Gulf of Mexico oil spill

[Barking_Mad]

no, after it.

There's 42 US gallons to a barrel of oil btw.

 

[xes]

fuck me check the CNN live link, that's coming out faster than I've seen it so far.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream3&hpt=T1

 

[Dandred]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-oil-spill-stopped-top-kill-link,0,1045555.story?track=rss

according to this, it's worked. Which means that the BP feed is a loop (as it's still showing the spill pumping out loads of gunk.....)

http://www.youtube.com/pbsnewshour?feature=ticker


looks like mud.......not any black oil......

Hope that is that.


I doubt it.

 

[Barking_Mad]

From a seemingly well respected poster on the Oil Drum forum

Just got an update from someone not directly involved but knows some who are. So far BP has pumped 30,000 bbls of kill mud. The volume needed to fill the production csg up for its entire 13,000' length is around 1,400 bbls. Needless to say most of the mud is not going down hole. Supposedly BP has ordered more mud. I believe they had 50,000 bbls on board initially. Hopefully they'l have more mud ready soon. If they have to turn the mud pumps off they could easily flow back and lose every bbl they've managed to get down hole so far.

when asked about the amount of mud being lost and whether it was a concern he replied,

I KNOW nothing but I suspect it might not be working. I thought of a way folks could look at the effort in a manner they can more easily visualize. Here goes: there is a fire hydrant open full force. Putting out 7 ppg water at 80 psi at a RATE OF 500 GALLONS PER MINUTE.. Now I want to stop that water from coming up the main by pointing another fire hose at it. Unfortanately I can't connect the hose directly to the hydrant because the threads are messed up (i.e. bad BOP). So all I can do is hold the end of the hose close to the opening of the hydrant. My hose is putting out 500 gallons of 16.5 ppg mud at a pressure of 80 psi. So can I stop the water flowing from the hydrant? Nope...the pressures are the same. At best the two streams hit each other and the total flows out of the gap.

This is the problem I've had with the top kill from the start. I've been on rigs where we've pumped a successful kill pill. But the well was shut in. All we had to do was pump in at a pressure greater that the shut in pressure of the well. The pressured mud would push whatever was in the well downwards. But the BP well isn't shut in...it's flowing. How much force do you need to apply to a river to make it flow upstream? I know folks were holding out for the top kill to work so I didn't want to be too negative. But if they couldn't get a very tight seal on the BOP I couldn't envision how they could get the flow to stop let alone flow backwards down the csg. But as I'v said before I'm not an engineer...

 

[Barking_Mad]

meanwhile...

Marine scientists have discovered a massive new plume of what they believe to be oil deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico, stretching 22 miles from the leaking wellhead northeast toward Mobile Bay, Alabama.

The discovery by researchers on the University of South Florida College of Marine Science's Weatherbird II vessel is the second significant undersea plume recorded since the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20.

The thick plume was detected just beneath the surface down to about 3,300 feet, and is more than 6 miles wide, said David Hollander, associate professor of chemical oceanography at the school.

Hollander said the team detected the thickest amount of hydrocarbons, likely from the oil spewing from the blown out well, at about 1,300 feet in the same spot on two separate days this week.

The discovery was important, he said, because it confirmed that the substance found in the water was not naturally occurring and that the plume was at its highest concentration in deeper waters. The researchers will use further testing to determine whether the hydrocarbons they found are the result of dispersants or the emulsification of oil as it traveled away from the well.

The first such plume detected by scientists stretched from the well southwest toward the open sea, but this new undersea oil cloud is headed miles inland into shallower waters where many fish and other species reproduce.

The researchers say they are worried these undersea plumes may are the result of the unprecedented use of chemical dispersants to break up the oil a mile undersea at the site of the leak.

Hollander said the oil they detected has dissolved into the water, and is no longer visible, leading to fears from researchers that the toxicity from the oil and dispersants could pose a big danger to fish larvae and filter feeders such as sperm whales.

