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BP Admits Deepwater Rescue Is Capturing Less Oil
Siphon tube is saving around 2,000 barrels a day from Gulf of Mexico spill, says BP, down from initial estimates of 3,000
BP today admitted that is capturing less oil from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico than previously estimated, raising fresh questions over the success of its rescue operation.
A ribbon of oil marks the surface of the Gulf of Mexico near the Louisiana coast May 22, 2010. BP today admitted that is capturing less oil from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico than previously estimated, raising fresh questions over the success of its rescue operation. (REUTERS/Sean Gardner) The oil giant told the City this morning that the mile-long siphon tube inserted into the damaged well has been capturing an average of 2,010 barrels a day.
That is less than half the 5,000 barrels the company estimates is leaking into the sea every day following the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Last Thursday, BP told shareholders it was managing to siphon off around 3,000 barrels each day, while a BP spokesman in Houston told reporters that the siphon had actually been collecting 5,000 barrels of oil in a day.
The news comes after President Barack Obama warned that he would remove the company from efforts to seal the well if it does not act quickly enough to stop the leak, although he also acknowledged only BP and the oil industry know how to halt the spill.
Obama has now despatched two cabinet secretaries to the Gulf, keeping pressure on the company to plug the undersea oil leak which threatens to cause an environmental disaster. The oil has reached the delicate wetlands of Louisiana.
The spill, which has seen oil spewing into the ocean for more than a month after the rig explosion in April, has cost BP $760m (£526m) so far, up from the $625m estimate it issued on 18 May.
The US Coast Guard said more than 65 miles (110 km) of the Gulf coast has been hit by the oil spill, and less than half of it can be cleaned up quickly. The British oil giant said it continues to work on a "top kill" operation where heavy drilling fluids are injected into the well to stem the flow of oil and gas and ultimately kill the well.
"Most of the equipment is on site and preparations continue for this operation, with a view to deployment in a few days," BP said.
In today's statement, BP admitted that the oil captured by the "riser insertion tube tool", had fluctuated between 1,360 and 3,000 barrels of oil a day. It blamed the variable collection rate on "flow parameters and physical characteristics within the riser".
Shares in BP fell 1.6% this morning to 498p, their lowest level since last August. The company has now lost almost a quarter of its value since the Deepwater Horizon exploded.
57 Comments so far
Show AllA few days after the disaster, I told anyone who would listen, "They will low-ball the output, and over estimate the recovery." One of the few things those of us in this area learned after Katrina.
You got that right. It's just that I don't know anyone who expected a factor of 19 discrepancy to actually have any traction in the national "discourse".
doom and gloom with humor from GRIST - 10 ways to kick the off shore oil habit
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-05-24-10-ways-to-kick-the-offshore-oil-habit
BP would help it's image with complete transparency, and cooperation with government agencies, such as the EPA. By hiding the truth and refusing to use a safer dispersant, they are digging a deeper hole, and pissing off the public more than if they were to come clean. Saw an interview on CNN with a former navy admiral, and a BP engineer. The Admiral says that there are not too many alternatives for fixing this leak. For example, the major oil companies constructing these drilling rigs are the ones who possess the tools to fix the problem. If true, BP has Obama by the balls.
Clearly, then, this means that deep sea oil drilling is too dangerous to begin with. No industry should be able to potentially create an environmental disaster without knowing how to fix it. Essentially, the Deepwater Horizon well was a big experiment putting the Gulf Coast at risk from the get go. There is no doubt from listening to the cheif engineer that BP wants nothing more then to plug this oil geyser.
However, they are hurting themselves and everyone else more by trying to remain in control. It will be much worse for them if it is later revealed that more could have been done to stop the leak or prevent environmental damage if they had not insisted upon remaining in complete control of the situation.
I wish you were correct in concluding that it will be "worse for them later," but I don't think it will be. They OWN AND RUN "our" government (along with the other major multinationals). They will never be held fully accountable.
Eddie, the reaction to this disaster has not nearly reached a crescendo. As the damage continues to roll into the coast, the sleeping masses there will be more up in arms. I don't think we've seeing even a fraction of the fallout yet. It depends whether the 'top kill,' and/or the new BOP are successful in plugging the leak. Barring that, the relief well is their next shot--without help, BP projects that it will be completed late July or August, and the damage much more severe. Regardless, BP will not escape this disaster unscathed. Moreover, it serves as a profound warning for those who are drilling and intend to drill in the future.
the corporate hacks won't be pissed off until it hits THEIR beaches at the hamptons!
forget the pies in the face.....
maybe we should be throwing ziplock sandwich baggies full of gulf oil at these politicians and at the bp executives..........
