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BP Trying to Thread Mile-Long Tube to Help Plug Gulf Oil Leak; Obama Assails Drillers
HAMMOND, La. - At first, BP tried to stop the oil rushing into the Gulf of Mexico by flipping a blowout preventer switch. A week ago, they attempted to capture the leak with a 100-ton box. The latest experiment? Trying to guide a skinny, mile-long tube into the gusher.
Protesters rally at the BP Green Curve ARCO gas station during a national day of action against BP for its catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf Coast May 12, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. (REUTERS/David McNew) BP PLC technicians were gingerly moving joysticks to guide deep-sea robots and thread the 6-inch tube with a rubber stopper into the 21-inch pipe spewing oil from the ocean floor. That work continued Saturday morning for a second day, BP said.
The company also received word that federal regulators had approved spraying chemical dispersants beneath the sea, a contentious development because it has never been done underwater.
Traditionally used on the ocean surface, chemical dispersants act like a detergent to break the oil into small globules, which allows it to disperse more quickly into the water or air before currents can wash it ashore. Louisiana officials claim BP and the Environmental Protection Agency ignored their concerns about how the chemicals may harm the sea floor.
More than three weeks after the oil rig explosion that killed 11 workers and set off the disastrous spill, President Barack Obama assailed oil drillers and his own administration Friday as he ordered extra scrutiny of drilling permits. He condemned a "ridiculous spectacle" of oil executives shifting blame in congressional hearings and denounced a "cozy relationship" between the companies and the federal government.
"I will not tolerate more finger-pointing or irresponsibility," Obama said in the White House Rose Garden, flanked by members of his Cabinet.
"The system failed, and it failed badly. And for that, there is enough responsibility to go around. And all parties should be willing to accept it," the president said.
BP's Chief Executive Tony Hayward acknowledged the disaster will change the rules for deepwater drilling in U.S. waters.
"You can't have an incident of this seriousness and not expect significant changes as a consequence," Hayward said in a BBC Radio interview broadcast Saturday.
Obama's tone was a marked departure from the deliberate approach and mild chiding that had characterized his response since the rig went up in flames April 20 and sank two days later. At least 210,000 gallons of oil has been leaking into the Gulf each day, and BP has sought to burn the crude off the surface of the water, as well as use the chemical dispersants.
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said Friday that three underwater tests conducted at the leak site proved helpful at keeping oil from reaching the surface. So far more than 517,000 gallons of dispersants, most of which is a product called Corexit 9500 previously approved by EPA for use on the sea surface only, have been dropped over the spill or shot undersea.
Corexit 9500 is identified as a "moderate" human health hazard that can cause eye, skin or respiratory irritation with prolonged exposure, according to safety data documents. Louisiana Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine said federal regulators dismissed state worries about the chemicals.
"Our concerns about the use of these dispersants underwater is based on the fact that there is virtually no science that supports the use of those chemicals," Levine said. "We're trading off what we know is going to be environmental damage on the surface for environmental damage of a level we don't know that is going to be under the surface."
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said she reserves the right to halt the use of chemical dispersants at any time if new data show more serious environmental harm is occurring.
The Obama administration insists its response has been aggressive ever since the spill started, and the president said he shared the anger and frustration of those affected. He announced that the Interior Department would review whether the Minerals Management Service is following all environmental laws before issuing permits for offshore oil and gas development.
BP's drilling operation at Deepwater Horizon received a "categorical exclusion," which allows for expedited oil and gas drilling without the detailed environmental review that normally is required.
"It seems as if permits were too often issued based on little more than assurances of safety from the oil companies," Obama said.
Echoing President Ronald Reagan's comment on nuclear arms agreements with Moscow, he said, "To borrow an old phrase, we will trust but we will verify."
Obama already had announced a 30-day review of safety procedures on oil rigs and at wells before any additional oil leases could be granted. And earlier in the week Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced plans to split the much-criticized Minerals Management Service into two agencies, one that would be charged with inspecting oil rigs, investigating oil companies and enforcing safety regulations, while the other would oversee leases for drilling and collection of billions of dollars in royalties. Salazar has said the plan will ensure there is no conflict, "real or perceived," regarding the agency's functions.
Obama decried what he called "a cozy relationship between the oil companies and the federal agency that permits them to drill." But the president, who had earlier announced a limited expansion of offshore drilling that's now on hold, didn't back down from his support for domestic oil drilling.
This week executives from three oil companies - BP PLC, which was drilling the well, Transocean, which owned the rig, and Halliburton, which was doing cement work to cap the well - testified on Capitol Hill, each trying to blame the other for what may have caused the disaster.
