Transocean Ltd. is the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor. The company rents floating mobile drill rigs, along with the equipment and personnel for operations, to oil and gas companies. The Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deepwater, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig. Cameron International Corporation is another player. It is the manufacturer of the blowout preventer that was used at the Deepwater Horizon rig, operated by Transocean. Halliburton is the world’s second largest oilfield services corporation with operations in more than 70 countries. Halliburton plays a special role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster as it is directly linked to the cement failure causing the spill and explosion. Cement around the drilling pipe was “the single most-important factor in 18 of 39 well blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over a 14-year period.” Halliburton was also the cementer on a well that suffered a big blowout in 2005, I believe, in the Timor Sea, off Australia. Tim Probert, Halliburton’s environmental officer, said his company was only following BP’s orders. “Oil rigs don’t explode as a result of a cement job,” he added. I agree! We have three facts that give me problems: First we have a defect in cementing. Second we have a complete failure of the Blowout Preventer including all built-in back-up features. What is the probability that BOTH events happen at the same time? Third, we have an explosion, neither caused by the faulty cement plug nor by the BOP failure. So …
Video Rating: 5 / 5
Jesse Ventura was born in 1951 in Minneapolis. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the US Navy, where he joined the Special Forces and served as a UDT/SEAL from 1969 to 1973. After being honorably discharged from the Navy, he returned to Minnesota and, while attending community college, started training to become a professional wrestler. Ventura began his successful professional wrestling career in 1975. In the early to mid ’80s, he moved from performing in the ring to color commentator. In 1987, Ventura starred alongside fellow future governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the hit film Predator. He has gone on to be featured in numerous films and television shows, including a fan-favorite appearance on The X-Files playing a “Man in Black.” The 1990s saw Ventura enter the political arena, serving as Mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minn., and in 1998 as Governor of Minnesota. After he left office, Ventura was a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is a New York Times best-selling author of five books and currently resides in Minnesota and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
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