THAT would be direct political action......
although we'd then be considered terrorists and have our constitutional rights taken away from us....
rights that the founders say WERE NOT GRANTED BY THE CONSTITUTION but by God.........
"Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
Let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat cake
Let 'em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can't make it here anymore
And that's how it is
That's what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper
Read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind
If you're listening at all"
Are you really James McMurtry?
thumbs up!
>> the new BOP <<
What new blow out preventer? Isn't the BOP an integral part of the well-head structure? If they could install a BOP on an existing well-head structure why haven't they done so already? This is the first I've heard of a new BOP.
I'm not an engineer, but if the 'junk shot' doesn't work:
"Sometime in the next three days, BP will try to install a meter to gauge the pressure on the lower marine riser package (LMRP), which sits on top of the existing BOP, to see if it might be possible to install a new BOP on top.
If pressures are not too high, Fryar said crews could shear off the broken riser and LMRP unit and then "stab" or stack a second BOP unit on top of the original BOP."
http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article213922.ece
I think you're dreaming. Look at the incredibly stupid (and criminal, by any reasonable definition) gambling spree by the Wall St. assholes that crashed the world financial system in 2008 with the resulting deep economic upheaval (huge numbers of unimployed world-wide). Did those crooks pay? They're receiving huge bonuses again! A timid little law to pretend to control them is having trouble getting accepted.
This is a horrific catastrophe in the Gulf, obviously, and the repercussions are sure to be at least extremely serious, likely devastating on many levels. But...listen to the extreme quiet out there about it. And it's not just that people are simply watching their favorite TV shows and switching channels as usual. There is that.
But do you have any idea how much pain and deep existential suffering there is out there by what you call the "sleeping masses"? A lot of those people are watching their lives fall apart, house repossessed, job and/or pension lost forever, etc., etc. These people are not going to 'march on Washington' for an oil leak in the Gulf, however horrible it really is. Priorities...
As the results of the leak obviously get worse (likely exponentially with each passing day), another countering reality advances as well: the news becomes old news, and is replaced by new excitement and/or other disasters elsewhere. That the people of this country (in general) are doing what you and I and lots of others are doing--getting more and more outraged and frightened by this catastrophe--is not a reasonable conclusion. I find it hard to see how your crescendo is going to develop. I hope you're right, but I think you're indulging in wishful thinking.
All I meant was that I do not think we've seen the sum total of backlash against BP and, yes, deep psychic sleep and suffering go hand in hand. This means that most people do not WANT to see how bad things really are; they prefer 'sleep' for the most part.
Why do you think I'm drinking?
Know what you mean, sometimes it's easier to get a buzz. Have you tried Kratom? :-D
I'm going to be blunt. The people running this show do not have consciences, and they have tremendous power. "Profound warnings" to them are nothing but economic externalities. Look at the several "crescendos" of outrage during and after Katrina--dead people slumped over in wheelchairs, permanent displacement of citizens, toxic trailers, etc.--all of which produced very little good and much to be very worried about (FEMA-villes). Katrina proved the poor are completely disenfranchised from our corporatocracy (nee democracy). Their loudest voice was no voice at all, in the end. And as the numbers of the poor swell during this jobless recovery, the added voices of the nouveau-poor, which should put fear into the corporate aparatchiks, will also be ignored.
I am not a powerful person, nor do I know many powerful people. The power of our numbers is supposed to correct for that. But for years voices for change, for sanity, have been simply ignored, even when they've represented a majority point of view. We need to turn our attention to power and the wealth that wields it. How do we strip the system of its power to ignore us? How do we re-take our government? How do we redistribute the wealth (health care, education for all, and a systemmatic dismantling of the MIC are my first choices, just off the top of my head)? How do we organize one of the most easily distracted populations on the planet? How do we dismantle the "culture wars" (of which I, as a biologist and monist, am a keen participant in my resistance to creationism and "ID," its impotent clone--what is happening with textbooks and classes in Texas and Arizona is intended to produce storm-troopers--after all, we're running low)? How do we put teeth in the government to prevent the excesses of free market capitalism?