"There are two elements to it," Hollander said. "The plume reaching waters on the continental shelf could have a toxic effect on fish larvae, and we also may see a long term response as it cascades up the food web."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hXrdaztYWC4b-nfTbBOcb6bX0a5gD9FVA8TG1

 

[Barking_Mad]

As the poster i referred to above put it (my italics)

You stick a tube down the pipe and start pumping cement. Question: how long for the cement to harden? Answer: never. The cement is going to mix with the water and flow out the end of the pipe. Honest...I didn't dumb down this example. That's exactly what would happen if the pumped cmt down the blow out if it were still flowing. No one has ever set a cement plug into a flowing well in the history of the oil business. But you can shove a packer down a producing csg string and stop or at least slow a flow considerably. But can't shove a packer down this hole: can't get it through the BOP. And if you could there's drill pipe in the way.

Sorry to be such a downer but I thought BP might have come up with a clever idea they weren't talking about. So far I still haven't heard of it.

 

[Barking_Mad]

An article re: the claim that this leak is not the 'real' problem. At the bottom there is the video interview with Matt Simmons..

2010 oil spill update: BP may be trying to stop the wrong leak

While all eyes have been on the video of the oil coming out of the broken riser on the Gulf floor, industry experts believe there is “an elephant behind the mouse.”

Much like the wreckage of the Titanic, debris from the Deepwater Horizon explosion may be scattered. The majority of the oil may be coming from another hole.

Approximately 6 miles from what BP and others believe is the main leak, there is a massive plume. It’s location is unexplained in relation to the ‘main leak.’

However, if the plume came from another leak which is thought to be the “elephant behind the mouse,” it would explain why there has been so much confusion about the spill rate, and why there is so much oil on the surface.

“All that oil didn’t come from that little dinky hole,” industry expert Matthew Simons said.

Simmons believes that when the Deepwater Horizon exploded, "the riser blew off the wellhead and it’s still hooked to the rig,” about 7 miles away.

Therefore, even if BP claims that the “top kill” is successful, it still may not stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Chairman of Wow Energy Solutions, Nicholas Possi agrees with Simmons - BP has not only missed the main target, they may have actually “made it worse.”

Possi said BP has wasted a lot of time and that the only way to stop the leaks is to detonate a bomb in a location that would seal the well. At this point, he added, “This is a military operation.”

The article then links to this piece

Plume from BP oil spill heading for Gulf loop current: Florida facing catastrophic damage

An oil plume 10 miles long and 3 miles wide is heading for the Gulf of Mexico loop current. Once it is picked up, the oil slick that some estimates have placed at 100 million gallons, will take a 450 mile journey, along Florida's west coast and on to the Florida Keys. The effect on wildlife and the economy will be catastrophic.

“This subsurface goo is a new problem,” Science guy Bill Nye said of the floating plume hovering just above the ocean floor. “There is a loop that could very easily carry this thing to the coast.”

....

Once the spill enters the Gulf loop current, it enters the Atlantic Ocean and heads for Europe.

http://www.examiner.com/x-17299-Her...op-current-Florida-facing-catastrophic-damage

 

[Barking_Mad]

Oil spill map - looking at this, if it is accurate, would suggest the surface area of this spill is roughly the same size as Wales.

http://paulrademacher.com/oilspill/#cardiff

 

[Barking_Mad]

US Coastguard says between 18.5m and 29m gallons of oil have leaked so far. 29m gallons is 690,000 barrels of oil.

 

[mincepie]

Clean up chemicals sound grim

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/27/crews-involved-in-oil-recovery-feeling-sick-boats-recalled/

 

[Barking_Mad]

It has failed. In fact it has been 16 hours since they stopped pumping in mud, but they have only just said so. Next stop another gp but with a junk shot of rubber strips and balls. This perhaps not surprisingly apparently has less chance of working.

