'Not for public': the oil spill may be getting much worse

[2012 Countdown]

Thank you for posting.

[2012 Countdown]

BP Oil Still Washing Ashore One Year After End of Gulf Spill
By Jim Polson - Jul 15, 2011 4:52 AM CT

Crude oil continues to wash ashore along the Gulf of Mexico coast a year after BP Plc (BP/) stopped the flow from its damaged Macondo well, which caused the worst U.S. offshore spill, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
On June 4, the last available tally from field inspections, 530 miles of coastline in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida remained contaminated by oil, said Tim Zink, a spokesman for the agency. That’s down from a high of 1,074 miles. The U.S. government estimates that 4.9 million barrels were spilled into the Gulf from Macondo before London-based BP succeeded in capping the flow a year ago today.
“I’d characterize it as a light sheen and tar balls of all shapes and sizes,” Zink said in an interview yesterday. “For roughly the first year, it was heavy, moderate to light oiling. This is light.”
The pollution of Gulf coast beaches is one of several headwinds BP faces as Europe’s second-largest oil company seeks to rebuild its business and reputation in the U.S. The U.K. oil producer’s share price remains about 30 percent below its pre- spill level and has gained 13 percent since the spill ended.
How long the oiling will persist, the extent of damage it has caused and how much it may yet inflict it still being studied. A November estimate by NOAA, disputed by BP, found about 1.1 million barrels of oil unaccounted for after adjusting for amounts that were recovered, dispersed into the sea, burned and evaporated into the air. NOAA is investigating a surge in deaths of baby dolphins along the Gulf coast during the spring calving season, Zink said.
Cleanup Workers
As of June 7, 1,162 people were still employed in spill clean-up, the U.S. Coast Guard reported. That’s down from a peak of 48,200 staff a year ago. William Benson, a Coast Guard spokesman in New Orleans, said officials weren’t available to discuss the details of the clean-up efforts.
Compounding the difficulty of calculating how much oil may remain to wash ashore or harm wildlife is a dispute between BP and NOAA over how much escaped from the well during the 87-day spill. The Macondo well began spilling into the Gulf April 20, 2010, after Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank 40 miles (62 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast. After stopping the leak on July 15, 2010, the well was plugged by cement and declared dead by the government Sept. 19.
The volume of oil spilled into the Gulf is key to determining the size of penalties that could be levied against the company for violations of U.S. environmental laws. The catastrophe killed 11 rig workers, injured 17, destroyed a $365 million drilling vessel and shut thousands of square miles of fishing grounds for months.
Spill Estimate Disputed
BP has said the U.S. government’s estimate of 4.9 million barrels overstated the spill. BP said in its 2010 annual report that the spill probably was closer to 4 million barrels, of which 850,000 barrels were captured, burned or skimmed off the water.
The 23 percent of the oil NOAA can’t account for may have settled to the bottom of the sea or remain suspended in the water as tar balls that currents may eventually wash ashore, the agency said. The estimate hasn’t been revised, agency spokesman John Ewald said.
“We really didn’t mount the comprehensive kinds of sampling studies or mappings required to better assess where the oil was distributed initially and where it eventually ended up,” Robert Weisberg, a professor of Physical Oceanography at the University of South Florida, said yesterday in an interview.
Mounting Bills
BP spokesman Tom Mueller didn’t respond to questions about the company’s estimate of spillage or damage. Payments for damage claims and cleanup costs reached $6.57 billion as of July 7, according to a BP website.
The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, funded with $500 million from BP in payments spread over 10 years, announced $1.5 million of “stop-gap” grants for oil sampling June 30. The Initiative is reviewing another round of proposals for work to be done beginning in September, according to its website.
“There will be additional work done,” Weisberg said. “These monies will do more to prepare us for some subsequent environmental assault than shed much light on the Deepwater Horizon event. It’s a little too late.”
NOAA has collected 44,800 samples as evidence for a National Resource Damage Assessment, Zink said. The NRDA is an official determination of the damage BP caused, which will be the basis for fines to be levied. The samples include 17,365 from sediment and 12,647 from water, he said. About half have been validated by third parties, he said.
‘Get a Picture’
“We’re starting to get a picture of the damage that was done,” Zink said. “At the end of the day, it’s a legal case.”
BP in April agreed to fund $1 billion of restoration projects, and an initial restoration plan may be released this year after consultation with the trustee council for the oil spill, comprised of two federal agencies and representatives of the affected states, Zink said.
Seafood harvested in the Gulf of Mexico is safe, NOAA declared in a March 4 statement. A third of the Gulf was closed to fishing at the height of the spill.

