Prof. Goose's comment:

A continued humble and sincere thank you to all who have donated thus far. It will help us pay for the fourth server we brought online to accommodate the increased traffic. (See point 3 below.)

1. The Oil Drum is a special place. We strive to maintain a high signal to noise ratio in our comment threads. Short, unengaging comments, or comments that are off topic, are likely to be deleted without notice. (to be clear--engaging, on point humor and levity, more than welcome.)

We are trying to perform a service to the public here to coordinate smart people who know their stuff with other people who want to learn about what's going on. Promotion of that ideal will be the criteria by which we make our decisions about what stays and what goes.

Flame wars, polemic exchanges, and other content deleterious to the community will be removed, either by an editor or by the community through its moderation process.

2. If you see a problematic comment USE THE COMMENT MODERATION SYSTEM--see the "Flag as inappropriate" and (?) beside it? Learn more there. If you see comments that are questionable after you've done that (that aren't being removed), let us know at the eds email address.

It is up to this community to enforce the norms we have established here (a high signal to noise ratio), keep. it. up.

Our guide to commenting at TOD can be found here: http://www.theoildrum.com/special/guidelines . Please check it out if you are unfamiliar with it, but it is essentially 1) citations welcome (if not necessary), 2) be kind to others, and 3) be nice to the furniture.

3. We have gotten a lot of queries whether this bump in traffic is adding costs to keep the site functioning. Truth is, yes, we are incurring added expenses from these events. It is also true that we try not to beg from you very often as we are not the types to bother you with constant queries.

That being said, if you are inclined to help out, your support is always welcome and very much appreciated. To those who have already given, thank you very much.

You can find the donate button in the top left hand corner of the main page.

4. If you have come here to vet your plan to kill the well, understand that you will be queried on whether or not you have read the other 10 previous comment threads and all the myriad plans that have already been run by the kind folks in this room; if you have actually read all 10 comment threads and still think your plan has legs, well, then maybe yours really is the one that will save the Gulf of Mexico.

This is not to say that well considered questions about current attempts and modifications to those attempts are not welcome; they are. But try to place them in context and in what's actually going on, as opposed to your MacGyver dream solution where you have a 10 megaton bomb, an ice pick, and Commander Spock at your side.

5. Also, if you're looking for live chat to talk about the ROV/LMRP video, etc., and are IRC capable, go to freenode, the channel is #theoildrum

(google MIRC and download it; Hit the lightening bolt and fill in your info; select the server as "freenode" (it is in the server list), hit connect; when connected type /join #theoildrum)

or you can get there just via a browser: http://webchat.freenode.net / Just enter a nickname and #theoildrum in the boxes; then when connected type /join #theoildrum)

6. Don't be afraid to go back and read the last couple of open threads yesterday and today before you start on this thread. They are really good, and will likely catch you up if you have been out of the loop for a while. We shut down threads when we get to 300-400 comments, as it's really unmanageable. Lots of good stuff in there though.

Day 63.

According to the web site:

http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/spill_cam/

approximately 158,580,000 gallons of oil have gushed so far.

This amount of oil equals about

21,200,000 cubic feet, or

485 acre-feet of oil.

Imagine standing front of a column of oil that has a ground area of 208' x 208' (a square acre) and that's almost as tall as a 50-story skyscraper. This is nearly half as high as the 110 story WTC towers were. (Coincidently, the towers had a floor area of 208' x 208'.) That's how much oil BP could have dumped into the GOM to date. The question is, how tall will that column get before the well is finally capped?

Brian -- I doubt there can be much learned about the cause of the blow out from studying the rig. Right now it appears the blow out was caused by cement failure at 18,000' as a result of removing the heavy drill mud from the system. While these fatal decisions were made on the rig the physical aspects were rather removed. They do have various data that was recorded in real time that offers some insight into the accident which is fortunate since no physical data on the rig survived. The fact that the rig exploded, burned and sank carries no great mysteries IMHO: that's exactly what would happen in the type of catastrophic failure BP suffered: rigs burn down, men die and the environment suffers. Obvious a very good reason to not take foolish chances with the process.

As far as other locations on BP's Plan of Exploration it's very common to get approval to drill more wells initially then you actually have specific plans to drill. The POE approval process takes so long that a company will permit as many locations as they think they MIGHT want to drill.

Humour:

Klurker made the comment in the previous thread at http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6636#comment-657149

"Using them to seal a well adds in a beneficial peacetime use. How can we tell Iran to stop building them - all the oil well they have. We can't, and non-proliferation takes a big hit. Nukes would become the new BOP."

Nukes as the new BOP of choice, with a claimed success rate of 4 out of 5, [or 80%,] compare favourably to the NYT's recent revelation of a success rate of 45% for traditional BOP's

Please note, this comment is for humour only.

Edit: bad spelling

Question: Has the crimped segment of riser that was cut from the BOP been brought to the surface? I've not seen any photos.

Anybody happen to know if the Rigel or 17 Hands gas fields are in danger of being affected by fluids from the BP stovepipe? I'm not sure where exactly they are at or what their extents are, but according to Rigzone they are in Mississippi Canyon Blocks 296 and 299... but other articles point to a MC-252 location:

"...an in-line PLET was installed at the Rigel well in MC 252..."

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=22983

The reason I ask is that over the last few days, I've seen what appear to be more gas in the plume... as if I can tell what it is when I see it. I'm referring to the globs of bluish white that you see in the plume.. not the milky dispersant from the nozzles. I have no idea what the pay depth for those two fields are, but if they are contributing to the flow... that would be bad.

From previous closed post:

Tyranosopher on June 22, 2010 - 7:08am Is that the "law" [Godwin's Law] that if one mentions Auschwitz the conversation stops? Is that not a form of holocaust denial?

Godwin's Law:
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

"There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over.... Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups."

[Edited for continuation clarity]

It seems the methane hydrates have caused a number of problems, I am wondering if instead of avoiding them, maybe they could be used positively. For example, what if they pump seawater into the choke and kill lines to form hydrates and clog the BOP? It might be a way to slowly close off the flow? If that might work but is not desired due to casing issues on this well, maybe when the RW is working, would it help then?

The ROVs don't really have to unscrew the nuts on the riser stub flange. Much faster and easier to just crack 'em in two pieces...using one of these babies:

http://www.hydratight.com/en/products/ancillary-products/nutsplitters

Those are the divers' tool of choice when speed is the object.