After this it's a relief well which isn't guaranteed to work first time either and won't be ready until August.

All this when hurricane season is about to start and the Gulf of Mexico is 4c warmer than usual. That scenario is....

 

[ferrelhadley]

All this when hurricane season is about to start and the Gulf of Mexico is 4c warmer than usual. That scenario is....

The GOM is only slightly above average. The issues with hurricane season are the breading ground near the Azores are very warm, this is where the waves pick up the moisture and thundery activity before beging to form up and rotate as they approach the western side of the Atlantic. Other major factors is the lack of el Nino now, infact along the equator now in the Pacific it is looking somewhat like a la Nina is forming. Youd need to see the pressure differential between Tahiti and Darwin to be sure but it does look like some upwelling is on the go their, nuteral and la Nina conditions reduce windsheet (verticle wind movement) in the Atlantic basin area where hurricanes breed. However storm activity helps with oil slicks. It breaks up the oil and makes it easier for bacteria to digest.

With this one though the big joker in the pack is the deep water oil spill that will not be affected by hurricanes.

 

[skyscraper101]

The Simpsons was very topical tonight mentioning the BP Oil spill. It was a last minute overdub replacing an existing gag - a bit crudely done (fnar) at the last minute, but it was quite funny.

Basically in the episode 'Judge Me Tender' there was a gag at the end in Mo's bar where Rupert Murdoch (doing his own guest voice no less) is sat at the bar and asks Mo to put on the Jay Leno show on the TV. When Mo switches it on Leno is doing a gag: " Hey, I just got word from the president that Iran has gotten hold of the most dangerous weapon known to man - the BP Oil Rig - but I know how to make it go away... put it on NBC."

It's a reference to a long running NBC scheduling/ratings fiasco involving Leno and Conan O'Brien last year. If you listen closely you can even tell the VO actor changes in the same sentence so it was obviously dropped in well after it was originally completed. Still it nicely complemented an earlier joke 'Lost' spoiler in the opening credits (also topical, due to a ratings battle between the Simpsons and Lost).

 

[dilute micro]

I don't blame Obama for the poor response so far because there isn't that much the federal gov can do. They don't have the tech and expertise to deal with something like this and if anything they could only take charge of BP's and it's clear BP is in over their head.

What is for sure - Obama wouldn't give one damn about the corruption with the oil industry had none of this happened.

Obama on Thursday announced new restrictions on oil drilling, including continuing a moratorium on drilling permits for six months, suspending planned exploratory drilling off the coasts of Alaska and Virginia and ordering a halt to 33 exploratory deep-water rigs in the Gulf.

Obama also singled out a half dozen areas where he and his administration could have done better, including not moving sooner to end "cozy and sometimes corrupt" relations between the oil industry and government regulators and not getting a better estimate on the amount of oil gushing from the broken well.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iR2u7XhbCuEUcJvZiPBPetOzSlDAD9FVN0684

 

[Barking_Mad]

Scientists have found evidence of a large underwater "plume" of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, adding to fears that much of the BP oil spill's impact is hidden beneath the surface.

The scientists, aboard a University of South Florida research vessel, found an area of dissolved oil that is about six miles wide, and extends from the surface down to a depth of about 3,200 feet, said Professor David Hollander.

Hollander said that he believed the plume might have stretched more than 20 miles from the site of a leak on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, where the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank April 22. It has not yet reached Florida.

The plume is clear, with the oil entirely dissolved.

"Here is a situation where, unless you're looking at the chemical fingerprints, [the oil] is absolutely not visible," Hollander said. "It's not some Italian vinaigrette or anything like that. It's absolutely, perfectly clear."

But, Hollander said, even this clear-looking water could contain enough oil to be toxic to small animals at the base of the gulf food chain. He said he was also worried that the oil contains traces of "dispersants," soap-like chemicals sprayed into the oil to break it up.

"You don't want to put soap into a fish tank," Hollander said.