---
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-1 ... spill.html

[Saurian Tail]

Derrick Jensen posted a link to this article this in his forum under the title "You can't make this stuff up ..."

Remember BP's Tony Hayward? He's trying to get his life back in northern Minnesota

By Don Shelby | Published Tue, Jul 26 2011 9:09 am



Tony Hayward has been hired by Glencore as the executive expert in charge of environment and safety.

http://www.minnpost.com/donshelby/2011/ ... dium=email

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://www.firstenercastfinancial.com/n ... rm-us-gulf

Sheen Seen Emanating From BP Thunderhorse Platform In US Gulf

Published: Aug 17, 2011

HOUSTON (Dow Jones)- A band of silvery sheen was spotted emanating from BP PLC's (BP, BP.LN) Thunderhorse platform Tuesday in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, though the company said that it has taken action to prevent further discharges, according to a government filing.

A two-foot-wide band of sheen stretching 30 feet from the platform, which is located in deep water south of the Mississippi-Alabama state line, was reported to the National Response Center on Tuesday.

BP told federal pollution regulators that the unspecified substance came from a discharge pipe and that it was adjusting waste treatment chemicals on the platform to remediate the problem, according to the filing.

A BP spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[2012 Countdown]

Not BP, but certainly adheres to the thread title...

Report: Exxon fights US over major oil discovery
August 18, 2011 10:02 AM ET.

NEW YORK (AP) - Exxon and the federal government are fighting over one of the largest oil discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico that could yield billions of dollars of crude in coming years, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The Julia oil field, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) southwest of New Orleans, may hold more than 700 million barrels of oil and gas equivalent. Exxon, which announced the discovery in June, wants to tap that field. But the Interior Department says Exxon's leases have expired and the company hasn't met requirements for an extension.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and part-owner Statoil have filed separate lawsuits in a Louisiana federal court to preserve the leases.

http://money.msn.com/business-news/arti ... d=14150999

====

My money would be on Exxon winning the despute, and getting Gov't. subsidies to do it!

[Saurian Tail]

Is the Deepwater Horizon well leaking?

Deepwater trouble on the horizon: oil discovered floating near source of Gulf of Mexico spill
Published: Wednesday, August 24, 2011, 7:08 PM Updated: Thursday, August 25, 2011, 10:56 AM
By Ben Raines, Press-Register Press-Register

http://blog.al.com/live/2011/08/deepwat ... horiz.html

MOBILE, Alabama -- Oil is once again fouling the Gulf of Mexico around the Deepwater Horizon well, which was capped a little over a year ago.

Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of small, circular patches of oily sheen dotted the surface within a mile of the wellhead. With just a bare sheen present over about a quarter-mile, the scene was a far cry from the massive slick that covered the Gulf last summer.

Floating in a boat near the well site, Press-Register reporters watched blobs of oil rise to the surface and bloom into iridescent yellow patches. Those patches quickly expanded into rainbow sheens 4 to 5 feet across.

Each expanding bloom released a pronounced and pungent petroleum smell. Most of the oil was located in a patch about 50 yards wide and a quarter of a mile long.

The source of the oil was unclear, but a chemical analysis by Louisiana State University scientists confirmed that it was a sweet Louisiana crude, and could possibly be from BP PLC’s well.

The oil could be flowing from a natural seep on the seafloor near the wellhead, experts said. Other possibilities include oil trapped within the wreckage of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, or oil deposited on the bottom during the spill that is slowly working its way to the surface.