"I did not appreciate what I considered to be a ridiculous spectacle during the congressional hearings into this matter. You had executives of BP and Transocean and Halliburton falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else," the president said.
Associated Press writers Erica Werner, Matthew Daly and Frederic J. Frommer in Washington, Jason Dearen in New Orleans and Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, La., contributed to this report.
92 Comments so far
Show AllMr Collins,
You need to start getting real with the estimates, you are
not hiding anything anymore.
And further more..........Screw President Obama !!!!!!!!!!
Please tell him that for me.
P.S.S. Anyone that would put Omar Kahdr on trial
is a chicken livered, coward, pussybreath, no count criminal.
Have they named these little robots yet? I want one
for my very own.
Why is BP able to get away with not sharing the video
of just what is going on down there?
And how do we know that the 15sec if video they gave us
was the big leak.
Also from the feed that someone on CD gave, it said
80% of the crude isn't coming to the surface.
"BP PLC technicians were gingerly moving joysticks to guide deep-sea robots and thread the 6-inch tube with a rubber stopper into the 21-inch pipe spewing oil from the ocean floor."
They're going to control the oil spewing from a 21-inch pipe with a rubber stoppered 6-inch tube?! What's wrong with this picture?
Even if they manage to fill the gap somehow, that rubber stopper should make a fine addition to all the orbiting space junk. Perhaps the've got Halliburton's cementing expertise lined up for the insertion match-making. It worked so well the last time.
My guess is that what is being described her is called a packer. It is a common device used in drilling that is capable of resisting very high pressures, assuming the riser or well casing isn't broken or about to break somewhere else.
The technophobia of journalists can get very annoying.
Yup. You're almost certainly right. The jouralistic description, however, inspired visions of a rubber stopper en route to a very remote destination. :^)
right... "gingerly"... now... gingerly do ANYTHING... to the force shown in the recent video...
years ago i was working on a golf course greens crew... 100's and 100's of yards out on the course... and one of the new guys was pushing his shovel gingerly back and forth just atop the grass... we were basically done... and there was nothing to do except wait for one guy doing some wrap up... and one the old hands says to the new guy... mockingly... what the f*** do your think you're doing... pushing your shovel gingerly back and forth??? the new guy just keeps doing it... then the old hand says... thats's good... thats's good... from the superintendent's office across the valley... it LOOKS LIKE you're doing SOMETHING... and not screwin' around...
hollow words
"At least 210,000 gallons of oil has been leaking into the Gulf each day, "
And the big lie is repeated once again. You're doing a helluva job, Collins.
After working decades in large corporations, their first instincts are to, sugar coat, mislead, misguide, or just plain lie, when anything goes wrong. IMHO you can GUARANTEE that if BP said it is spewing 5000 barrels a day that number HAS to be low, and probably way low. It is the corporate culture to mislead and lie. It is part of the vary foundations of corporatism. I learned first hand that management never wants to hear bad news, they would rather hear sugar coated B/S, than reality based bad news.
Can somebody please explain why the U.S. Navy hasn't dropped a torpedo into the end of that pipe to stop the gusher?
Or is that not happening so that they don't damage BP's well?
Obama's been watching this gusher for three weeks knowing that BP and his
Interior Department corporate shills were lying to us and handing out
27 additional permits since.
After a few days, I recall Obama jumping on top of it by heading out for a few rounds of golf.
Yeah, he really gives a shit.
Video images Obama's had acces to all along below. Watch this and weep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWJ6rFCmfoE&feature=player_embedded
A peripheral, but not unimportant point:
Please don't repeat the obviously inaccurate 5,000 BPD / 210,000 GPD.
As I pointed out early on, under 5000 feet of ocean, that "leak" might as well be on the moon.
There is an article on a Peak Oil sight "After Money"
by The Archdruid, JOhn Michael Greer. He describes what is happening to our world very well. As I have been saying for a while now (you're right, I'm no expert in any field especially economics) that our current economic problems are all part of the overall two big problems, Peak Oil and climate change and the economy will get worse not better because of these. This article more or less addresses this idea by going into, the tertiary economy, secondary economy, and Primary economy. He then goes into the fall of past empires, who eventually did not rely on "money" for trading or obtaining the necessities of life. Money, went away...it was of no use . Read it to get a better picture than I'm painting.
I believe the big picture is that this is abiogenic oil from the mantle.
At first it was reported this well was 13,000' into the seabed.
They are tapping the mantle's abiogenic oil, this could be a veritable Ocean of oil.
I understand that abiogenic oil is not commonly accepted but this much oil from thermophile bacteria, give me a break.