It REALLY pains me to reference an article that ultimately resolves to FOX News so fire away if you must. It was not the hyperbole related to Obama and his Administration that got my attention but rather the claim that the DWH well was allegedly known to be leaking from seafloor fractures as early as Feb 2010. And sorry if this has been covered once or more in earlier open threads.

Courtesy of Karl Denninger at Market Ticker where the FOX News link can be followed.

God's Work? Luck? Or Lawbreaking?

It seems incomprehensible that the president and other members of the administration still have jobs when it is now being reported that the federal government was apprised by BP on February 13 that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was leaking oil and natural gas into the ocean floor.

In fact, according to documents in the administration's possession, BP was fighting large cracks at the base of the well for roughly ten days in early February.

Further it seems the administration was also informed about this development, six weeks before to the rig's fatal explosion when an engineer from the University of California, Berkeley, announced to the world a near miss of an explosion on the rig by stating, "They damn near blew up the rig.

The New York Times yesterday ran a detailed article on the BOP failure. I was shocked by the disclosure of the deliberate tolerance of failure risk in the design. According to the article, there is a 10% chance of a single shear ram design failing if it hits a hard drilling pipe joint. On top of that, there are critical failure points in the hydraulic system that lack redundancy. BP knew that similar BOP designs had only about a 50/50 chance of controlling a blowout, based on years of historical data.

It is now obvious that BP always intended to use relief well drilling to handle major undersea blowouts, because it deliberately refused to invest in more costly fail-safe BOP designs. There was a cold blooded decision made at BP, and other oil companies, that society and the biosphere would carry the cost of a low-probability catastrophic blowout, and not the stockholders.

This is the ugly face of a profit-driven business confronting the risks of massive environmental pollution: maximize profitability by deceiving and/or corrupting those charged with protecting the environment. BP deliberately misrepresented the safety and reliability of the BOP, and now America is facing the greatest environmental disaster in its history.

The BP personnel who made the decisions to spare expense on the BOP equipment should be sent to prison, and INTERNATIONAL treaties should be developed to mandate the use of fail-safe BOP designs in all future deep water drilling.

From AP:
Oil threatens key Gulf algae and its ecosystem:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100622/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_sea_holly

hopefully skyebluepink (Margie Kieper) will weigh in on the weather/hurricane risks

Blood pressure raiser:

US Department of State Chart on Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Response:
International Offers of Assistance from Governments and International Bodies

http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.state.gov/documents/organiz...

Available objective model guidance on North Atlantic invest 93L indicates it could become a tropical storm Thursday morning south of Cuba, and a hurricane Saturday morning in the vicinity of the Yucatan Channel on its way into the GOM. Track guidance is pretty tightly clustered and places it on Saturday in the western Caribbean, somewhere between the central Yucatan Peninsula, still offshore, and the western tip of Cuba. It will likely enter the GOM whether it landfalls over the Yucatan or not. By Thursday's 00Z run it will be apparent what track it is likely to take once in the GOM, whether it is picked up by a trough or continues WNW.

FYI

From Upstream 22 June 2010 14:05 GMT

No spill: says Saudi Aramco
Aramco refutes 'secret' spill talk

Oil giant Saudi Aramco today denied allegations reported in several news and media internet blogs about a ‘secret’ oil spill in the Arabian Gulf during 1993.

===========
“Saudi Aramco unequivocally refutes allegations¿about an alleged “secret” oil spill during 1993 in the Arabian Gulf,” said the company in a statement.

“The company states that there is no factual basis to those allegations, and there was no such event or incident as alleged concerning its operations in 1993, 1994, or at any other time.”

The statement follows claims made by a former employee, Nicholas Pozzi, that he helped the state-run company clean up a spill similar to that of BPs current disaster in the US Gulf.

Pozzi says an accident caused millions of liters of crude oil to spill into the Persian Gulf and that he was on the team that developed a plan to remove the crude using Saudi-owned supertankers, reported website VOA News.

"The supertankers in Arabia have the ability to suck or discharge, so they can pump or suck," he said.

Pozzi says the operation cleaned up 85% of the total oil spilled.

His idea to use supertankers in the Gulf of Mexico has been endorsed by a number of prominent figures in the oil-and-gas industry, most notably John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell Oil, who has urged the Obama administration to pursue it, reported VOA.

However, Saudi Aramco denies there was any spill in 1993 but that it participated in oil spill cleanup activities and operations in early 1991 during the Gulf Conflict.

“Under the leadership of Saudi Arabia’s government, the company, together with various agencies, undertook oil spill cleanup operations lasting for about six months until July 1991,” said Saudi Aramco.

“Although the company utilised a number of work and supply boats, Saudi Aramco wishes to clarify that no supertankers were used during the 1991 spill cleanup operations.”

Furthermore, the company said that while Pozzi was a former employee of the company he made no significant contribution to the spill preparedness or response teams during his employment or at any other time.

“The claims made about his alleged efforts at a 1993 oil spill response operation are without factual basis,” said Saudi Aramco.

Does anyone know Wade Miller from Picayune Ms? I knew him as a teen many many years ago, and he was part of a generation of offshore oil workers.

Lawyers tap into gush of potential court actions
By Michael Peel in London

excerpt:

"Litigation lawyers said that information on the legal position provided by BP and the White House was still scanty. But they added that it would be surprising if claimants on the fund were allowed to bring separate private lawsuits against BP."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/03960384-7d62-11df-a0f5-00144feabdc0.html

Anybody know who the Chemical Safety Board is?

They are the guys who investigated Tx. City - but I don't know what relevance they would have to this incident?

http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article218416.ece

Edited to add this snip - but I'm still not sure it's apples/apples from a technical ability to investigate perspective?

The CSB's investigation into the Texas City explosion, which killed 15 workers and injured at least 170 more, was the longest in the agency's history.

The CSB concluded that years of budget cuts and lax safety practices were factors in the explosion.

BP has consistently denied budget cuts contributed to that disaster and pledged to improve safety.

Bresland said the Deepwater Horizon investigation will examine safety cultures involved and effectiveness of relevant laws, regulations and industry standards.

Bloomberg:
BP Oil Disaster Costs U.S. State Pensions $1.4 Billion in Value
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aCTrmb3sdPMc&pos=11

"Right now it appears the blow out was caused by cement failure at 18,000' as a result of removing the heavy drill mud from the system."

Rockman: I don't mean to coerce you into doing this, and maybe i have missed an explanation you already gave, but i was wondering whether i could get you to expound on this a little.

