed from the videos they have. Indeed, several scientists unaffiliated with the oil industry have recently done these relatively simple calculations and, as reported by NPR, determined that the rate of leakage from this one pipe is indeed many times the "official estimate." In fact, they estimate that the leak is very likely as large as 70-80 thousand barrels per day! And that is probably a lower limit, since there are apparently other leaks in addition to the one on this video. These higher values seem reasonable in the context of the estimates based on the amount of oil on the surface, and the fact that much of the oil is likely still in the water column.

The fact, though perhaps not reported, is that BP almost certainly knows how much oil is gushing out from its ruptured well-head. It is also likely that BP is desperate to conceal this fact, because of the scale of the disaster. Consider also that BP execs were meeting at the rig shortly before the disaster to celebrate, ironically, their safety record in drilling the well. Perhaps they were also celebrating the well ending its exploratory phase and that it would soon be in production. Certainly they also have good estimates of the amount of oil the well would likely produce, and given the economics of deep sea drilling, it is likely that they anticipated a very productive well. Not only do they know how much oil is gushing out, but they could also likely provide us with reasonable estimates of the amount of oil that could be released if the well is not sealed. Undoubtedly, those numbers are staggering and they are no less keen to reveal them as they are to tell us the rate at which oil is now leaking.

Another truth is that these big oil corporations know exactly what they are doing, and that there is a real possibility of significant oil spills and serious economic and ecological damage to the communities adjacent to their drilling operations. But the bottom line is that these companies could really care less about that. Of course, their spokes-people will say exactly the opposite and preen in public about how they are ecologically friendly and are good corporate "citizens." But if such companies really did take these risks and responsibilities seriously, then why do they fight and oppose regulations and oversight at every turn and at all cost? The only thing that matters when push comes to shove, and decisions have to be made is the accumulation of wealth. In this corporate culture the ends justifies the means, and any means are acceptable.

More fundamentally, this is the modus operandi of our entire corporate economy, and indeed, this is largely why an entire legal framework was enacted to grant corporate charters and legal status to entities whose primary goal was to spread responsibility and accountability away from themselves and onto the public at large. That is, wealth extracted from public resources is to be privatized, but all the costs and risks are to be socialized. By any definition this is socialism for the rich. Similar examples are also found in the recent financial disasters which set world economies into deep recessions. There was much talk about how fantastic new financial "products" would "spread the risk" associated with financial and investment activity and somehow benefit everyone. But who's risk was being spread? Why should the risks associated with speculation and investments of wealthy individuals and institutions be spread to others? These rich investors who essentially demand the right to unlimited returns should accept their own risks! I certainly don't want them. Similarly, BP and other oil companies should accept all the risks associated with their oil production activities, and not seek to spread them to the public at large.

While hopefully this tragic episode will lead to serious questioning of our present, unsustainable energy policy, we should also consider the bigger picture of corporate control and dominance of our economic lives.