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Title: Oil Rising from Macondo Well: BP Hires Fleet of 40 Shrimp Boats to Lay Boom Around Deepwater Horizon Site
Source:
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URL Source: http://www.stuarthsmith.com/oil-ris ... -around-deepwater-horizon-site
Published: Aug 18, 2011
Author: Stuart Smith
Post Date: 2011-08-18 14:48:04 by Capitalist Eric
Keywords: None
Views: 3007
Comments: 12
No, this isn’t a post from last year. Oil from the Macondo Well site is fouling the Gulf anew – and BP is scrambling to contain both the crude and the PR nightmare that waits in the wings. Reliable sources tell us that BP has hired 40 boats from Venice to Grand Isle to lay boom around the Deepwater Horizon site – located just 50 miles off the Louisiana coast. The fleet rushed to the scene late last week and worked through the weekend to contain what was becoming a massive slick at the site of the Macondo wellhead, which was officially “killed” back in September 2010. The truly frightening part of this development, as reported in a previous post (see below), is the oil may be coming from cracks and fissures in the seafloor caused by the work BP did during its failed attempts to cap the runaway Macondo Well – and that type of leakage can’t be stopped, ever. Catch up on how this could possibly be happening – again – by reading or re-reading my July 25 post below. Stay tuned as we will be all over this story as it continues to develop. Is BP’s Macondo Well Site Still Leaking? Fresh Oil on the Gulf Raises Concerns and Haunting Memories Fresh oil is surfacing all over the northern quadrant of the Gulf of Mexico. Reports of slicks that meander for miles and huge expanses of oil sheen that look like phantom islands are becoming common, again. Fresh oil, only slightly weathered, is washing ashore in areas hit hardest by last year’s massive spill, like Breton Island, Ship Island, the Chandeleurs and northern Barataria Bay. BP has reactivated its Vessels of Opportunity (VoO) program to handle cleanup. It’s a sickeningly familiar scene that has fishermen, researchers and public officials searching for answers, as haunting memories of last year’s calamity come roaring back. The fifty-thousand-dollar question, of course, is where is all the new oil coming from? One theory: The Macondo Well site, located just 40 miles off the Louisiana coast, is still leaking untold amounts of oil into the Gulf. Some argue that the casing on the capped well itself is leaking. Others believe oil is seeping through cracks and fissures in the seafloor caused by months of high-impact work on the site, including a range of recovery activities (some disclosed, some not) as well as the abortive “top kill” effort. In January 2011, a prominent “geohazards specialist” wrote an urgent letter to two members of Congress – U.S. Reps. Fred Upton, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and John Shimkus, chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and Economy – suggesting that the Macondo site is leaking oil like a sieve. Here’s an excerpt from that letter (see it in its entirety at link below): There is no question that the oil seepages, gas columns, fissures and blowout craters in the seafloor around the Macondo wellhead… have been the direct result of indiscriminate drilling, grouting, injection of dispersant and other undisclosed recover activities. As the rogue well had not been successfully cemented and plugged at the base of the well by the relief wells, unknown quantities of hydrocarbons are still leaking out from the reservoir at high pressure and are seeping through multiple fault lines to the seabed. It is not possible to cap this oil leakage. BK Lim, the letter’s author, has more than 30 years of experience working inside the oil and gas industry for companies like Shell, Petronas and Pearl Oil. More from Mr. Lim’s letter: The continuing hydrocarbon seepage would have long term, irreversible and potentially dire consequences in the GOM (Gulf of Mexico)… The letter is dated Jan. 14, 2011 – and we’ve been seeing more and more evidence that the scenario Mr. Lim describes is indeed taking place deep below the Gulf’s surface. For example, on March 28, 2011, Paul Orr and his team from the Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper – an organization I’ve worked with frequently over the course of the last year – conducted a 50-mile boat patrol and sampling tour of Breton Sound, which lies just off the southeast coast of Louisiana. The excursion was prompted by multiple, increasingly frantic, reports of oil in the area by fishermen and others, including On Wings of Care pilot Bonny Schumaker, who has dozens of Gulf flyovers under her belt. Mr. Orr took a sample from the southern end of Breton Island National Park – and sure enough, lab-certified