Are you saying:

1. They should not have removed that mud before putting the top plug in because the mud gave them the only secondary protection available, given the open string casing they used, if something happened, like the cement failed;

2. They did not wait long enough for the cement to cure before displacing the mud;

3. The never should have displaced the mud, even after fitting the top plug.

If you'd prefer not to be pinned down on this, I understand.

Thanks!

Thank you HeadingOut for the updates on the progress.

I hope in a future post you can expand on the two different procedures for the relief well. I am sure most people nodded their heads when they read it, but for the untrained few like me, it would be nice to have some further explanations: Milling? exactly how is that accomplished? Perforating charges? Packer?

Thanks again for your post.

I very much have enjoyed this site. Don't care much for the political wrangling, but for the technical pieces, you are unequaled. Thanks.

A very common sense view:

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/06/question-for-bp-how-c...

Question for BP: How Close Are We to the Unthinkable?

Jun 18 2010, 12:02 PM ET
Lisa Margonelli

"And finally, more alarming, and possibly a gross overstatement, there is the possibility that as the ground and the casing shift, the whole thing collapses inward, the giant Blow Out Preventer falls over, the drill pipe shoots out of the remains of the well, or any number of other scenarios that could make it very difficult or impossible to eventually stop the gusher even with the relief wells. (I do not know the author of this post, and cannot vouch for its accuracy. I do not share the author's fear that there is a conspiracy to hide this information. My sense is that it's unthinkable and so no one is asking the questions.) Thus the relief well are being drilled in a race with the integrity of the ground around the well and the casing.

If they don't make it, we're looking at a very very different kind of accident. (This is where the "decade" remark comes in.) And if so, Tony Hayward will look back upon yesterday as a relatively pleasant interlude before the *real* disaster struck.

It's time to start asking for a best guess of what is going on in the well hole. It is dishonest not to."

And time for BP to come out and give us the same technical data they are working with --- so we can draw our own conclusions.

He noted that there is no sign of ongoing erosion, and that the BOP is tilting at an angle of 10 - 12 degrees.

Anyone know- has the BOP been tilting 10 degrees since April 20, or is this tilt becoming more pronounced over time? What were the results of the seabed integrity test from a week or two ago?

I see where Steven Newman is lobbying the press for an early end on the moratorium. I am just warning all Jedi he is not to be trusted for he is a Sith Lord, Darth Newman. May The Force Be with You.

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/deepwater_dril...

I wonder how good he is at that whole voice projection, mind suggestion thing. He is definitely going to need that power. That and his light saber skills.

Everyone keeps talking about the increases made in the capture rate of oil (both in the flaring of oil and gas, and in storage) that is leaking into the gulf, but yet oil is still escaping, are there any new estimates on the total flow? It's hard to believe that some drastic erosion isn't taking place. How else can they explain the drastic increase in capture rate and still not getting the entire flow?

Aside from the leak I haven't heard anything on the clean-up it self. Is it gaining any headway or are they fighting a loosing battle (not being able to keep up with the leak)? Is the spill still increasing in size and by how much?

Phil

Link to Fisher labs --- with some photos of the lifeforms that cluster around the hydrocarbon seeps:

http://homes.bio.psu.edu/people/faculty/fisher/Research_Layout.html

been talking to a few folks involved in making recommendations for upcoming safety overhaul of offshore by the MMS...starting to sound like a real catch 22

turns out there is a real danger that some older gen rigs...mostly old gen jackups ....are in real danger of becoming obsolete with the new regulations being formulated ....

some safety recommendations being put in place for the rig floor are not easy to apply since the older gens have limited rig floor space and the risk of cramping the rig floor is very real......similar situations are going to arise with the mandate of increased rams in the BOP stack and other mods being recommend with regards to response capabilities .....it is starting to look like out of the 33 capable of setting up shop in OCS ....5/6 (maybe 7-9) will simply not be able to meet the new suite of operational regulations and others will certainly end up in yards for extensive re-engineering or just move abroad ....

it is starting to look like the drilling contractor landscape will change drastically .....and ironically it is the big contractors like transocean that will become even bigger players....

OH BP what hast thou done !!

This is my first comment on Oil Drum, but I have been referring this site to those interested in the oil business for a couple of years now. My background is geology and I was a petroleum geologist from 1974 to 1989, having worked for Gulf Oil in West Texas and Sun Oil in California. I have recently been looking into a bit of Gulf Coast geology surrounding the BP well and would like to know a bit more than I have found concerning the Mocondo well.

Can somebody explain what type of reservoir was found in this discovery well (age and depositional environment) as well as trapping mechanism. Any links or insights would be appreciated.

NOLA.com: Judge issues preliminary injunction blocking federal deepwater drilling moratorium

So is this total BS? Because if not .. .

"According to geologists, the first signs that the methane may burst its way through the bottom of the ocean would be manifest via fissures or cracks appearing on the ocean floor near the path of least resistance, ie, the damaged well head. Evidence of fissures opening up on the seabed have been captured by the robotic midget submarines working to repair and contain the ruptured well. Smaller, independent plumes have also appeared outside the nearby radius of the bore hole. When reviewing video tapes of the live BP feeds, one can see in the tapes of mid-June that there is oil spewing up from visible fissions. Geologists are pointing to new fissures and cracks that are appearing on the ocean floor. . . .

A methane bubble this large -- if able to escape from under the ocean floor through fissures, cracks and fault areas -- is likely to cause a gas explosion. With the emerging evidence of fissures, the tacit fear now is this: the methane bubble may rupture the seabed and may then erupt with an explosion within the Gulf of Mexico waters. The bubble is likely to explode upwards propelled by more than 50,000 psi of pressure, bursting through the cracks and fissures of the sea floor, fracturing and rupturing miles of ocean bottom with a single extreme explosion."

Please say BS.

more oops and oh no!

(from www;jsmineset.com)

The BP crisis in the Gulf of Mexico has rightfully been analysed from the ecological perspective. People’s lives and livelihoods are in grave danger. But that focus has equally masked something very serious from a financial perspective, in my opinion, that could lead to an acceleration of the crisis brought about by the Lehman implosion.

People are seriously underestimating how much liquidity in the global financial world is dependent on a solvent BP. BP extends credit – through trading and finance. They extend the amounts, quality and duration of credit a bank could only dream of. The Gold community should think about the financial muscle behind a company with 100+ years of proven oil and gas reserves. Think about that in comparison with what a bank, with few tangible assets, (truly, not allegedly) possesses (no wonder they all started trading for a living!). Then think about what happens if BP goes under. This is no bank. With proven reserves and wells in the ground, equity in fields all over the planet, in terms of credit quality and credit provision – nothing can match an oil major. God only knows how many assets around the planet are dependent on credit and finance extended from BP. It is likely to dwarf any banking entity in multiples.

