Thread: Oil and natural gas drilling in U.S. waters

Gulf oil leak may be bigger than BP says

By RAY HENRY, HARRY R. WEBER and SETH BORENSTEIN,
Associated Press Writers Ray Henry, Harry R. Weber
And Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Writers
2 hrs 6 mins ago


NEW ORLEANS – While BP is capturing more oil from its blown-out well with every passing day, scientists on a team analyzing the flow said Tuesday that the amount of crude still escaping into the Gulf of Mexico may be considerably greater than what the government and the company have claimed.
Their assertions — combined with BP's rush to build a bigger cap and its apparent difficulty in immediately processing all the oil being collected — have only added to the impression that the company is still floundering in dealing with the catastrophe.

The cap that was put on the ruptured well last week collected about 620,000 gallons of oil on Monday and another 330,000 from midnight to noon on Tuesday and funneled it to a ship at the surface, said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man on the crisis. That would mean the cap is capturing better than half of the oil, based on the government's estimate that around 600,000 to 1.2 million gallons a day are leaking from the bottom of the sea.

The undersea efforts came as BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles struck an upbeat tone about the anticipated progress of the oil containment in the next week. Suttles told The Associated Press in a stop in Alabama that the arrival of a second vessel in the coming days to help pump the oil from the deepwater gusher could help engineers make even more progress, even as others continued to criticize BP over its handling of the disaster.

A team of researchers and government officials assembled by the Coast Guard and run by the director of the U.S. Geological Survey is studying the flow rate and hopes to present its latest findings in the coming days on what is already the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

In an interview with The Associated Press, team member and Purdue University engineering professor Steve Wereley said it was a "reasonable conclusion" but not the team's final one to say that the daily flow rate is, in fact, somewhere between 798,000 gallons and 1.8 million gallons.

"BP is claiming they're capturing the majority of the flow, which I think is going to be proven wrong in short order," Wereley said. "Why don't they show the American public the before-and-after shots?"

He added: "It's strictly an estimation, and they are portraying it as fact."

Other members of the team also told AP they expect their findings to show higher numbers than the current government estimate, but they weren't ready to say how much higher.

To install the containment device snugly, BP engineers had to cut away the twisted and broken well pipe. That increased the flow of oil, similar to what happens when a kink is removed from a garden hose. BP and others warned that would happen, and the government said the increase amounted to about 20 percent.

Asked about the containment effort and the uncertainties in estimating how much oil is escaping, Allen said: "I have never said this is going well. We're throwing everything we've got."

Paul Bommer, a University of Texas petroleum and geosystems engineering professor and member of the flow rate team, said cap seems to have made a "dent" in reducing the flow, but there is still a lot of oil coming out. That seemed clear from the underwater "spillcam" video, which continued to show a big plume of gas and oil billowing into the water.

The current equipment collecting the oil being brought to the surface is believed to be nearing its daily processing capacity. BP said it will boost capacity by bringing in a floating platform it believes can process most of the flow, and believes the extra pumping power can help reduce the spill even more by early next week, when President Barack Obama is scheduled to make his fourth visit to the Gulf since the disaster began.

The company also said it will use a device that vaporizes and burns off oil while working to design a new cap that can capture more crude.

Suttles initially said that the spill should be reduced to a "relative trickle" by Monday or Tuesday. BP later sought to clarify the comments by saying that even though the company is optimistic it can make measurable progress in the next week in reducing the flow, it will take more time to reach the point that the spill amounts to a trickle.
In the seven weeks since the oil rig explosion that set off the catastrophe, BP has had to improvise at every turn. The most recent government estimates put the total amount of oil lost at 23.7 million to 51.5 million gallons.

"I think virtually everybody from BP to the state to the Coast Guard was caught flat-footed and did not expect a spill of this magnitude," said Ed Overton, a professor of environmental sciences at Louisiana State University. "Everybody has been playing catch-up."

When asked why BP did not have containment systems on standby in case of a leak, BP spokesman Robert Wine said there was no reason to think an accident on this scale was likely.

"It's unprecedented," he said. "That's why these caps weren't there before."

Kenneth Arnold, an offshore drilling consultant and engineer, said the reason a bigger cap wasn't installed first was that BP probably wanted to start with what it could do quickly, which he said makes sense. He said BP has been working several solutions all along in parallel and deploying them as they can.

"They haven't been waiting for one to fail and then employing the next one," Arnold said.
He added: "The idea you can wave your arm at this and come to a magical solution is just from someone who doesn't understand the problem. We as a nation are used to instant gratification. There is a problem. We want someone to fix it tomorrow. Things are not always that easy."



More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill

Originally Posted by James48843

"I hope BP mans up and does what's right" ???


What are you expecting them to do?

Here's your hint- those animals are just the few that have been unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And they are perhaps one millionth of the number of animals killed when this is over. Remember- they are keeping cameras away from a lot of the areas, and there will be oil fouling things FOR YEARS ahead out of this one.

Read and remember the Brown Pelican, which was just taken off the endangered species list last year. It was down to a few breeding pairs in 1970 after the California spill. It has grown back to several thousand birds- but most of them in the marshes along the Gulf Coast. Many have already been found dead. I think this is going to threatened their very survival again.