This discovery seems to confirm the fears of some scientists that -- because of the depth of the leak and the heavy use of chemical "dispersants" -- this spill was behaving differently than others. Instead of floating on top of the water, it may be moving beneath it.

That would be troubling because it could mean the oil would slip past coastal defenses such as "containment booms" designed to stop it on the surface. Already, scientists and officials in Louisiana have reported finding thick oil washing ashore despite the presence of floating booms.

It would also be a problem for hidden ecosystems deep under the gulf. There, scientists say, the oil could be absorbed by tiny animals and enter a food chain that builds to large, beloved sport-fish like red snapper. It might also glom on to deep-water coral formations, and cover the small animals that make up each piece of coral.

"It kills them because it prevents them from feeding," said Professor James H. Cowan Jr., of Louisiana State University. "It could essentially starve them to death."

The University of South Florida vessel, the Weatherbird II, used sonar and other devices to sample the water below it. Other scientists have said they have little of the equipment necessary to find oil under the water -- leading to debates about whether the underwater plumes were even there.
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This week, Mike Utsler, who helps oversee the spill response off the entire Louisiana coast as BP Houma incident commander, said he's only focused on taking oil off the surface. "We don't know there's oil underwater," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052703667.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Interesting maps of oil spill thanks to Google

http://mw1.google.com/mw-earth-vectordb/disaster/gulf_oil_spill/gulf_oil_map.html

 

[AKA pseudonym]

Probably mentioned.. but just in case....

BP could pay entire cost of cleanup with 3.8 days of profits | Raw Story

 

[goebfwai]

Carbon 'burp' from deep ocean kick-started global warming at end of last Ice Age http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ea...ed-global-warming-at-end-of-last-Ice-Age.html

Make you wonder what the climatic effects could be of all that unburnt methane spewing out with the crude oil spill in the Gulf (methane is said to be 20 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2)...?

 

[Falcon]

I'm not underplaying the magnitude of the impact. But it's worth keeping in mind that, even at the upper estimate of 100,000 barrels a day of unburned hydrocarbon entering the ocean, that's about 0.1% of the 80,000,000 barrels of hydrocarbon that enters the biosphere every day. Burning it, turning it into organophosphates and all that does not make it safer than dumping it in the water, just less visible. It will continue to do so long after this leak is fixed or dissipates, and is even planned to grow to 110,000,000 barrels a day in a decade or so.

Quite a bit of hysteria and righteousness around, I fancy, but I doubt many will dump their motors and wide screen tellyboxes as a consequence - the ultimate "root cause" (I have neither, by the way )

Relative volumes of water and atmosphere

 

[xes]

Apparently reports are coming in of the rain havng oil in it, in Florida.

Here's 1 account http://fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/environment/pollution/news.php?q=1274767889

 

[mincepie]

Steve Bertone, the chief engineer for Transocean, wrote in his witness statement that he ran up the bridge and heard the captain screaming at a worker for pressing the distress button. Bertone turned to Pleasant, who was manning the emergency disconnect system, and asked whether it had been engaged.

Pleasant told Bertone that he needed approval first, according to Bertone's sworn statement. Another manager tried to give the go-ahead, but someone else said the order needed to come from the rig's offshore installation manager.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100526/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_mistakes

This sounds much the same as Piper Alpha... Was nothing learnt?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_Alpha

The fire would have burnt out were it not being fed with oil from both Tartan and the Claymore platforms, the resulting back pressure forcing fresh fuel out of ruptured pipework on Piper, directly into the heart of the fire. The Claymore continued pumping until the second explosion because the manager had no permission from the Occidental control centre to shut down. Also, the connecting pipeline to Tartan continued to pump, as its manager had been directed by his superior.

 

[weltweit]

So BP are saying they may know in 48 hours if it is working.

BP are persona non grata in the USA at the moment and Obama is not earning brownie points from his handling of the situation.