This is why they are considering nuking the hole.
This is why this extraction may cause more earthquakes and earth rotation alteration ( nor would this be commonly accepted by geologists but we do know who geologists commonly work for).
I agree with you, all the more reason
to leave it alone, the guy that believes
we should tap down 20,000 ft into the earth
for our energy needs , needs a tap in his
head no matter how oil is formed, the
Russians don'texactly have a great track
record with environmental safety.
Big Oil plus our complicit Congress and White House equals crimes against humanity and the environment. But of course they get a lot of help from the MIC and the Pentagon when it comes to energy wars.
The death and suffering in Iraq and Afghanistan are just two examples of the global corporate fascist state in action.
And now we have what appears to be the worst environmental disaster in world history brought on by a lack of regulation and incompetence by BP. While trying to cut operating costs BP opened up an undersea volcano of oil and gas.
And like the $4 Trillion Big Oil war crimes, the public will bear the real long term costs of the Deep Horizon blowout.
A VOLCANO OF OIL ERUPTING
http://pesn.com/2010/05/13/9501651_a_volcano_of_oil_erupting/
excerpt:
"The fact that the spill has reached land clearly states that the size of the spill is probably well above 200,000 barrels per day. Yes, that's BARRELS, not gallons. There are 42 gallons per barrel.
What we are seeing now could be small compared to what may yet unfold if things break apart, as they can do under such circumstances. If this thing blew, it could be like the Yellowstone Caldera, except from below a mile of sea, with a 1/4-mile opening, with up to 150,000 psi of oil and natural gas behind it.
That would be an extinction event.
It is not likely to happen, but it is within the realm of possibilities.
That's the kind of stuff we're playing with here."
Pluging the wrong end of a mile long leakey pipe?
I think Monty Python could do better.
This might seem silly but why not just turn off the tap at the well head?
Surely these giants of the oily industery put in a working tap.
Peak oil ? How about an ocean of oil from deep within the earth.
By applying their abiotic science of oil formation, the Russians are now outproducing Saudi Arabia.
The Russian abiotic science of oil formation has huge implications. Peak oil becomes a myth and there is no need (other than making money from war) to go to the other side of the planet and wage war for our domestic energy needs. Find some deep abiotic deposits in this hemisphere and expand renewable alternatives, along with a little conservation, and we would have more energy than we need.
How about putting $4 Trillion into solar instead of the Iraq/Afghan wars of aggression ?
If the military costs were factored in, the oil coming out of Iraq (ExxonMobil contract) actually costs taxpayers more than $1,000 a barrel.
The abiotic science also means there is more hydrocarbon fuel (oil, coal, methane) in the earth than our atmosphere can tolerate if burned without limitation.
However there is the corporate profit issue of Big Oil wanting to nail down Asian energy markets by gaining control of Middle East and Central Asian oil and gas resources.
American use of energy is actually declining. For the corporate energy criminals to continue to expand their profits they are looking at global markets.
They think a methane "bubble" (crystals converted to gas by the heat of the drying cement around the well casing) was the cause of the Deep Horizon blowout.
Methane is usually found with what some consider to be abiotic oil deposits.
Now the interesting part of the following article is that microbes/bacteria can be present at great ocean depths and formed chemically rather than biologically which could account for biomarkers present in oil from deep deposits. The Russians have hit vast oil deposits at 30,000-40,000 ft. It is my understanding that photosynthetic biological material is not found below 20,000 ft.
http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/190/cafe-methane
Hence, a good case in support of deep abiotic oil.
I think the fossil fuel theory of oil ranks with other delusional "scientific" views such as the earth being flat or that the sun revolves around the earth.
and some abiotic oil reading:
http://www.gasresources.net/
http://www.studien-von-zeitfragen.net/Zeitfragen/Petroleum/petroleum.html
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Peak_Oil___Russia/peak_oil___russia.html
http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Theory/SustainableOil/
http://www.lewrockwell.com/crispin/crispin11.html
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/266424
http://www.search.com/reference/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/abiogenic-petroleum-origin/evidence-supporting-abiogenic-theory.html
http://redstaterusa.blogspot.com/2009/06/abiotic-oil-makes-more-sense-than.h
gonzo, I think we have hit upon something, so to speak.
Why not torpedo the tube?
That is, why not torpedo the end of the pipe?
What happens when you blow up a hole under intense pressure, possibly an even larger hole.
When the deposit is finally empty, then they will find a way to cap it.