Bad, bad news.


BP can't do a thing about it.

The oil is there. No flotilla in the world is going to be able to coral that oil. It's going to go where it wants. And, if they are lucky, they'll be able to pick up perhaps 10% of it over the next decade or two.

The rest will just sit- and wait to decay. Wait for mother earth to scrub it clean. But that is going to take some time. Exxon Valdez (1989) was one fifth the size this one is going to become, and they are still finding Exxon Valdez oil pockets today.

Don't question my sincerity Jim!!!!!!!!!!!!...I take personal offense to your tone...I don't need a lecture, especially from you, your a$$hole reply was not warranted…I'm fully aware of all that is going on with this crisis...Get down off your high horse once in a while and address people like you are not looking down your nose at them here...Are you ever capable of having a discussion without coming off with your elitist, condescending manner?

AP Essay: Gov't flunks test of trust in Gulf

Nobody led.
Not the president of the United States. Not the chief executive of BP. Not Congress, federal agencies or local elected officials. From its fiery beginning, the Gulf oil spill has stood as a concentrated reminder of why, over four decades, Americans have lost faith in nearly every national institution.

Like Hurricane Katrina, a natural disaster that caused voters to question then-President George W. Bush's credibility, the poisonous geyser at the Gulf's floor threatens to undermine Barack Obama's presidency. More alarmingly, the spill exacerbates the worry that this nation founded on the principle of trust now faces a crisis of faith in its public and private institutions - government and big business particularly.

Before paid cleanup crews started work, the volunteers pulled on rubber gloves and picked up the gooey mess. As they did so, Kaiser said this: "Six months from now the government will lie to us and say everything is fine."

How did we get to this point where people EXPECT their government to lie to them? And what does it say about where we're headed?

Less than two years removed from an election victory built on his promise to fix Washington's broken institutions, Obama now seems a captive of them. His administration's regulators cozied up to the oil industry before the spill and moved slowly afterward to seize control. The president himself often seemed detached.

Who else dropped the ball?

-BP and its chief executive, Tony Hayward. As his company's oil filled up the Gulf, he had the audacity to complain that "I'd like my life back."

-The Minerals Management Service, the regulatory agency that failed to clean up its act despite Obama's promise during the campaign to end the "cozy relationship" between the oil industry and federal regulators.

-Even the Coast Guard - the one agency that survived Katrina with its image enhanced - is now being criticized for its lack of transparency and command.

And the public stews. Listen to Billy Nugesser, president of the coastal Plaquemines Parish: "We are dying a slow death here."

The public's unconditional faith in national institutions is dying, too.


http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/0...test-test.html

There is a lot of blame to go around. And the folks calling for a moratorium on all drilling and mining, because it is dangerous, doesn't have the sense God gave a goose. More people are killed driving, so by the above logic, we should a moratrorium on driving, because it is dangerous. We gotta get a grip on reality here, we need to drive or we just go back to horses, which I ride all the time, and we need energy or we go back to aaahhh, horse again.

And it used to be innocent until rpoven guilty, but this thuggish regime is already place blame and guilt, well he'd better look at his own people also and since he called for the firing on BP's CEO, maybe BO had better step down also, because the last I looked the Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service are part of "his Company"

Oh yeah, don't drive a GM or the windshield wiper fluid may burst into flames, fire the CEO, oh yeah that's BO again since the Gov't owns 62% of Government Motors. That was part of paying off the loan that GM so proudly announced. Heck folks all they did was dump that and the pension on the American people.

The recall of GM cars doesn't bother me, because that will continue to be a way of life, recallls. But when did we became such a nation of whiners and crybabies, until Uncle Sugar comes in to wipe our noses? I'm pretty disgusted. The Government needs to get outta our lifes and quit telling us what to do and how to live.

Take the Poll:
http://news1.newsmax.com/bpspill/?PROMO_CODE=9FA3-1



Current Results:
http://polls.newsmax.com/results/bpspill.html

Originally Posted by Buster

Don't question my sincerity Jim!!!!!!!!!!!!...I take personal offense to your tone...I don't need a lecture, especially from you, your a$$hole reply was not warranted…I'm fully aware of all that is going on with this crisis...Get down off your high horse once in a while and address people like you are not looking down your nose at them here...Are you ever capable of having a discussion without coming off with your elitist, condescending manner?

I'm not questioning your sincerity.

I asked what do you expect them to do?

I don't know of anything they COULD do at this point.

What did you have in mind when you said you wanted them to man up and do the right thing?

New info- volume is much higher than previous reports. Coast Guard guy today says think they will be capturing 28,000 barrels a day by next week. CAPTURING 28,000 barrels a day.

I wonder how much is actually flowing.

Allen says 630,000 gallons of oil captured daily

56 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen says the oil spill containment operation in the Gulf of Mexico is now catching up to 630,000 gallons daily.

Assessing efforts to restrain the oil spill, Allen told reporters that "we continue to make progress," although he said reinforcement help is on the way, including the expected arrival of a shuttle tanker from the North Sea within the next few days.

