Platts: The top 10 oil stories of 2010

1) BP Macondo well blows out, rig collapses, 11 men killed, flows for three months

2) Korea’s KNOC acquires Dana in hostile takeover

3) Big oil producers plunge into US shale gas: Total, Shell, COP, CNOOC

4) Obama administration slaps on drilling moratorium in wake of Macondo, lifts it in October

5) ESPO crude from eastern Russia begins to make its mark in various markets

6) Shale gas drilling raises prospect of NGL surplus

7) Shallow water permitting slows to crawl after Macondo; Gulf of Mexico lease sale unlikely until 2012

8) Iraq signs deals for West Qurna, Zubair, others; Rumaila ramping up

9) World demand on steady upward rise, bigger jump seen in ’11

10) Dodd-Frank bill approved, could limit trader activities, require position limits

This, apparently, is what pollsters talk about when they try to do a truly “random” sample. Randomness is why you can pull off a legitimate sample that is supposed to take the pulse of, say, the entire United States, when you only seek the opinions of 1,200 people.

We did our annual survey of the top 10 oil stories of 2010. We didn’t put the entire Macondo story under one heading; there were simply too many aspects to it, so we split it into several.

But the main choice, the one we figured would be number 1, was listed as “BP Macondo well blows out, rig collapses, 11 men killed, flows for three months.” And it was number one; no surprise.

What was a surprise was what followed it:” “Korea’s KNOC acquires Dana in hostile takeover.” For every three votes Macondo got as #1, KNOC-Dana got two. We tip our hat to the various people, probably at KNOC, who voted this story so high in our poll. (There were limits; an IP address could only record one vote). Still, it would be hard to imagine a completely dispassionate review of the events of 2010 deciding that this was the second-biggest story of the year.

But them’s the rules; this survey is not set up to meet the pollster definition of “random.” Still, looking over what came in as the top 10, and what was below them, there aren’t too many stories not in the top 10 that stick out as “this should have been a lot higher.”

So here is our list of the top 10 stories of 2010, voted on by visitors to our site. What we’ve done is taken the total number of votes for each story, and multiplied that by 10, to give a weighting. Let’s just hope that next year’s top stories won’t involve the loss of 11 human lives; don’t look past that fact when thinking of Macondo.

Platts