Hoa binh
the reporter writes: U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said Friday that three underwater tests conducted at the leak site proved helpful at keeping oil from reaching the surface.
the reporter would do well by researching this just a bit further. a copy of the epa/noaa press conference of may 12 is readily accessible to anyone with internet access. had the reporter pressed the search button, he would have found that the first two tests were inconclusive due to "some logistical issues," according to lisa jackson. those "logistical issues" were directly related to the fact that they were attempting this unknown a mile below sea level.
yet another pathetic attempt at the media's desire to influence our thought, thanks to its cozy relationship with the corporation's desire to control flow of information.
"Halliburton, which was doing cement work to cap the well"
Is this the same Halliburton that got the no-bid contracts in Iraq? Well, we see what coddling does to the performance of giant corporations.
Speaking of coddling - aren't the petro-privateers still getting huge public subsidies after a century? I bet 9 out of 10 USans can't guess why subsidies should be cut off after an industry matures. This should have happened about 80 years ago for the petro-profiteers. Look what coddling does.
And I believe that Halliburton was awarded its no-bid contracts because...what was the stated reason?...oh yeah, they were simply the best and the brightest!
It is becoming quite apparant that they want the oil. Not to stop the gusher. They are working on how to keep their billion dollar baby in tact.
Obama ...........oh, it's too easy. Shill is too polite of a word, and i never bought his act.
My current perspective: Stephen Hawkings was right and the powers that be who exploit our natural resources are trying to destroy it all as quickly as possible, so that the extraterrestrial hedgemonists won't invade us for said resources.
BP is simply trying to save humanity from interglactic imperialists!
That's my new story and i'm sticking to it.
And the irony is the moment that happens, when planet earth expires in a convulsion, an army of ten thousand times ten thousand intergalactic beings shall wing their way here for a grand celebration.
That's what I always say.
I used to be a roughneck working on land rigs in Wyoming. In a nutshell the mentality of the oil good old boys could be described as CRIMINAL.
And of course, Congress and the White House are their sociopathic sock puppets who would steal their grandmother's last piece of bread, or eat their young in exchange for a campaign donation.
The America war crimes in Iraq are for the benefit of Big Oil while the MIC profits as well. The Bush-Obomer war crimes in Afghanistan are also a case of crimes against humanity for future corporate profit.
Big Oil plans to supply India and other Asian nations with oil and natural gas from Central Asia via trans-Afghan pipelines.
The renewal of the old imperial "great game" could now be called "pipelineistan" written about by Pablo Escobar (try a google on that)
Due to the depressed American economy brought on by war spending debt and banking/stock market criminal fraud (as well as the erosion of the middle-class with a transfer of wealth to the upper class...etc.), American energy consumption is declining. But Asian oil and gas consumption is growing.
Our nation is being compromised and corrupted by the insane global greed of Big Oil and the MIC seeking hegemony over Middle East and Central Asian oil and gas. Public debt for private profit is the name of their game.
And, the Deep Horizon blowout would never have happened if the oil industry were properly regulated instead them writing regulations for their operations.
Like the blowout in the Gulf, things are much worse than believed.
"No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up."
Lily Tomlin
True, and I also feel better off than those extraterrestrials up their waiting for us to push the button and leave it all to them.
Maybe we are just starting to grow... not Baby Shmoomers anymore.
I wish they had a blowout preventer
that we could slip over the D.C. beltway
lino:
Check out this article as only part of the oil is reaching the surface:
A VOLCANO OF OIL ERUPTING
http://pesn.com/2010/05/13/9501651_a_volcano_of_oil_erupting/
excerpt:
"The fact that the spill has reached land clearly states that the size of the spill is probably well above 200,000 barrels per day. Yes, that's BARRELS, not gallons. There are 42 gallons per barrel.
interesting article here:
http://www.fool.com/investing/small-cap/2008/11/14/the-new-oil-paradigm-no-one-is-talking-about.aspx
pay attention to the date.............
interesting... hardly...
disingenuous... at best...
another pro-business "business-as-usual" rant...
the premises of the article are 1) peak oil isn't here and 2) even if it were... the oil we're extracting is being replaced anyway...
that's just in the first couple of paragraphs...
nothing to support it... no facts... just a "theory"...
but it's big on the laments of the economics of the oil biz and yes toto... we're not in kansas anymore... if you just close your eyes REAL hard and... and.. and...
from your linked article...
"Cambridge Energy Research Associates, for instance, recently reported that we may not reach peak oil production until 2030"
(NOTE: THEY'RE NOT SAYING PEAK OIL ISN'T COMING)
Jonathan Gear (view bio) is President & Chief Operating Officer of IHS CERA and has broad international experience in the oil, gas and energy business, and in consulting.