And at the heart of it all are those dreadful OTC derivatives again! Banks try and lean on major oil companies because they have exactly the kind of credit-worthiness that they themselves lack. In fact, major oil companies, conversely, spend large amounts of time both denying Banks credit and trying to get Bank risk off of their books in their trading operations. Oil companies have always mistrusted bank creditworthiness and have largely considered the banking industry a bad financial joke. Banks plead with oil companies to let them trade beyond one year in duration. Banks even used to do losing trades with oil companies simply to get them on their trading register… a foot in the door so that they could subsequently beg for an extension in credit size and duration. For the banks, all trading was based on what the early derivatives giant, Bankers Trust, named their trading system: RAROC – or, Risk Adjusted Return on Credit. Trading is a function of credit bequeathed, mixed with the risk of the (trading) position. As trading and credit are intertwined, we might do well to remember what might happen to global liquidity and markets if BP suffers what many believe to be its deserved fate of bankruptcy. The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has already been and will be further undermined by BP’s distress. They are one of the only “hard asset” entities backing up this so-called exchange.

If BP does go bust (regardless of whether it is deserved), and even if it is just badly wounded and the US entity is allowed to fail, the long-term OTC derivatives in the oil, refined products and natural gas markets that get nullified could be catastrophic. These will kick-back into the banking system. BP is the primary player on the long-end of the energy curve. How exposed are Goldman sub J. Aron, Morgan Stanley and JPM? Probably hugely. Now credit has been cut to BP. Counter-parties will not accept their name beyond one year in duration. This is unheard of. A giant is on the ropes. If he falls, the very earth may shake as he hits the ground.

As we are beginning to see, the Western pension structure, financial trading and global credit are all inter-twined. BP is central to this, as a massive supplier of what many believe(d) to be AAA credit. So while we see banks roll over and die, and sovereign entities begin to falter… we now have a major oil company on the verge of going under. Another leg of the global economic “chair” is being viciously kicked out from under us. Ecological damage is not just an eco-event on its isolated own. It has been added to the list of man-made disasters jeopardizing the world economy. The price tag and resultant knock-on effects of a BP failure could easily be equal to that of a Lehman, if not more. It is surely, at the very least, Enron x10.

All the counter-party risk associated with the current BP situation means the term curve of the global oil trade has likely shut down. Here we have yet another credit-based event causing a lock-up in markets that will now impede trade and commerce. It looks like an exact replication of the 2008 credit market seizure could ensue all over again – and it could probably be a lot worse. The world is in a far more delicate state now.

Although never really discussed, the world is highly reliant on BPs provision of long-term credit to many core industries. Who makes good on all the outstanding paper that so many smaller oil, gas and electricity companies, airlines, shipping companies, local bus, railway and transportation networks that rely on BPs creditworthiness and performance for? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how this could all unwind. If BP has to be bailed-out, like a bank, the system will have to print even more unimaginable amounts of money.

The market, intellectually lazy and slow to realization, as it often is, probably has not woken up to it yet – but the BP crisis could unleash damage similar to the banking crisis. A BP failure through bankruptcy could make Lehman look small in comparison, and shake the financial house of cards we live in even more severely. If the implicit danger of the possibilities imbedded in such an event doesn’t make an individual now turn towards Gold at full speed, it is likely that nothing will.

Respectfully yours,
CIGA Pedro

Re: BOP.

Engineering safety regulations are one step behind advances in technology. It's often illuminating to look at an extreme example, so for instance if you look at the regulations surrounding electrical installations in, say, 1946 and then look at today's, you'll see that the '46 regulations were compatible with the technology at the time, and ditto today's regs. Statutory regs are often intentionally vague, that this or that piece of equipment must be robust, must comply with this or that standard (British or European over here)and must effectively carry out the operation for which it is designed (cutting off a short circuit fault, or whatever).

I've seen so many posts here on TOD which seem to me to be saying that the design of the BOP was at fault, that it was not fit for purpose at such a depth, that it was difficult or impossible to test at such a depth (easier on shore).

Here are some examples of the standards that a piece of "oilfield equipment" might have to meet in ordinary circumstances. I've just pulled it off the Anson website. http://www.offshore-europe.co.uk/ExhibitorLibrary/499/Anson_General_Broc...

BS.5750 Part 1 British Standards Specification for Design/Development,
Production, Installation and Servicing. Original ANSON qualification date 1986.
NS.5801 Norske Standard Specification for Design/Development, Production,
Installation and Servicing. Original ANSON qualification date 1986.
ISO 9001 1987 International Standards Organisation. Model for Quality
Assurance in Design/Development, Production.
Installation and Servicing. Original ANSON qualification date 1988.
NS ISO.9001 1988 Norske Standard as ISO.9001-1987. Original ANSON qualification date 1989.
BS.EN.ISO.9001 2000 New Specification covering ISO.9001 became effective in December
2003. ANSON reassessed and qualified July 2003.
API.Q1 American Petroleum Institute, Specification for Quality Programmes. Original
qualification date 1992.
UKAS ACCREDITATION CERTIFICATE United Kingdom Accreditation Service.
ANSON certified to undertake Fire Testing.
RAAD VOOR DE CERTIFICATION (RVC) Since July 1986 all BS, ISO, NS and EN
Certificates have been endorsed with the Netherlands Certification Councils
RVC Accreditation Mark.
PED Anson qualified to CE mark Pressure Equipment in accordance with EU Directives.
In addition, ANSON are active members of:
API American Petroleum Institute.
ASTM American Society for Testing of Materials (Organisational Member).
NACE National Association of Corrosion Engineers (Corporate Bronze Member)

My question is, Would not the BOP have had to be certified to a similarly high standard? Would it not have had to be type tested at 5000' in order to receive its accreditation and certification? Could BP or anyone else have used it at such a depth and in such circumstances if it hadn't been certified?

My first thought was that perhaps its individual components were compliant (valves, hoses, rams) but that the total BOP as a "system" was not. But I still find this hard to believe. I've searched for but can't find the standard(s) with which the BOP should have complied. Perhaps someone could point me in the right direction because I'd like to have a look at the literature.

Thanks.