Sorry, I'm rambling and discouraged. As a biologist, what is happening in the Gulf produces the deepest of sorrows, and necessitates a kind of mourning. BP will not be unscathed, but if the outcome of the Exxon Valdez disaster is any indication, they will have their knuckles rapped publically and a disappointing fiscal quarter some decades from now when they finally take the limpid hit that awaits them.
Aaaagh! I know from past posts how thoughtful you are. Convince me I'm wrong so I can will myself to act!
From today's Democracy Now! headlines:
"The New York Times reports that in the days since President Obama announced a moratorium on permits for drilling new offshore oil wells, at least seven new permits for various types of drilling and five environmental waivers have been granted."
Business as usual as soon as possible... Obama entirely lacks courage and inegrity.
3,000 barrels a day, 5,000 barrels, 20,000 barrels per minute, who's counting? There are so many conflicting reports about how much oil is gushing into the Gulf that one suspects a conspiracy of obfuscation. And President Do-Nothing is sending "two cabinet secretaries" down there? Now this thing will be turned around! What will they do, take notes? Throw a few softball questions to Tony Hayward, then report back that all is proceeding according to schedule?
When Republicans take over every branch of government in 2012, how many barrels will be spewing per day? And I wonder when this thing will be officially reported as an environmental catastrophe, not one that "threatens to become" one. When the Gulf of Mexico is finally nothing but a vast sea of crude oil? By then BP's stock should be perking along quite robustly.
I think it's partly because this is new territory, meaning nobody knows exactly how to plug this monster. Sadly, it will be a trial and error process. Given the situation, it would behoove Obama to insist that BP relinquish control and allow suggestions and assistance from everywhere possible. The clock is and has been ticking. Obama is proving to be a poor excuse for a president. I certainly do now want to see him serve another term.
Nobody knows how to plug a crooked pipe at the bottom of the ocean. Tell me is that pipe bent over or is the remote camera tipped.
NMBill,
I don't think BP wanted to plug it the last 30 days. One of two things must be the truth:
A. If it's only putting out 5,000 barrels a day from overhead ocean pressure on the seafloor, then I've read that the billion dollar well is a failure and it doesn't pay to keep operating it. Maybe BP blew it on purpose to collect 230 million in profits on the insurance. Better outcome for them than just shutting it down.
B. The well is profitable and putting out FIVE MILLION barrels a day as some engineers have estimated. This means the insertion technique, admittedly only capable of salvaging half of the geyser was an attempt to make money at the expense of the entire Gulf of Mexico.
Either way, we not only have a criminal element running BP, but we have a criminal administration to allow it to go on.
Day 5 should have witnessed a command from the white house to plug it immediately.
Gee, I just can't wait until one of the 100 rickety Nuke plants , run by the same grads from Harvard and Yale Business school, has a blowout. Instead of fouling the water for 20-100 years like BP, a nuke meltdown will make the ground downwind uninhabitable for 600 years. This is the situation downwind of Chernobyl the size of the state of Alabama.
DO YOU TRUST THIS PRESIDENT TO AVOID A NUKE PLANT MELTDOWN AND BLOWOUT? I don't.
Is it worth losing an Ocean or a whole state just to be able to drive a private automobile or have lights burning bright for the Fortune 500?
I don't believe the risk is worth it.
Let's throw out Obomer, he's completely incompetent.
TJ
Depends on the alternative-- we've done worse than Obama, but nobody better will run.
chessgames wrote:
".....I think it's partly because this is new territory, meaning nobody knows exactly how to plug this monster....."
***
That's the awful truth of it, I'm afraid.
No one KNOWS what to do, really. This is an OVERWHELMING catastrophe in and of itself and is amplified daily by photos of the coastal marshes and their wildlife now being overrun with oil. The Feds just this evening have declared a fisheries disaster for three of the Gulf states: Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.
Say what you want, anybody and everybody, but goddamnit, it IS up to US now. Either we put the pressure on the current administration to get up in front of the American people and TELL IT LIKE IT IS concerning the absolute necessity of conserving energy and ultimately getting OFF of our dependence on fossil fuels or we will be consigned to watching large swaths of our planet rendered uninhabitable IN OUR LIFETIMES.
We cannot go on like this, we just can't.
What will they do, take notes?
No, not notes, orders.
Nope. All the FKN liars agree that it's either 5,000 barrels per day or "can't be estimated" or "doesn't matter".
The truth tellers who estimate from the videos all come up with about 70,000 barrels per day, with a range of 40,000 to 100,000 barrels per day.
The whole "nobody knows" controversy is a manufactured controversy that serves BP.