Gear has international experience in the oil, gas, and energy businesses, and in consulting. While a consultant at Booz-Allen & Hamilton he worked on assignments in the oil, gas, and energy industries, developing strategic plans at both the corporate and product level, and leading detailed implementation assignments focused on operational improvements for Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Gear also served as Vice President of Marketing & Business Development for Activant Solutions, a leading technology provider of vertical business management solutions primarily serving the automotive, hardware/lumber, and wholesale distribution businesses, and directly managed Activant’s full European operations. In addition he was Vice President of Quality & Customer Experience for Smarterwork.com, a multicountry business-to-business Internet-enabled business services company based in London, for which he also cross-managed local teams in five other countries.
Oil regenerates itself, then the article goes on to talk about how fields are drying up.
I haven't blown this one off yet, but I doubt it will regenerate itself in a lifetime.
I believe fossil fuels are all a product of the SUN. Photosynthesis builds plants, animals eat plants. Carbon Elements, carbon based units, growing off the sun's energy.
I don't trust much I read these days. I certainly wouldn't put my money on it.
Eugene Island is an underwater mountain located about 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1973 oil was struck and off-shore platform Eugene 330 erected. The field began production at 15,000 barrels a day, then gradually fell off, as is normal, to 4,000 barrels a day in 1989, Then came the surprise; it reversed itself and increased production to 13,000 barrels a day. Probable reserves have been increased to 400 million barrels from 60 million. The field appears to be filling from below and the crude coming up today is from a geological age different from the original crude, which leads to the speculation that the world has limitless supplies of petroleum.
See complete article at: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/crispin8.html
Scarcity as a threat to one's perceived lifestyle has long been the Ruling Class' weapon of choice. It makes war acceptable, and competition inevitable.
I've never heard of a well coming back on it's own, they re-drill them, fracture and acidize the formation where the oil is embedded. Of course they can get more oil out!
NEW PRETENSE OF GOOD? -- NEW DARKNESS?
We shall see, but based on what BP has done so far, a good chance is there that another pretense of good is being fed the public to hide the fact that BP is helpless to stop such a gigantic oil spill.
For the purpose of this world is to reach the ultimate conclusion of darkness, to experience all the cunning and deceit there could possibly be, to expose every possible pretense of good hiding misery, and in this way bring an end to all liars and their enrichment upon our misery.
Now I know it’s silly, but what if a devil ruled the world by darkness, and he would cease to live the moment he ran out of new darkness? Well then, he would do everything he could to stop us who proclaim the light, as new light always forces the old darkness to give way.
For a new kind of darkness is the only thing that can block new light, and this is what our world locked in darkness is all about. For new light always forces darkness to give way, which gives the devil no choice but to come up with new darkness, which exhausts his limited supply of darkness, which shortens his reign of terror over all the earth.
Now you've made me wonder....What ever happened with the large hadron collider anyway? Weren't they going to tell us what 'dark energy' is? From the point of view of high energy particle physics, that is. (we know what it is from a human perspective).
I think i will throw that into this apocalyptic mix! Why the heck not?
The term "hadron collider" is darkness, an illusion that the thing exists when not in any dictionary does it in fact exist.
Whereas, the real and apparent danger of an apocalypse is light to those who are willing to except the light.
But to those who love the darkness, "hadron collider" is light humor and an apocalypse is fools darkness.
“Babylon, land of deepest shadow and deep darkness,
where even light is like darkness.”
Babble on.
Right! Bla, bla
Rita-
Apparently it's far too early. The data is still being compiled and analyzed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/30/large-hadron-collider-first-collisions
Old Peculiar, please see my post above....
And many thanks for the link. I shall check it out.
rita
Good Question.
Because of the money spent it is a serious question... I heard the lead scientist say that they found that two beams of protons forced into each other in the most expensive apparatus built, broke a proton into about 100 pieces...
They get more energy out of recorded comic ray collisions trapped deep underground.... so to make like the big bang they need a collider the size of the solar system... if it is true that matter and energy cannot be created of destroyed... a fundamental law of nature... or if you believe in the big bang and want to prove it with the next collider, hold on to your wallet.
I assume there is military application in mind with a project of this interest and scope and money. Don't you?
The Big Bang - latest from Raytheon.
A collider the size of the solar system! Talk about playing God.
I just made that up but they were looking for "Gods particle", I kid you not... I guess they'll know it when they see it!
It is amazing how modern animated science makes civilization look so intelligent ... I mean they boil the universe down to 13.7 billion years with no time or space before that and with no shape or model to their observation... but how to fix the damage science and industry does to the planet is way way out there in mystery land.