I've been reading some 'opinions' on the possibility of oil making it's way into the Atlantic Ocean and causing havoc there, all the way up the Eastern coast of the US and eventually finding it's way to Europe and Africa. I immediately dismissed these claims as my understanding of any ocean is that a little oil spill won't do much damage. The sheer size oceans is their strenght. Given nature's ways of 'dealing' with oil, when oil will be more diluted, I figured, it can't do much damage.

Any takes on this?

Hi all, just another mail reader here, but here is a laugh for the day

However, Iran is ready to rescue President Obama if he requests help, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported Tuesday. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast underlined Tehran's technical capability to help the United States control the oil spill and the resulting slick, which he said is a "humanitarian issue."

From http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138210

The was some bazaar chat about blowing up the well the last few days, maybe the Iranians picked up on it and have a down hole nuke haha.

The title of this story should be "Why The Oil Drum Exists" but instead it is "America's Magical Thinking on Energy: New poll shows that Americans don't understand energy policy..."

http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2010/06/21/americas-magical-thinking-on...

Well, duh.

Holy crap!

Is this true???

"During the September drilling operations, the Deepwater Horizon drill penetrated a massive undersea oil deposit but BP's priorities changed when the Macondo site in the Mississippi Canyon off the coast of Louisiana was found to contain some 3-4 billion barrels of oil in an underground cavern estimated to be about the size of Mount Everest... WMR learned that BP was able to have several safety checks waved because of the high-level interest by the White House and Pentagon in tapping the Gulf of Mexico bonanza find in order to plan a military attack on Iran without having to be concerned about an oil and natural gas shortage from the Persian Gulf after an outbreak of hostilities with Iran."

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-obama-administration-knew-ab...

Shipping people comment on how this will increase cost/slow productivity in transportation industry? There's surely going to be a ripple effect hitting rail and road carriers. Ecology people care to comment on how much contamination and what kind can be vectored by an exposed vessel? Anyone at all on who's footing the bill for this aspect of DWH? Wonder how much grocery prices will be going up.

http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-news/2010/06/no_wake_zones_ar...

"BILOXI, Miss. - The director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources has established the following temporary no-wake zones around vessel decontamination sites in the Mississippi Sound effective immediately..."

PQ17
Thank you for a very informative post.
So based on your estimates, a 100,000bpd and above flow would require... a much bigger hole?
Can you tell us more about the composition of the hydrocarbons in the reservoir?
What happens to the methane /hydrocarbon mix as it escapes and contacts seawater?

Hi PQ17,

Actually if you had flow up the production casing itself, making the hole bigger wouldn't have that much impact, you'd be getting to the point where the flow is not constrained by frictional considerations. You can jack up the rate by assuming a higher permeability in the reservoir, or by knocking the BOP off and allowing flow to ambient sea bed pressures. These combined together would take you to around the 120,000 stb/d mark for flow up the production casing. You'd struggle to top 75,000 up the annulus.

I've not seen a composition reported anywhere, and can't locate one in the public domain for any nearby fields. Based on fluid data reported on the Enterprise I don't expect any really unusual properties, correlations would suggest bubble point is probably about 6000 - 7000 psi at reservoir temperature. Viscosity is likely low at ~0.3 cP, shrinkage is likely quite high at ~ 2 reservoir barrels for every barrel of stabilised stock tank oil.

What happens as the fluid hits the water is likely very complex, and not something commonly modelled in the industry. Just at the top of the wellhead, at the May 26th reported pressure of 4400 psi and likely flowing temperatures of ~170F, the lighter fractions in the oil will already have started to flash into the gas phase. After a further short distance the gas / oil mix then jets into very cold sea water at a temperature of around 40F and pressure around 2200 psi. My guess is that under such rapid cooling the oil is likely to form small, higher density, more viscous droplets in an emulsion that probably continues to outgas as it rises to the surface (or stays suspended for a while if the droplets are small enough). The gas produced from the well will expand dramatically on exit, and a portion of the methane present will form hydrates as we have seen. There will be some solubility of some of the components in the sea water itself. So to summarise I haven't really got a clue.

tollertwins
Hey BN...
What is this open flow likely to do the reservoir, and how far could whatever reservoir issues there are go?"

Hi TT,

Lets suppose for the sake of argument the flow rate is 40,000 stb/d and the reservoir has an in place volume of ~100 million stb, with recoverable reserve of ~50 million stb/d. This means that we are producing at a high depletion rate of around 30% of reserves per year. There are several reasons you probably wouldn't want to blow down a reservoir like this in a production setting.

i) you will end up with a very short and peaky production profile which means you have to over-size production facilities for a very short field lifetime. The large production tubing required is also unlikely to allow stable vertical flow if the water cut rises.

ii) if your development plan relies on displacing the oil via water injection or by an active aquifer then you run the risk of creating an unstable flood which results in early water production and may limit recovery

iii) if your development plan relies on aquifer influx to maintain reservoir pressure, but this is weaker than expected, there is a good chance that pressures will drop rapidly and possibly go below bubble point in the reservoir. The appearance of gas in the reservoir will help to slow down further pressure depletion, but you then end up tending to produce the gas rather than the oil (its much more mobile)

iv) higher flow rates generally require a larger drawdown at the sand face (ie a higher pressure differential between reservoir and wellbore). Together with high flow velocities there is a risk of sand production, particularly if water breaks through or if reservoir pressures decline and create additional pressure on the sand grain contact points. Collapse of the formation against the production casing is not unlikely.

Judge Martin Feldman--aka Eye-gor?
Another Big Oil worshipper.

Well, that explains the ruling against the moratorium.

'Yes, Master.'

Hi ali,
I really appreciate you responding in such a detailed way to my post. Here's a quick go at a reply :

aliilaali
throwing my 2 cents in the basket here ...without putting too much thought into it there are a few things i can point out here....i think most are valid ....others might think differently ...
1- how can you model a reservoir without knowing the areal extent of the reservoir ....is the assumption here the reservoir is in transient and boundary effects are not felt yet ??

I'm not modelling the reservoir as such, only its inflow performance. I have in fact used both transient and semi-steady state forms of the inflow equations to model the flow, but this wasn't really necessary; in reservoirs of this assumed quality the difference between sss flow and transient flow after 60 days production is very small for any reasonable reservoir size. I've had a guess at the areal extent using the 60 ft thickness and assuming 100 MMstb oil in place. Compared to all the other assumptions I've made to do the calculations, this one is one of the least important.

