BP Wants to Do What?!

By Cydney Mavian

On Thursday, June 24, 2010, The New York Times reported that BP wants to drill three miles off the coast of Alaska because there is thought to be a giant oil reservoir somewhere down there in the water. Honestly? I mean, honestly?

Whose bright idea was it to only address offshore drilling in the Obama administration’s moratorium? I bet the BP employee who caught that loophole is getting a major summer bonus as a thank you, or maybe just immunity from being fired for at least another week.

Regardless, it is obvious that BP is the company equivalent of a bad boy, you know, one that likes to take risks. BP is the type of boy that has no respect for authority, or anyone else for that matter.

This is one huge risk to take, especially after April’s catastrophe in which millions of gallons of oil leaked and is still leaking into the Gulf Coast.

Let’s present the facts here- First of all; BP’s newest drilling plan is called Liberty, a word that is synonymous with freedom. I’m glad BP is invoking its right to freedom, but its last effort to drill for oil ended up enslaving America because we have been forced to endure the damage caused by the company.

Secondly, The New York Times reports that Project Liberty is planning to drill “two miles under the sea and then six to eight miles horizontally to reach what is believed to be a 100-million-barrel reservoir of oil under federal waters.” The existence of this so-called reservoir isn’t even confirmed and BP wants to go fishing during a global wide crisis that it caused?

Evidently drilling isn’t the problem here so much as the company doing the drilling. The Obama administration’s moratorium should have been placed on any and all BP drilling, and it should have skipped the whole offshore drilling thing altogether.

After that oil disaster in April happened, I don’t think any drilling company is brave enough, or stupid enough, to make plans to drill for at least ten years. I won’t even buy gas from a BP affiliated gas station because the company is full of bad decision makers and all it cares about is itself.

Seriously, BP has to be stopped before it ruins any more lives, aquatic or not.

Another fact about this Liberty Project is that it plans to use a new method of drilling called extended-reach drilling. The New York Times reports that according to engineers, “this type of drilling is riskier and more complicated than traditional drilling because it is relatively new and gas kicks are more frequent and tougher to detect.”

Let’s review the facts- BP has created a new project called Liberty, which plans to drill off the coast of Alaska in search of a 100-million-barrel oil reservoir that might not even exist using the extended-reach drilling method that is new and comes with a long list of negative side effects. Fantastic.

A six-year-old child is smart enough not to do something that they already got in trouble for. There has to be some disconnect with BP. Perhaps somewhere along the way the company lost a few of its marbles and now they aren’t playing with a full deck.

Whatever the case may be the company needs to stop. BP is digging its own grave. BP is weaving a very tangled web. Drilling for oil will be the death of this company, and that death needs to come soon because I’m tired of hearing about its stupid decisions.

Enough is enough.