I stand by my now two week old 147,619 barrels per day estimate based on the stated 21-inch size of the outlet pipe and my own swag of 24 inches per second of flow out of the pipe. That is 6.2 million gallons per day, or, if you like, an Exxon Valdez dumping its whole load into the Gulf of Mexico every two days.
BP could tell us the exact size of the outlet pipe. BP could tell us accurately how many inches per second are flowing out of the pipe. I'm sure they already know these figures. Simple math can be used to calculate the flow in barrels or gallons per day. BP is lying to us. The federal government is lying to us. All is normal.
We do nothing to curb this real threat to our persons,
but spend trillions fighting imaginary boogiemen all over the world with no Army, no Navy, No Air Force, No money......
We pray to a deity who does not exist,
and delude ourselves voting for already corporate-vetted candidates who would sell our souls for a nickel or they wouldn't even be allowed on the ballot.
Nature often uses deceit to trap it's prey.
We are the prey.
TJ
GOD DAMN IT! can anyone write a decently - even halfway accurate article?
the spill is WAY WAY WAY more than 5,000 barrels a day!
EVERY independent scientist has said so!
what does it take to get these idiot corporate fucks to write the TRUE AMOUNT into their reports?
Quit using the 5,000 barrels a day amount!
and while i'm pissed off - can we all admit obama and that corporater fascist asshole salazar should be waterboarded with some oily water from the gulf......
in any other country the money paid to their campaign coffers and then the direct actions taken by these criminal politicians would land their asses in jail....
but not in the good ole usa - oh no!
we can't even get obama the fascist bastard himself to distance himself from BP
fuck obama, fuck salazar fuck bp and fuck arco!
sorry for the touretts moment but it's beyond maddening at this point......
Hmmmm...sooo....how do you really feel? :)
If you believe the chief engineer, no one knows exactly how much oil is being released. He gave an analogy to popping the top off a shaken soda can; you get a lot of gas with the soda blasting out. True, they are giving must lower estimates than what's really gushing out, but I don't think they even know for sure. It's like stabbing the belly of a beast.
It's not rocket science. The estimates of 70,000 bbl/day plus or minus 30,000 are solid.
But the official lie of 5,000 barrels per day will not be displaced in the media, because the media are owned.
mtdon,
Many of us share your frustration and anger. It is painfully obvious that these corporate douchebags don't have the first clue how to solve this problem, or lead a country for that matter. A few months back, I suggested beginning to beat the impeachment drum (just like we did for GWB). Perhaps we need to turn up the volume.
I ask also, why does Common Dreams publish an article, that features that bogus estimate, unchallenged.
Good question.
No it's not a good question at all. Think about it... think.
Obviously, CD makes choices about articles around fairly obvious ideological lines--roughly leftish, progressivish. (To haggle over details on that is a fool's game that could last centuries of impotent bleating.)
When it is decided that an article meets their criteria, they publish. Now... you're suggesting that CD should have a stable of researchers to fact check (and do an ideological purity test maybe!?) and then publish corrections!!!!?????? We'd be lucky if they posted an article per day. And where would the $$$ come from for all that research.
AND... PLEASE PAY ATTENTION... Who would play god and decide whose facts are the correct ones...?????????????????????????????????????????????
Yeah, exactly. No need to apologize.
***
The Question Is Will
A black slime sea raging,
Preparing a gulf to be devoured,
Will it stop at Cuba,
Blacken a Amerikan Schooner,
Pierce the White cliffs of Dover?
A greed filled folly repeated,
Or will the crime awaken the sublime,
Piercing the reptile brain,
Where cold black blood is changed,
To warm blue verdant vapor,
Lapping on the shores of radiance,
All living creatures,
Respectful of the balance,
Of our swirling whirling planet?
It seems the red/black death march may reach the Med,
I just read this ""The New York Times reports that in the days since President Obama announced a moratorium on permits for drilling new offshore oil wells, at least seven new permits for various types of drilling and five environmental waivers have been granted."
Same old corrupt behavior on the part of British Predator, and Obomber, for that matter: denying, lying, covering up, minimizing, avoiding, blaming others, dawdling, et cetera.
And the hypocrisy of the Obomber people, giving out permits to drill after the Big Talker declared a moratorium.
Sickening onto death and so angering...
We must boycott British Predator.
>>
Obama has now despatched two cabinet secretaries to the Gulf, keeping pressure on the company to plug the undersea oil leak which threatens to cause an environmental disaster.