2- the assumption being made here is shallower zones are adding to fluid ....this is the deepest productive zone since you would go up to re-complete ...DW wells are not flexible like onshore wells where you can go up and down to squeeze oil ....so essentially what some on TOD have said (including myself) is that this deepest zone is being supplement by some shallower zone...kinda like what we pete's do sometimes on purpose on dual or triple string completion by running a MMS co-mingling permit…

Actually I was responding to someone here who suggested that the blowout forced the production casing downwards at a rate of knots and fractured the base of the well in such a way that a deeper reservoir was contacted. My point is that the performance of the well can be explained by reasonable reservoir properties over the 60ft interval without invoking a contribution from either above or below the main pay. (Which is not to say that there isn't such a contribution - but I guess this would require compromise of deeper liner hangers…)

3- personally i doubt too many wells can produce these rates (unrestricted) with a 60' pay ...but this is just my guess based on what i've seen....hence the ideas being floated about a shallower zone adding to fluid

A well at this pressure with this oil and a similar permeability*thickness to the assumptions here flowing up such a large tubular certainly would. The pressure gives plenty of headroom to pull a decent drawdown, and the relatively high GOR helps to reduce the effective density of the column.

4- nodal analysis would have been performed on this well ....BP will have guesstimates of production base don that analysis but BP cannot say X bbl is leaking because BP isn't sure and the MSM media will skin them alive if X turned out to be wrong ....but the best approach and i would bet the horse here is that BP has a good nodal analysis here and could give a range if they wanted to ....but will not .....BP has not agreed to any number as yet ....all numbers are govt figures of the academia ...BP itself has not put out any number and that's because it gives them deniability …

Totally agree. They won't ever commit themselves to a range. But if the next version of the cap really does bolt onto the riser stub, then within a week or so we will all have a very solid idea of what the total flow rate presently is…. (BTW has anyone seen an update to the Enterprise production spreadsheet since the 16th June??)

5- the 100 MMSTB reserve figure reported would be the recoverable number and not the possible and probable reserves as reported to MMS.....rmbr it is not in BP's interest to jack this number up even by 1 bbl ….

I agree fully, hence the recent quote by TH at 50 MMstb. Who knows what block boundary this might cross…

6- that fluid produced is increasing makes sense and the well flows ..its only natural ...its a cased hole otherwise in all probability it would have caved as discussed by a number of ppl on TOD…

Not sure I really understand the first part of this comment. Latter part I agree; there probably has been some early sand production. There may have been some collapse around the casing itself, though you'd expect a certain amount of this to be stripped out.

7- i hate to say this ...but crude oil assumes heavier HC's as well....the particular type of oil produced is nto heavy and will have very little %age of heavier HC's...this is what makes GOM DW attractive…"
8- also the NG being produced topside is not wet gas ....again a function of the type of crude ...this too is often the case with DW GOM…

I'm very familiar with reservoir fluid compositions from many different provinces around the world. My point was simply to draw attention to the multi component nature of both the oil and gas stream as it exits the BOP, though this may not have been a point worth making.

Concrete containment of old Blow Out Preventer (BOP),
Resubmitted to address questions and discussion on the prior thread.

============= Original idea is a follows ======= I've added comments at the end.
to create new well head at the top of the concrete containment with clean tight fittings where a new set of valves and controls can be fitted with no leaks.

I'm betting the following proposal has already been made.
However since I'm very overloaded just now, I'll ask for forgiveness and post this idea.

Brief design thoughts.
1. A turbine suction pump to be fitted to the top of the old BOP to create sufficient suction to stop all leaks down the old BOP while they are temporally plugged with sealant of some kind. Test this step can be achieved before proceeding.
2. Foundations at the sea floor to support the structure to encase the old BOP
3. Design an encasement tube to easily fit over the old BOP from bottom to top. This tube is to hold the concrete and is filled with reinforcing steel, over designed to easily contain any possible well pressure.
4. Run the turbine suction pump from point 1 above, have the rov's add sealant to all the old BOP leaks, mainly to prevent concrete from flowing in.
5. Keep the turbine suction pump running as the containment tube from step 3 above is lowered over the old BOP, secured to it's foundations and then filled with concrete.
6. When the concrete is cured and strong, remove the turbine pump and fit the new top of the concrete encasement (of the old BOP) with a very strong leak proof lid.

This lid would be very strong, designed to easily contain all possible well pressures.
The lid would have controllable ports to help exit any water that got in during installation and a fitting(s) on the top for a new set of well control valves, measurement equipment etc.
This new well head could have more than one large pipe at the top, allowing control valves to be fitted and instrumentation sent down the well for analysis (perhaps when full of mud). These top pipes could be designed so that standard equipment can be lowered into the new well head (i.e. connection angles not too sharp and smooth).

Now the new well head can be completely controlled.

When all is in place, slowly close down the flow of the well monitoring pressures at the new well head.

If the pressure matches expected pressure from the well as measured during drilling, then the well may not be leaking (much) between the oil reservoir to the new well head.
On the other hand, if the pressure does not match, there may be some leaks. I'm assuming that known techniques could verify if leaks exist or not.

Mud could be tried again as an additional test for leaks between the reservoir and the new well head or to seal off the well head.

If there are leaks, then setup the well to receive the full flow of the well on an ongoing basis.
Additionally, when the full flow of the well can be easily received at the surface, add a turbine vacuum pump designed to add suction to the top of the well head and stop or reduce the leak between the reservoir and the well head (assuming one have been found).

If mud can fill the well and stop the flow, then concrete could be piped to the bottom of the well (using something like a drill pipe) and used to plug the well from the bottom up.

or, perhaps the well is in good shape and can be use to help pay for all the damage caused.

Again, apologies if this is a repeat idea.
mtc

=============== additional comments ===========

R2-3D suggested an "overshoot tool" with 10" thick walls, along with a photo.
See http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6587#comment-648475

R2-3D, something like this, however I was thinking of more like a hollow tube open on both ends and structurally would gain it's strength with the help of the concrete that fills it, perhaps fiber glass or carbon fiber filled concrete in addition to a certain amount of reinforcing steel around the inside of the steel tube.

The steel tube is large enough to easily go over the Blow Out Preventer (BOP) from the sea floor to above the top of the BOP. The sea floor may need some foundations to hold the weight of the new structure.
Once the steel tube is lowered over the entire BOP assembly, the vacuum pump is activates to a level that previously stopped all leaks in the BOP, then concrete is poured into the steel tube up to the top of the BOP.
(Alternatively, the steel tube could be in two sections bolted together around the BOP, allowing this project to be a parallel project to current containment efforts. )

A method of having the top section of the steel tube be much stronger than the lower section and have mating plate and seal for an equally strong top to be placed and bolted down (or welded?) over the top of the tube.
Care needs to be taken to not overfill the tube with concrete.

