BP Should Produce From Macondo Well (Or Donate It To Us)

PRESIDENT'S CORNER

By Norris McDonald

Now that the Macondo Well has been capped and the 'static kill' has worked, BP should proceed to producing oil from that field. We suspect that BP and the federal government will come to the same conclusion once the November 'political season' is over. I think there is evidence of this having read The Washington Post account:

"Before Macondo receives a conclusive dose of mud and cement at its base via a relief well, engineers want to take the old, damaged blowout preventer off the wellhead and replace it with a new blowout preventer. That will delay the "bottom kill" until after Labor Day, according to retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander."

Clearly, installing a new blowout preventer signals that BP wants to produce from this well. We agree with this approach. A significant portion of the money from such production should go directly to the families of the 11 people killed during the April 20, 2010 explosion. Additional revenues should go to economic relief for the Gulf economies that have been negative affected by the oil spill disaster. After all, according to The Post:

"The entire reservoir contains upward of 50 million barrels of oil, according to BP."

Do the math. Today's price for crude oil is $74 per barrel. That is at least $3.7 billion. The Center requested a five percent ownership share of the Macondo Well in June. Of course, BP turned down our proposal. We also requested such an ownership share from their partners (Anadarko 25% owner and Mitsui 10% owner) in the Macondo field. We have not heard from them yet. If these companies do not have the will to produce from the Macondo well, they should just donate it to us outright and we will produce from that site. (Wash Post, 8/21/2010)