The most troubling possibility, according to petroleum engineers, is that oil is leaking up through the seafloor surrounding the sealed well pipe.

Last week, in response to Internet postings by lawyers and environmental groups describing a leak, BP issued a blanket denial, stating, “None of this is true.”

Subsequently, the Gulf Restoration Network and Bonny Schumaker with On Wings of Care took aerial photographs of circles of oil floating in the area Friday. The group filed a report with the National Response Center, the federal clearinghouse for pollution incidents.
Oil emerges in Gulf near Deepwater Horizon well Oil emerges in Gulf near Deepwater Horizon well In this video shot near the site of the Deepwater Horizon accident, globs of oil are seen blooming on the Gulf surface in iridescent yellow circles. Chemical analysis of the Press-Register's samples by LSU scientists found that the oil could be from the BP well, but results were not conclusive. BP meanwhile said no oil was present when the company flew over the area Saturday. Watch video

“We stand by what we said last week, neither BP nor the Coast Guard has seen any scientific evidence that oil is leaking from the Macondo well, which was permanently sealed almost a year ago,” BP spokesman Justin Saia wrote in an emailed statement Wednesday. “We welcome the opportunity to test any hydrocarbon sheens detected in the area of the well.”

U.S. Coast Guard officials said Wednesday that the earlier reports were investigated by flying over the site.

The Coast Guard determined that the reported sheens resulted from “natural seeps” and permitted pollution releases at other oil drilling sites. Coast Guard officials did not elaborate when asked how those determinations were made, and said that no boats had visited the well location since the reports were filed.

“I think the primary source with high probability is associated with the Macondo well,” said Robert Bea, an internationally prominent petroleum engineer and professor emeritus at the Berkeley campus of the University of California. Bea responded to Press-Register questions via email after examining photographs taken by the newspaper.

“Perhaps connections that developed between the well annulus (outside the casing), the reservoir sands about 17,000 feet below the seafloor, and the natural seep fault features” could provide a pathway for oil to move from deep underground to the seafloor, Bea said.

“Looks suspicious. The point of surfacing about 1 mile from the well is about the point that the oil should show up, given the seafloor at 5,000 feet ... natural circulation currents would cause the drift,” Bea said. “A Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) could be used to ‘back track’ the oil that is rising to the surface to determine the source. This should be a first order of business to confirm the source.”

>> continued at link <<

[seemslikeadream]

I don't know what to think about this guy...I suppose not much




I'd suggest watching this instead


and this channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/deniselngbch

[StarmanSkye]

Damn.

How about sending a one-quart container of this 'beach sand' thru the mail to your representatives? Getting busted for sending 'toxic waste' thru the mails would sure help dramatize what a horrible situation we've inherited.

Shouldn't there be something like a major project to get a fleet of industrial water-skimmer treatment-barges working 24-7 around largest bays and where offshore oil blooms are most pronounced?

The featured vid is heartbreaking.

[2012 Countdown]

Tropical Storm Lee exposes old oil from BP spill
Posted: Sep 13, 2011 7:56 AM CDT
Updated: Sep 13, 2011 7:56 AM CDT

PORT FOURCHON, La. (AP) - BP PLC is sending cleanup crews back to Fourchon (foo-SHONH') Beach because erosion from Tropical Storm Lee unearthed miles of tar balls, tar mats and abandoned cleanup equipment left from last year's oil spill.

Company spokesman Curtis Thomas tells The Courier (http://bit.ly/q62h7J ) that 90 workers and 17 technicians will clean the beach, with the work going on seven days a week.

In addition to the old oil, the erosion uncovered PVC pipes used to secure boom and snares used to absorb oil.

The oil was found by field inspector Forrest Travirca of the Edward Wisner Donation - a private land trust that owns about 9.5 miles of Fourchon Beach. He estimates that eight miles of the beach are affected.

He found the oil while checking for damage from Tropical Storm Lee.


