There is much inevitable criticism of any oil company when something catastrophic happens such as a giant oil leak. BP has been in the daily news for so long you begin to fear for its Communications team who must be up all the UK hours of work and then have to stay at their phones for when Texas and Louisiana wakes up. I expect they are sleeping at HQ.
And naturally, Tony Hayward, the head honcho at BP takes the flak.
There has though been a deafening silence from the US oil and gas regulators; my hunch is there's something in the water.
Could it be true, and I am only repeating something that was going the rounds in Doha last week, that there should be four levels of safety for an off-shore oil or gas platform and that the US regulators only have insisited on three?
Can somebody out there tell us whether there is any truth in these speculative stories?