He also said he hopes capacity of the existing containment structure can be increased soon to roughly 1.17 million gallons daily.

"We're only at 15 (15,000 barrels) now and we'll be at 28 (28,000 barrels) next week. We're building capacity," Allen said. "They'll probably go back at that point and put a cap back on it. At some point, there'll probably have to be a transition between a containment cap and a regular cap."

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_oil_spill_administration

Everyone has an agenda.
BP needs those numbers to come in as low as possible. It will have a direct impact on how much this is going to cost them. But don't think for a minute that there are not figures coming in from other sources that are not tied to funding dollars down the road.
I am in no way saying that evrybody is guilty of deflating or inflating the numbers but the game is being played by more than just BP.
And those that say more is escaping now than before are eye fooled by the way the cap expanded the release zone. If they are capturing one drop per minute it is less escaping than before.

Woman dumps fake oil on herself to protest Gulf liability cap

By the CNN Wire Staff
June 9, 2010 2:27 p.m. EDT


Washington (CNN) -- Public anguish over the growing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico took center stage on Capitol Hill on Wednesday as a woman dumped simulated oil on herself during a Senate hearing in a graphic expression of support for legislation lifting oil companies' current liability cap.

"We're tired of the bailouts and we're tired of being dumped on in the Gulf," protester Diane Wilson yelled during the start of a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing.

Wilson, who was arrested, described herself as a fourth-generation shrimper from the Gulf. She interrupted opening remarks by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of several Republicans who have expressed opposition to lifting the $75 million cap.

"I am seeing the destruction of my community and I am outraged," Wilson added in a statement released by the activist group Code Pink. "I am also seeing elected representatives like Sen. Lisa Murkowski blocking BP from being legally responsible to pay for this catastrophe. ... This is outrageous."

Several top congressional Democrats -- with the backing of the White House -- are pushing for a complete removal of the liability cap. Some Republicans, however, have warned that doing so could lead to the creation of a new energy monopoly while increasing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/...ility.protest/

Red tape vexes Gulf residents seeking BP payments

GRAND ISLE, La. – The reefs that David Walter makes for anglers to drop into the Gulf of Mexico are fake, but his frustration as he tries to win compensation from BP for lost income is real.
State regulators stopped issuing permits for the reefs on May 4 because of the oil spill, effectively killing off $350,000 in Walter's expected business. It sent him into a labyrinth of archived invoices and documents lost by BP. Finally, an offer came: $5,000.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100610/...gulf_oil_spill

Watching the news reports from 1979, you'd think you are listening to today's news about the gulf oil spill. Back then, the oil spill lasted about 10 months. They tried capping it (Operation Sombrero...), throwing metal balls into it, catching the oil, etc...

Fab....We didn't have the internet and cable news back then and so the crisis hype wasn't so rabid..

Oil Spills and Disasters

The following list includes major oil spills since 1967.

1967 March 18, Cornwall, Eng.: Torrey Canyon ran aground, spilling 38 million gallons

1977 April, North Sea: blowout of well in Ekofisk oil field leaked 81 million gallons.

1978 March 16, off Portsall, France: wrecked supertanker Amoco Cadiz spilled 68 million gallons,

1979 June 3, Gulf of Mexico: spilling an estimated 140 million gallons

July 19, Tobago: , spilling 46 million gallons of crude.

1983 Feb. 4, Persian Gulf, Iran: Nowruz Field platform spilled 80 million gallons of oil.

Aug. 6, Cape Town, South Africa: the Spanish tanker Castillo de Bellver caught fire, spilling 78 million gallons

Nov. 10, Saint John's, Newfoundland: Odyssey spilled 43 million gallons.

1989 March 24, Prince William Sound, Alaska: tanker Exxon Valdez hit an undersea reef and spilled 10 million–plus gallons

Jan. 23–27, southern Kuwait: during the Persian Gulf War, Iraq deliberately released 240–460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf

April 11, Genoa, Italy: Haven spilled 42 million gallons

May 28, Angola: ABT Summer exploded and leaked 15–78 million gallons

1992 March 2, Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan: 88 million gallons of oil spilled from an oil well.

April 24, Gulf of Mexico: The Deepwater Horizon, a semi-submersible drilling rig, sank on April 22, after an April 20th explosion on the vessel. Eleven people died in the blast. When the rig sank, the riser—the 5,000-foot-long pipe that connects the wellhead to the rig—became detached and began leaking oil. In addition, U.S. Coast Guard investigators discovered a leak in the wellhead itself. As much as 25,000 barrels (1,050,000 gallons) of oil per day were leaking into the water, threatening wildlife along the Louisiana Coast. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared it a "spill of national significance." BP (British Petroleum), which leased the Deepwater Horizon, is responsible for the cleanup, but the U.S. Navy supplied the company with resources to help contain the slick. Oil reached the Louisiana shore on April 30, affected about 125 miles of coast. By early June, oil had also reached Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. It is the largest oil spill in U.S. history. 1,050,000 gallons/day x ~45 days = 47,250,000 gallons so far...

Remember: during the Persian Gulf War, Iraq deliberately released 240–460 million gallons