Information from: The Courier,
http://www.houmatoday.com

[Nordic]

Tropical Storm Lee exposes old oil from BP spill
Posted: Sep 13, 2011 7:56 AM CDT
Updated: Sep 13, 2011 7:56 AM CDT

PORT FOURCHON, La. (AP) - BP PLC is sending cleanup crews back to Fourchon (foo-SHONH') Beach because erosion from Tropical Storm Lee unearthed miles of tar balls, tar mats and abandoned cleanup equipment left from last year's oil spill.

Company spokesman Curtis Thomas tells The Courier (http://bit.ly/q62h7J ) that 90 workers and 17 technicians will clean the beach, with the work going on seven days a week.

In addition to the old oil, the erosion uncovered PVC pipes used to secure boom and snares used to absorb oil.

The oil was found by field inspector Forrest Travirca of the Edward Wisner Donation - a private land trust that owns about 9.5 miles of Fourchon Beach. He estimates that eight miles of the beach are affected.

He found the oil while checking for damage from Tropical Storm Lee.


Information from: The Courier,
http://www.houmatoday.com

Gee, think they just buried it?



No, of course not!

[82_28]

The biggest thing is that it is such an existential conundrum about sentient life on Earth herself. I mean, she can spew any old time she wants, if she wanted to. But it wasn't until human meddling that shit started to get outta hand.

Beverly Hillbillies. God it's been a long time since I've seen that show.

But there is more than meets the eye in how the oil industry has been controlled, what we know of their history, and even more ancient history than that and how they recognized it, immediately, as something to fuel a combustible engine and build the world of plastics we now live within. Believe me, there is a lot more that we just don't know. We're just used to looking at it as a down home American ingenuity thing (at least here in America). I think there is far more to it. . .

[82_28]

Someone far smarter than I and with a little time on their hands as me and lady are about to go to the store should look into any occult meanings of the structure of the hydrocarbon. Not that the hydrocarbon was "invented" by occult organizations, but that it was recognized and was possibly known to possess properties that would further propel empire.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocarbons

May be "way out there", but there is, I feel, more a reason for this than we actually realize, if we're to take for granted ancient technologies serious and the disasters today, created by it.

Ugh. More later. Brain swirl. . .

[Jeff]

No end in sight for oil in the Gulf of Mexico

Fresh oil seepages raise questions about further problems with BP's damaged oil well.

Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 13 Sep 2011 15:06

Fifteen months after BP's crippled Macondo Well in the Gulf of Mexico caused one of the worst environmental disasters in US history, oil and oil sheen covering several square kilometers of water are surfacing not far from BP's well.

Al Jazeera flew to the area on Sunday, September 11, and spotted a swath of silvery oil sheen, approximately 7 km long and 10 to 50 meters wide, at a location roughly 19 km northeast of the now-capped Macondo 252 well.

According to oil trackers with the organisation On Wings of Care, who have been monitoring the new oil since early August, rainbow-tinted slicks and thicker globs of oil have been consistently visible in the area.

"BP and NOAA [National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration] have had all these ships out there doing grid searches looking at things, so hopefully now they'll take a look at this," Bonny Schumaker, president and pilot of On Wings of Care, told Al Jazeera while flying over the oil.

Schumaker has logged approximately 500 hours of flight time monitoring the area around the Macondo well for oil, and has flown scientists from NASA, USGS, and oil chemistry scientists to observe conditions resulting from BP's oil disaster that began in April 2010.

Edward Overton, a professor emeritus at Louisiana State University's environmental sciences department, examined data from recent samples taken of the new oil.

Overton, who is also a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) contractor, told Al Jazeera, "After examining the data, I think it's a dead ringer for the MC252 [Macondo Well] oil, as good a match as I've seen".

He explained that the samples were analysed and compared to "the known Macondo oil fingerprint, and it was a very, very close match".

While not ruling out the possibility that oil could be seeping out of the giant reservoir, which would be the worst-case scenario, Overton believes the oil currently reaching the surface is likely from oil that was trapped in the damaged rigging on the seafloor.