 

[spring-peeper]

So BP are saying they may know in 48 hours if it is working.

BP are persona non grata in the USA at the moment and Obama is not earning brownie points from his handling of the situation.

Do you know if they have an alternative plan?

Just in case....

 

[weltweit]

Do you know if they have an alternative plan?

Just in case....

I think they just may have one more option..

They have tried the upside down funnel and that did not seem to work.

They are now trying to fill the leak with mud and cement.

I think the remaining option they may have is to drill down next to the well and deep down drill into the existing bore hole and try to pump out oil through that second drill hole, reducing the pressure at the main site of the leak.

I think that is an option but for some reason it was always stated that it would take a long time, I guess the have to get a new rig on site etc ..

 

[Barking_Mad]

So BP are saying they may know in 48 hours if it is working.

BP are persona non grata in the USA at the moment and Obama is not earning brownie points from his handling of the situation.

It has failed like the first attempt. Like the first attempt it failed a long time ago but they are still saying there is a chance it will work.

HOUSTON — BP’s renewed efforts at plugging the flow of oil from its runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico stalled again on Friday, as the company suspended pumping operations for the second time in two days, according to a technician involved with the response effort.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/us/29spill.html?hp

It appears there are more/bigger leaks also which by all accounts isn't surprising given the pressure they have applied to the already damaged equipment.

Meanwhile, dead fish
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/26/us/20100527-gulf-usergen-slideshow-7.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

I think they just may have one more option..

They have tried the upside down funnel and that did not seem to work.

They are now trying to fill the leak with mud and cement.

I think the remaining option they may have is to drill down next to the well and deep down drill into the existing bore hole and try to pump out oil through that second drill hole, reducing the pressure at the main site of the leak.

I think that is an option but for some reason it was always stated that it would take a long time, I guess the have to get a new rig on site etc ..

I think they are looking at cutting the riser (leaking pipe) from the BOP. They will then try and break inside the BOP to control the flow - from what i can work out....i believe this is the last chance other than to drill a relief well which takes time and is not guaranteed to work first time as essentially you are drilling 5000ft down and have to intersect a pipe with another newly drilled pipe...

 

[Barking_Mad]

Do you know if they have an alternative plan?

Just in case....

those who know more than most seem to think that the only real cert is to drill a relied well, which they are preparing to do - everything else is a bit of a stab in the dark which has to be tried but has a slim to no chance of working. There were many on the Oil Drum forum saying that the 60-70% chance for the mud and junk shot option was waaaay over estimated and was more like 10% at best.

 

[spring-peeper]

All this to save a bit of money on piping......

This may be out of place, but I'm so glad this happened in the gulf and not in the arctic. No-one would care if this happened up there. Down there, everyone is watching for many different reasons. I hope that those in power actually put better safety practices in, instead of sweeping it under the carpet as the guise of "cost of doing business".

 

[Falcon]

This may be out of place, but I'm so glad this happened in the gulf and not in the arctic. No-one would care if this happened up there.

Funny you should say that. For the entire duration of this fiasco, BP have been contesting the Canadian Government's safety requirement for them to pre-drill a $100m standby relief well in the Beaufort Sea as a safeguard for exactly this type of incident. If this were to have happened there at the end of the summer, they wouldn't be able to re-access the well until the spring due to pack ice and it would flow all winter.

Shits of the first water.

 

[Falcon]

Looks like (1) the top kill is failing and (2) this isn't the leak anyway. The real leak might be several miles away. Possibly the casing has blown and the reservoir is communicating directly to the ocean via a fracture in the sea floor. Makes sense: a Delaware+Maryland sized plume like that surely cannot have come from what you see on those videos, and they have discovered what appears to be another gigantic source (I can't quite make this out).

Next step (according to Simmons): tactical nukes (via the intelhub). Simmons is a pretty shrewd guy and has made a lot of money in the past on that basis. I wonder.