In Support of British Petroleum

Last week, I pulled into a gasoline station in Ottawa, Kansas. They had 20 pumps. Every pump had a plastic sack around the nozzle because they had no gasoline. It made me realize how much we take for granted companies like BP.

Now I know British Petroleum doesn’t produce gasoline, although they might own a refinery or two. But they do drill for and supply oil to many countries, including the United States. They are, without a doubt, a critical ingredient in my ability to efficiently purchase gasoline at the local gas station.

In my view, BP has received a total bad rap for the oil spill in the Gulf. Most Americans, and clearly the administration, are anxious to jump on the “beat up BP” bandwagon. I’m not so fast to board. Perhaps being an engineer, or at least trained as an engineer, I appreciate the incredible risk, difficulty, and courage it takes to drill for oil, build drilling platforms, distribute the oil through large pipes, and do it rain, snow, sleet, sun, high water, or any other kind of weather condition that is thrown upon them. I am the direct beneficiary of their efforts when I pulled into that Ottawa Kansas gas station.

Until the pumps are dry, we just assume that we have gas at the local gas station. But I don’t see any of us writing letters to BP thanking them every time they invest $100 million in building an oil rig or sending their engineers, administration people, and families off to never-never-land parts of the world to try and find new oil. We just assume the whole thing is a piece of cake—anyone can do it. Well I can’t do it, and I hesitate to say that without trained engineers who are willing to take the incredible risks of drilling for oil in unusually dangerous conditions, there’d be more gas stations without gas. I don’t believe for a minute that we should take this for granted, and I don’t believe for another minute that we should hang the very company that supplies us our lifeline and keeps our economy, at least what is left of it after the Democrats have shredded it, going.

Sure, I know the president of BP made some cavalier comments that no doubt were taken out of context and blown incredibly out of proportion. He lost his job or at least his CEO job. It certainly wasn’t his fault that the oil spill occurred. It’ll be years before any negligence is ever proven on the part of BP. More than likely it will never be negligence. The engineering technology that is involved in drilling for oil thousands of feet beneath the ocean’s surface on a floating platform for 99.99% of the population is not trivial. BP has to design a drilling platform, engineer it, and even when all that is done, recognize that there’s still incredible risks.

No, you can’t design all the risks out of it. The risks are always there. The government knows this fact well. For example, Washington spent billions on the NASA program to eliminate the risks. The risks were there. We lost many pilots and had some incredible tragedies. It didn’t stop us from pursuing the program. Hopefully even with the bad press that BP is getting and in my mind clearly not warranted, hopefully they won’t stop drilling and investing in oil either. If they simply walked away from drilling for oil for America, I wouldn’t blame them,

There are plenty of countries that BP could sell oil to that would be a little more understanding when the probabilities of an accident run out and one occurs. Drilling for oil is risky business. By nature, there is going to be calamities. If you don’t want oil, don’t drill.

I for one believe BP has got a totally bad rap and clearly hasn’t received any thank you letters for all the work they’ve done for the last 30 years and helping us keep our economy going full speed ahead.

There is an even more interesting g story behind the $20 billion BP “put up” for the victims of the spill. Keep following me, I will reveal who really “put up” the money, or do you already know.

Keep following. It can only get better.