He said the oil could either be leaking from the broken riser pipe that connected the Deepwater Horizon to the well, or that oil is leaking from the Deepwater Horizon itself.

...

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/fe ... 09550.html

[2012 Countdown]

More BP mistakes in Gulf of Mexico oil spill revealed in new evidence

Published: Tuesday, September 13, 2011, 8:30 PM Updated: Wednesday, September 14, 2011, 2:20 PM

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill ... of_me.html

====


Tar balls on Alabama beaches linked to Gulf of Mexico oil spill

Published: Wednesday, September 14, 2011, 8:00 AM
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill ... hes_l.html

====
Gulf oil rig explosion, spill blamed on poor management decisions Published: Wednesday, September 14, 2011, 9:41 AM

A key federal report blames poor management, key missteps and a faulty cement job by BP and others for the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history and the deaths of 11 rig workers. The details, released Wednesday, were contained in the final report from an investigation team of the U.S. Coast Guard and the agency that regulates offshore drilling.

The panel held hearings over the course of a year following the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon tragedy. The Coast Guard-Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement investigation was among the most exhaustive.

Other investigations have faulted misreadings of key data, the failure of the blowout preventer to stop the flow of oil to the sea, and other shortcomings by executives, engineers and rig crew members.


http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill ... ill_b.html

=====

Gulf oil rig disaster traced to companies' failure to follow federal safety regulations
Published: Wednesday, September 14, 2011, 1:08 PM

WASHINGTON -- BP, Transocean and Halliburton all violated federal offshore safety regulations in a sloppy run-up to the blowout of the Macondo well last year that killed 11 workers and caused the worst offshore oil spill in the country's history. Costs appear to have been more carefully calculated than risks, according to federal investigators, who especially pointed a finger at a faulty cement job as "a central cause" of the disaster.

"The loss of life at the Macondo site on April 20, 2010, and the subsequent pollution of the Gulf of Mexico through the summer of 2010, were the result of poor risk management, last-minute changes to plans, failure to observe and respond to critical indicators, inadequate well control response, and insufficient emergency bridge response training by companies and individuals responsible for drilling at the Macondo well and for the operation of the Deepwater Horizon," the Joint Investigation Team of the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard, concluded in the second and final volume of their investigatory report, which was released Wednesday.

The 212-page report includes a damning chart in which it lists seven critical decisions by BP -- for example, using six instead of 21 centralizers and the failure to do a test known as cement bond log -- and in each case, the choice was less costly to BP, required less rig time, and, in six of the seven cases, posed greater risk.

The JIT"s conclusion: "BP's failure to fully assess the risks associated with a number of operational decisions leading up to the blowout was a contributing cause of the Macondo blowout," and "BP's cost- or time-saving decisions without considering contingencies and mitigation were contributing causes of the Macondo blowout."

The report notes that "at the time of the blowout, operations at Macondo were significantly behind schedule" and more than $58 million over budget. The Deepwater Horizon was supposed to have moved onto another BP well on March 8.

The JIT panel particularly found that "a central cause of the blowout was failure of a cement barrier in the production casing string, a high-strength steel pipe set in a well to ensure well integrity and to allow future production. The failure of the cement barrier allowed hydrocarbons to flow up the wellbore, through the riser and onto the rig, resulting in the blowout."

While the report said that it can't be sure of why the cement job failed, it offered three likely scenarios: the swapping of cement and drilling mud in the section of the casing near the bottom of the well, known as the "shoe track;" contamination of the mud in the shoe track, or the pumping of the cement past the target location in the well, leaving the shoe truck with little or no cement.

While the cement job was Halliburton's responsibility, the report notes that "in the days leading up to April 20, BP made a series of decisions that complicated cementing operations, added incremental risk, and may have contributed to the ultimate failure of the cement job."

Those decisions included the use of only one cement barrier, setting the casing in a location that created a greater risk that there would be an influx of hydrocarbons, the decision to install a lock-down sleeve as part of its temporary abandonment procedure, and the failure to perform the production casing cement job in accordance with industry-accepted recommendations.

