Where are the meetings of the whizzbangs of the US and the world who have the brains, resources and even the eccentricity to take on the fixing of the mess in the Gulf that the US Government and the Oil and Gas industry seem to have left to the incompetents to correct?
Continuing to rely on BP really is like hiring "Atta boy Brownie" and his buddies to clean up the Gulf Mess because they have experience in such Gulf region disasters!
Where is the Howard Hughes of 2010? Bear with me, especially you younger folks--
In the 1970's the US Government got the late eccentric industrialist Howard Hughes to build a unique ship called the Glomar Explorer to retrieve a sunk Soviet Submarine. Here are the key points:
Soviet submarine K-129 (1960)
K-129 was a Project 629A (NATO reporting name Golf-II) diesel-electric powered submarine of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, one of six Project 629 strategic ballistic missile submarines attached to the 15th Submarine Squadron based at Rybachiy Naval Base, Kamchatka, commanded by Rear Admiral Rudolf A. Golosov. In January 1968, the 15th Submarine Squadron was part of the 29th Ballistic Missile Division at Rybachiy, commanded by Admiral Viktor A. Dygalo. K-129's commander was Captain First Rank V.I. Kobzar. K-129 carried hull number 722 on her final deployment.
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In early August 1968, the wreck of K-129 was pinpointed by the USS Halibut (SSGN-587) northwest of Oahu, at an approximate depth of 16,000 feet (4,900 m). The wreck was surveyed in detail over the next three weeks by Halibut reportedly with over 20,000 closeup photos- and later also possibly by Bathyscaphe Trieste II.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(Golf_II)
The US Government decided to try to locate and obtain some of the pieces of the submarine off the sea floor and got the late Howard Hughes to build the Glomar Explorer—see below--
GSF Explorer, formerly USNS Glomar Explorer (T-AG-193), is a deep-sea drillship platform initially built for the United States Central Intelligence Agency Special Activities Division, secret operation, Project Azorian, to recover the sunken Soviet submarine, K-129, that was lost in April 1968.[2][3]
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Since the K-129 had sunk in very deep water, a large ship was required for the recovery operation. Such a vessel would easily be spotted by Soviet vessels, which might then interfere with the operation, so an elaborate cover story was developed. The CIA contacted the businessman Howard Hughes, who agreed to assist.[5]
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In September 1978, Ocean Minerals Company consortium of Mountain View, California announced that it had leased the Hughes Glomar Explorer and that in November would begin testing a prototype deepsea mining system in the Pacific Ocean. The consortium included subsidiaries of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, Royal Dutch Shell, and Boskalis Westminster Group NV of the Netherlands. Another partner, and the prime contractor, was the Lockheed Missile and Space Company.
In 1997, the ship was taken to Cascade General for modifications that converted her to a dynamically-positioned deep sea drilling ship, capable of drilling in waters of 7,500 feet (2,300 m) and, with some modification, up to 11,500 feet (3,500 m), which is 2,000 feet (610 m) deeper than any other existing rig. The conversion cost over $180 million and was completed during the first quarter of 1998.
The conversion of the vessel in 1997 was the start of a 30-year lease from the U.S. Navy to Global Marine Drilling. Global Marine merged with Santa Fe International Corporation in 2001 to become GlobalSantaFe Corporation, which merged with Transocean Inc. in November 2007 and operates the vessel as the GSF Explorer.
The GSF Explorer is currently on hire to a consortium led by Marathon Oil, to drill offshore Indonesia until March 2012.[10]
. . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSF_Explorer
In addition to resources currently under the control or available to the US Government, presumably, the Glomar Explorer, various deep sea submersibles, like the Bathyscaphe Trieste series and submarines, there are numerous global companies other than BP that have deep sea capacity.
In the recent Financial Times article on the impact of deep water drillers of the BP mess the following comment is sent out describing the financial impact on some of them:
Energy companies suffer big declines in US
By Masa Serdarevic in New York
Published: June 2 2010 03:00 | Last updated: June 2 2010 03:00
Transocean , the deepwater driller and owner of the oil rig, lost 11.9 per cent to $50.04 and Halliburton , a contractor on the oil rig, declined 14.8 per cent to $21.15.
Among the session's biggest fallers were oil drillers and energy-related stocks. Diamond Offshore slumped 7.3 per cent to $58.51, Smith International fell 8.3 per cent to $34.45 and Schlumberger retreated 7.8 per cent to $51.75.
See: Financial Times,June 2, 2010, print and web editions
http://www.ft.com/...
Presumably some of them would be subject to being hired or otherwise encouraged to pool their resources of individually supply equipment and experienced personnel to assist the US Coast Guard, even if they don’t want to step on BP’s toes.
(See: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/... about Shell, Dana Petroleum, Olexco of Canada, Talisman Energy, that drill in the North Sea)
Where is the next Howard Hughes---Bill Gates, Steven Jobs, Larry Ellison, George Soros, etc.? Are you out there and ready to help do it or fund it like Howard Hughes did with the Glomar Explorer?