At this point the entire old BOP is encased in super strong concrete (fiber glass or carbon fiber reinforced) with a perfect lid on the top ready to take a brand new BOP (with all the batteries charged etc. ;) ).

The lid could be equipped with ports to exhaust any seawater inside to prevent hydrate ice forming in the new top, measure pressure etc. The lid could have more than one top port connection that could support separate risers for things like dropping other pipes down into the well for analysis, pull out the old drill pipe and replace it, lower and new drill pipe and pump mud to the bottom of the well to control the flow, then pour concrete from the bottom up to seal the well etc. etc.

mtc

The 90 day moratorium was not going to accomplish anything, considering the people who were charged with investigating the incident. At least the 30-day review that Salazar misquoted had some technical people on the panel.

From Today's Wall Street Journal

REVIEW & OUTLOOK
JUNE 22, 2010

The Antidrilling Commission
The White House choices seem to have made up their minds.

"Under my Administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over. . . To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy. . . I want to be sure that facts are driving scientific decisions, and not the other way around."

—President Obama, April 27, 2009

The President has appointed a seven-person commission to take what he says will be an objective look at what caused the Gulf spill and the steps to make offshore drilling safe. But judging from the pedigree of his commissioners, we're beginning to wonder if his real goal is to turn drilling into a partisan election issue.

Mr. Obama filled out his commission last week, and the news is that there's neither an oil nor drilling expert in the bunch. Instead, he's loaded up on politicians and environmental activists.

One co-chair is former Democratic Senator Bob Graham, who fought drilling off Florida throughout his career. The other is William Reilly, who ran the Environmental Protection Agency under President George H.W. Bush but is best known as a former president and former chairman of the World Wildlife Fund, one of the big environmental lobbies. The others:

* Donald Boesch, a University of Maryland "biological oceanographer," who has opposed drilling off the Virginia coast and who argued that "the impacts of the oil and gas extraction industry . . . on Gulf Coast wetlands represent an environmental catastrophe of massive and underappreciated proportions."

* Terry Garcia, an executive vice president at the National Geographic Society, who directed coastal programs in the Clinton Administration, in particular "recovery of endangered species, habitat conservation planning," and "Clean Water Act implementation," according to the White House press release.

* Fran Ulmer, Chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage, who is a member of the Aspen Institute's Commission on Arctic Climate Change. She's also on the board of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which opposes nuclear power and more offshore drilling and wants government policies "that reduce vehicle miles traveled" (i.e., driving in cars).

* Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, who prior to her appointment blogged about the spill this way: "We can blame BP for the disaster and we should. We can blame lack of adequate government oversight for the disaster and we should. But in the end, we also must place blame where it originated: America's addiction to oil."

On at least five occasions since the accident, Ms. Beinecke has called for bans on offshore and Arctic drilling.

* Rounding out the panel is its lone member with an engineering background, Harvard's Cherry A. Murray, though her specialties are physics and optics.

Whatever their other expertise, none of these worthies knows much if anything about petroleum engineering. Where is the expert on modern drilling techniques, or rig safety, or even blowout preventers?

The choice of men and women who are long opposed to more drilling suggests not a fair technical inquiry but an antidrilling political agenda. With the elections approaching and Democrats down in the polls, the White House is looking to change the subject from health care, the lack of jobs and runaway deficits. Could the plan be to try to wrap drilling around the necks of Republicans, arguing that it was years of GOP coziness with Big Oil that led to the spill?

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel took this theme for a test drive on Sunday when he said that Republicans think "the aggrieved party here is BP, not the fisherman." He added that this ought to remind Americans "what Republican governance is like." The antidrilling commission could feed into this campaign narrative with a mid-September, pre-election report that blames the disaster on the industry and Bush-era regulators and recommends a ban on most offshore exploration. The media would duly salute, while Democrats could then take the handoff and force antidrilling votes on Capitol Hill.

Even as this commission moves forward, engineering experts across the country have agreed that there is no scientific reason for a blanket drilling ban. The Interior Department invited experts to consult on drilling practices, but as we wrote last week eight of them have since said their advice was distorted to justify the Administration's six-month drilling moratorium.

Judging from that decision and now from Mr. Obama's drilling commission, the days of "science taking a back seat to ideology" are very much with us.

There is a new site just launched today that collects all of the various options to stop the oil gusher.

Go to http://www.stopthegusher.com and add you idea and/or vote!

This is one of the wonderful quotations circulated on the Oil Drum

“It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on him not understanding it.”—Upton Sinclair

I posted this late, so I'll post it again, because it seems even more appropriate here.

The real problem is a couple of chess moves down the road. King Midas turned everything he touched to gold, so he couldn't eat. You can't eat oil (unless you're a primordial-soup-making microbe,) and you certainly can't eat money. That's why so many people are now investing in gold!

This may start to become amusing soon to all those folks in all those other countries who don't have enough food, not even carrots. Problem is, we've made it even worse for them at the same time.

Here's a question for all you scientific-types from a mom. There's a lot of pressure on a great big wide sea floor down there. Now there's the equivalent of a pin-prick in it. Is the weight of the sea floor pushing the oil and gas up through that tiny hole? Or is it more like what happens when there's a pin prick in a balloon? And isn't it mostly the gas that wants to escape?

A portion of the sheared riser has been raised... at some point maybe we'll find out whether it contained one pipe or two.

One other interesting note, we’ve found a—we didn’t find, we were able to recover the 40 feet of riser pipe that was cut off when we sheared off the lower ring riser pipe just below the kink. That section of pipe is important for forensics and for the ongoing inquiry. That is—that is being brought to the surface and will be brought to New Orleans, and of course that will be part of the evidentiary—the evidentiary material will be part of the Marine Board of Investigations...

From the transcript of Allen's press briefing earlier today.

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/687251/

Something else interesting.. first mention I've seen of investigating the possibility of another company producing some of the flow.. or actually sending it back into a reservoir.