The panel also concluded that BP didn't let Transocean, the operator of the rig, know about the increased operational risk inherent in these decisions.

The report concludes: "With the known losses experienced in the well, BP's failure to take additional precautions, such as establishing additional barriers during cementing, was a contributing cause of the blowout," and that "BP's failure to inform the parties operating on its behalf of all known risks associated with Macondo well operations was a contributing cause of the blowout."

Compounding the peril, the JIT found that BP and Transocean did not conduct an accurate test to assess the integrity of the cement job and the rig's crew "performed temporary abandonment procedures while unaware of the failed cement job beneath them and the looming influx of hydrocarbons."

The panel also found that rig crew, missing signs of a kick, reacted too late to the developing disaster, and that by the time they activated the emergency disconnect system, the explosions had damaged the cable and hydraulic lines, rendering the blowout preventer's blind shear rams inoperable.

"The force of the blowout and possibly the force from drill pipe in the riser, buckled the drill pipe and placed it in a position where it could not be completely sheared by the blind shear ram blades," the report states. "As a result, the blind shear ram, when activated on either April 20 or April 22, could not shear the drill pipe and seal the wellbore. Flow from the Macondo well continued for 87 days after the blowout, spewing almost 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico."

BOEMRE, which with the Coast Guard, conducted the investigation, is the successor agency to the Minerals Management Service, which at the time of the spill, was the Interior Department agency responsible for regulating offshore drilling. After the disaster, BOEMRE was created to replace MMS, and Michael Bromwich was named its new director.

In the year-and-half since the blowout, BOEMRE has overhauled the regulatory regime and imposed higher and more stringent standards, many of which are in keeping with the recommendations contained in the JIT report released Wednesday. Bromwich said he was waiting until the report's release to provide advance notice of new regulatory rule-making that, mindful of the conclusions of the investigation, will impose additional safety requirements on those seeking to drill offshore.

The report makes a series of recommendations for improved well design, better well integrity testing, the use of more accurate devices to detect a kick early, better assessment and testing of safety devices, improvement in blow out preventer stack configuration, and standardization of remotely-operated vehicles intervention capabilities.

The JIT found that BP, Transocean and Halliburton violated a number of federal regulations, including their failure to take necessary precautions to keep the well under control at all time; the failure by BP to "protect health, safety, property, and the environment by (1) performing all operations in a safe and workmanlike manner; and (2) maintaining all equipment and work areas in a safecondition;" the failure by BP and Halliburton to cement the well properly; the failure of BP to perform adequate tests, and the failure of BP and Transocean to conduct major inspections of all blow-out preventer stack components.

BOEMRE would be responsible for any regulatory action based on these alleged violations.

Both BP and Transocean issued statements in response to the issuance of the report.

In its statement BP said it "agrees with the report's core conclusion -- consistent with every other official investigation -- that the Deepwater Horizon accident was the result of multiple causes, involving multiple parties, including Transocean and Halliburton. "

"From the outset, BP acknowledged its role in the accident and has taken concrete steps to further enhance safety and risk management throughout its global operations, including the implementation of new voluntary standards and practices in the Gulf of Mexico that exceed current regulatory requirements and strengthen the oversight of contractors," the statement continued. "We continue to encourage other parties to acknowledge their roles in the accident and make changes to help prevent similar accidents in the future. "

In its statement, Transocean said, "the report confirms that the primary cause of the incident was the catastrophic failure of the cement in the Macondo well, and finally puts to rest all previous allegations that improper maintenance of the BOP contributed to the tragedy. As the report rightly concludes, the magnitude of the hydrocarbon release made the ignition and explosion onboard the Deepwater Horizon unavoidable. We take strong exception to criticisms of the Horizon drill crew, nine of whom perished fighting to save their fellow crewmembers and the rig, for the actions they took in the face of such an unprecedented emergency."



http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill ... olate.html

[Hugo Farnsworth]

Wow, truth appears! We should take pictures of it.