So, oil rigs haven't been exploding for decades? Here's the real scoop.

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/17/AR2010071702807.html?sid=ST2010071800894

"The article about the number of oil-related incidents in the Gulf of Mexico outpacing the ability of the Minerals Management Service to investigate them said that the agency, recently renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, received 12,087 reports of such incidents over the past five years. That is the currenct number of Incidents of Non-Compliance reported to the agency, but not all were in the gulf; a small percentage of the incidents occurred in Alaska or elsewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The number includes relatively minor matters such as inspection violations; as the article reported, the number of incidents involving deaths, injuries, fires and blowouts was much lower. According to a database on the agency's Web site, the number of serious incidents in the gulf totals 650 to 850 a year.


Until now, 60 inspectors were tasked with investigating all types of incidents. Between 2006 and 2009, those included 30 worker deaths, 1,298 injuries, 514 fires and 23 blowouts that left wells out of control. They conducted 378 investigations in the gulf in roughly the same time period, with 21 considered worthy of more rigorous and extended scrutiny by a panel."



http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1984296,00.html

If You Must Know
Just How Dangerous Are Oil Rigs, Anyway?
By Kayla Webley Saturday, Apr. 24, 2010


"In 2008, 120 people were killed in the oil and gas industry, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of those, 21 people died in the oil and gas extraction industry, which includes offshore oil rigs.


The Minerals Management Service, which oversees offshore drilling, reported 39 fires or explosions in the first five months of 2009. The good news is most of those incidents were minor and did not result in death; the bad news is that they even occurred at all."

[JuniperLea]

1. I guess we only heard about the BP spill...

Because the impact would never go unnoticed.

[Raster]

2. I suspect more than just a small element of truth here. The BP "spill" was not so easy to cover-up.

The tentacles of the Petroleum Mafia are far-reaching, into just about every major politician on the Gulf Coast.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. I have a question.

If The Minerals Management Service has been re-named the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
who will manage the minerals that are not in the ocean?
Esp. all those important minerals in Afghanistan and Africa and The Rockies?


Wait,,,I ahve 2 questions, actually.

How does renaming the agency actually make anything change, except the letter head?
No one got fired, did they?
Brought up on charges?
anything?

[nc4bo]

4. I can't erase the fact that oil industry personnel and MMS were literally in bed with one another

MMS = Mmmm, Mmmm, Sex and dope and parties and favors and gifts, etc.

Real fox/chicken house shit.

Like another poster just said, renaming doesn't mean squat. They just polished up a turd.