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, first of all, we’re mitigating risk on the relief well by drilling a second relief well alongside it. Hopefully that won’t be needed. Secretary Salazar and Secretary Chu had a meeting last week in Washington with other industry representatives beyond BP, other oil-producing companies that are out there, and we’ve actually identified a couple of platforms that are in the area that might be capable of taking the product coming out of the wellbore through pipelines and either producing it or putting it back down into the reservoir. We’re exploring that over the next couple of days.

If we’re able to do that, that would give us an option of controlling the flow without having any surface vessels there, to some extent. That wouldn't be the capacity we’re looking for, but that would be another risk mitigator to handle some of the oil. We’re in exploratory conversations, and again, that was just the result of a meeting that we held last week where we asked industry to basically unconstrain their thinking and see what they could do for us. So we’re actually looking at whether or not there are normal wells out there (inaudible) wells out there we could use as alternate production facilities.

..

Q: Admiral, Ray Henry. Wanted to see if you could explain a little bit about what you just talked about, putting the oil potentially back in the reservoir. Give us a little bit of a sense of where those conversations stand, what you'd be looking at. Would this be a production platform that would be brought in to do this, but you need to drill a new well to accomplish that? That’s the first time I think I’ve heard anyone speak of that.

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, it is the first time we’ve talked about it. We’ve had some communications with BP. At the industry meeting that was held last week hosted by Secretary Salazar and Secretary Chu, we were looking at alternatives that would help us increase capacity, and there was an idea in the room among all the people that were talking, and this is the reason we bring other people in and ask them continually searching for new and better ways to do this. They talk about whether or not it was in the immediate area, where this well was being drilled, that there are other production facilities that are already there that we – that could be used if we were to extend the pipeline along the bottom of the ocean, and that’s what we’re looking at right now.

The question of how many of those might be available and the capacity that we could generate is all being looked at right now through a series of letters of request for information that we are working, but it is something that we’re actively looking at because it could allow us to continue production out of that well without the—requiring a service vessel to be there, which is problematic, as you know when a hurricane.

Q: So you would extend a pipeline back into the reservoir to return the oil in a loop, or would it go to someplace else?

ADMIRAL ALLEN: No. We would send the pipeline to an existing facility that’s not being used for well production right now that has access to a different reservoir.

Petey Wheatstraw|: ref: WH Commission on BP blowout.

Liberal greenie defined.
Frances Beinceke, “stop addiction to oil”
Don Boesch, Professor of Environmental Science
Terry Garcia, National Geographic Society lawyer,
Cherry Murray, Harvard physics scientist
Fran Ulmer, politician, climate change activist
Bob Graham, Ex Florida Senator, anti offshore drilling
William Reilly, ran EPA, World Wildlife Fund lobbyist

The commission needs some people from the offshore drilling industry who know something about it, not just academics/lawyers/politicians (all Obama types) who are against it.

Thank you for setting me straight with your nerve to speak to me with disdain.

Over 2300 deep water wells had been drilled in the GOM without a significant blowout before April 20, 2010 with many needed large oil/gas discoveries. The loose MMS laws and regulations have been in existence for fifty years, but the fine past record was the result of the industry behaving itself in the pursuit of profits, and not screwing up the environment. Liberals dump in the well as much as conservatives.

I go on:

If the participants lie during investigations and do not make the necessary reforms to operations and equipment they will only hurt themselves. Safe exploration/production will make the industry more profits, and the public will be able to drive cars, fly in planes, heat homes and use more electricity.
And I continue:
Yes you are right BP gambled and lost, with terrible consequences to the gulf shores and people. I don’t care much about the BP Corporation, some other major will replace them if they go under because people need oil. I do not hate America. In fact I am very grateful and proud to be an American. Was lucky enough to do two hitches in Vietnam.

I conclude:
Right wing greed is not any worst than socialist left wing greed. Little people gain less in more controlled societies. The little people of Venezuela or Saudi Arabia have not gotten rich. Oil makes work easier.

Obama should be impeached over this.

Heading Out,

Totally OT, but I spent 4 long years in Rolla. UMR '83. Where men were men and women were scarce.

Here's a great story.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/in-panacea-operation-noahs-ark-...

"...PANACEA — Jack Rudloe saw the future of his little slice of Florida a few nights ago, on an insomniac hike on the beach. He shined his flashlight at what should've been sea foam. It was not.

"I don't know what it is," he said, holding a bag of the brown goop up to the light the other day. "I've never seen anything like it in my life."

The oil has been inching this way. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama. Pensacola. Panama City. The people of Panacea, a fall-down fishing town in the path of the black monster, are past the point of trying to hope the thing away....

Scientifically, it's questionable," Rudloe says. "But what do you tell the little kids who are asking about the oil spill? You have to tell them you're doing everything you can do."

He calls it Operation Noah's Ark...."

OK, I admit I haven't read anything like all the comments here, but I keep wondering why all the oil capture plans continue to revolve around finicky, hard to seal "top hat" things. I envision something about like the first giant box they tried, but with a plenty big enough pipe in the top to not restrict the flow and a slew of other pipes angled off of it. You drop the whole kit & kaboodle over the whole blowout preventer assembly (possibly putting down a bed of sand or gravel first, mostly fill it with concrete, let it harden, and now you have a whole bunch of pipes you can direct the oil through, with no giant billows gushing out around the edges. Don't even try to bring up the oil under any kind of real pressure, just attach a series of damn big hoses (buoyed to support the weight) to all the pipes (many pipes and valves allow you to shut one pipe to replace one hose when it inevitably breaks). You only have to keep the juggling act going with the hoses till you get the relief well completed.

To All the Drilling Experts who inhabit TOD:
With the moratorium lifted for the moment and the appeals process in chaos due to recusals, would oil companies resume DW exploratory drilling without a final decision? In other words, will the moratorium hold in fact? Starting prematurely could be very expensive?

Considering that BP was lying from the start about the volume of oil polluting the Gulf (the estimate was 5,000 bpd remember) why would anyone believe the numbers they are promoting right now?

More fecal matter entering the rotating device -

TAMPA - A relentless sun baking the tropics for weeks has turned the Gulf of Mexico into a simmering cauldron with water temperatures already hitting their August peak.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/jun/22/rising-gulf-water-temperatures-c...

I did not post this before, but God speaks to me interesting ways. On Sunday, I took a look at the live video of the spill. Just as I called up PBS' link to one of the underwater vehicle cams trained on the gusher, I saw what LOOKED like a large explosion. There was a blinding light, and shrapnel flying. The screen went chaotic, then black, then a new video appeared looking just like the one before the blast. This happened at around 2:39 p.m. Central Time Sunday. Any thoughts?