<<
Obama has now despatched two cabinet secretaries to the Gulf in order to more efficiently accept and convey BP's orders to the president, keeping pressure on him to ensure BP and 6,000,000 shares owner GS's profits. BP and GS are teaching their management trainee quite well.
This merely the result of BP Having been caught by their own lie. It like an episode of Fawlty Towers.
They initially claimed 5000 bbd. They stick in this pipe and claim 5000BBd is being siphoned off.
Now any idiot can figure out if 5000BBD is being spilled and 5000BBD is being siphoned off the net result is zero, yet pictures and video show that an amount vastly greater then that is spilling into the sea.
OOOPS. "Ok Ok we are really NOT siphoning off 5000bbd...see we can accuratley measure the amount spilling into the sea some 5000 feet down but measuring what we pump up and into a tanker is highly inaccurate and it more like say err 3000 bbd give or take"
How is this CRAP for news not being challenged by the Media?
use dispersant to keep the oil within the depths, and off of the surface and the beaches, while drilling into the same well from another spot to get back to where you were...
until the new well is drilled, stall...
You must have kids; hide the evidence, stall for as long as possible, then lie.
The war this country wages on the environment and the rest of the world is finally blowing back in the form of oil washing up on Gulf shores and maybe soon, the beaches of southern Florida. It is our nest that is now being soiled and i wonder if this timely incident will be enough to get folks to finally start questioning their love of burning fossil fuels?
I think it is interesting to remember why a corporation like this exists and has its power.
BP's inception was 100 years ago. It was a corporation founded by the British government. For most of the past century it was a government corporation. It was the reason the CIA and British Secret Service helped incite a coup to overthrow the Prime Minister of Iran in the 50's.
Basically, BP is an example of 100 years of government greed and abuse of power. It was created using taxpayer money and power given to governments through a centralized monetary system based on debt, that wonderful system that progressives love so much. But without it, the government would not have the wealth to create corporations like BP, to use agencies like the CIA to meddle in other countries' politics.
The problems you see today, like the oil companies and the war in the Middle East, started 100 years ago with BP and with British and American federal governments. If we instead had had a decentralized system with minimal armed forces, if we had abolished the fed, intelligence organizations and any other secretive, undemocratic agency of centralized power, there would have been great innovation in the private sector as entrepreneurs searched for new types of energy. There might very well be wind turbines in the Gulf of Mexico instead of oil rigs.
The powers that created this corporation are the same ones enabling it today and they are centralized federal governments. Exactly what so many progressives think will somehow be our ally against these corporations. Corporations and the federal government are both the problem as they have been for over a century.
The BP of Despair empirePie May 24th, 2010
Beyond Petroleum eh?...
What’s in the BP name?
Bounteous Poison for Brimming Profit
for Beholden Puppets of Black Promise
the Brackish Plunder to let...
as Boys Privatize on Buoys Public
while Broken Pundits cheer the Beguiled Prophets of Blight Projection
Bubbling Petrol for Bomb Parts for o bomber Buggered Pacifists
as the Bereaved Populous bends for the Blended Party of one..
for the Bank Pump of Blowout Power that geysers BP gushers up for the exchange;
the Bestial Parity, the Base Premise, ...
the Black Profit of despair.
This is brilliant! Permission to post elsewhere? Under ePie?
Sure you can,
Under Fair Use, you can cite a poem or a song or a few paragraphs as long as you give credit where you got it; and if they object later, it's removed.
Have at it.
Sure you can,
Under Fair Use, you can cite a poem or a song or a few paragraphs as long as you give credit where you got it; and if they object later, it's removed.
Have at it.
Is the oil spill an intentional attack on the US?
If not then why is this technology not being used?
Keeping the oil from reaching the open ocean is the critical consideration. Sealing off the leak can happen later.
Here is a way to keep the oil contained and collectable.
http://www.tentnology.com/tent-gallery/fabric-structures.aspx#
(see image #2, #3, #8 )
By taking this, placing it over the pipe at the bottom of the ocean, and extending the top to connect to a 20 foot fabric tube going 5000 feet up to
huge fabric storage tanks floating on the surface to be pumped to ships, could stop the spill.
The leak can be plugged later, and must be. But in the meantime, no oil would reach the environment.
Oh.. the US now owns PB, all their assets should be impounded for collateral.
How can those responsible for the leak be so stupid as to allow the oil to escape? Is it intentional?
timothy price
timothy.price@valley.net