tests results established a fingerprint match to BP’s Macondo Well (see link to my previous post and test results below). The most alarming part of the finding was not simply that the Breton Island sample had BP’s fingerprint on it, but that the test results were nearly identical to those from the fresh oil seen in the early days of the BP spill – instead of the heavily weathered and degraded oil we’ve come to expect in recent weeks and months. Those test results seem to disprove the other theory surrounding this spate of recent “fresh oil” reports. That is: All the oil BP strategically sunk to the seafloor with nearly 2 million gallons of toxic dispersant is beginning to break free and rise to the surface en masse, and in turn, blacken the coastline with fresh oil. According to civil engineer and petroleum expert, Marco Kaltofen, oil that has been lying on the seafloor for several months would be much significantly more weathered than the fresh oil we’re seeing more and more of. As you’ll notice from the histograms, the Breton Island sample mirrors the submerged oil sampled from Pensacola Bay on Nov. 5, 2010 (see link to original post with histograms below) and a sample taken from Panama City Beach on July 14, 2010. You don’t have to be a marine biologist to see that this is the same oil with nearly identical weathering. So we had fresh oil with BP’s signature on it coming ashore in March – more than eight months after the Macondo Well was capped. And since then, members of my team and other researchers have reported fresh oil, of the “only slightly weathered” variety from Grand Isle to Pensacola. One charter boat fishing captain, who frequents the waters around Louisiana’s barrier islands, is describing the current, hauntingly familiar situation on the Gulf as the “second wave” of the BP disaster.
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#1. To: Capitalist Eric, *Spill-Baby-Spill* (#0)
Not good but at least the shrimp boat operators are experienced this time.
Never swear "allegiance" to anything other than the 'right to change your mind'!
Then there is this: BP denies reports of oil leaking from site of Deepwater Horizon disaster No oil is leaking from the capped Macondo well that blew out last year, destroying the Deepwater Horizon floating platform and killing 11 workers, a BP spokesman said Thursday. BP also has not hired any vessels to clean up any oil in that area of the Gulf of Mexico, said spokesman Daren Beaudo. A report in a blog written by trial lawyer Stuart Smith of New Orleans on Wednesday claimed that the well was leaking and that BP had hired 40 boats to clean the mess. Smith did not immediately return a phone call. Beaudo said the confusion may stem from recent reports to the federal National Response Center of a sheen near Green Canyon Block 405, which is near the Macondo well site. "Caller is reporting an unknown sheen discovered by an overflight," reads a report filed with the response center on Aug.. 5. The unidentified caller described the sheen as 6 miles long and rainbow-colored. Similar reports of a sheen in the Green Canyon area were filed with the center on Aug. 6 and Aug. 11. Beaudo said Coast Guard officials notified BP and several other oil companies that operate platforms or have drilled in the area in the past of the sheen reports last week. "We inspected our operations and our assets and didn't find anything," Beaudo said. "But we have two plugged and abandoned wells that were drilled in the '90s in Green Canyon Blocks 463 and 461." The company sent a submersible vehicle to the seafloor to inspect the two abandoned wells and found that some sort of material seemed to be leaking from the sea floor near the Block 463 site, he said. "We think it's silt from a subsurface shallow water pool," Beaudo said. Records for that well indicate that it was drilled through a shallow lens of groundwater, and that may be the source of the material rising from the bottom. The company is awaiting the results of tests on samples of the material, he said. Meanwhile, BP also reported to the response center on Aug. 16 that a light sheen was formed near its Thunder Horse platform in the Mississippi Canyon area when a small amount of oil was released with treated produced water from wells served by the platform. "We checked our operations and made an adjustment of the water treatment process and that eliminated the sheening," Beaudo said. He said tests of that sheen indicate that only 0.000108 gallon of oil was released. Never swear "allegiance" to anything other than the 'right to change your mind'!
Well ya [Pun],... They shattered the crustal zone above the wells depth, The Earth Expands [Expanded Earth Theory] It could let go catastrophically in a form which no technology present could close up via injection.
Like Fukushima. Soon, we'll all be Expert PetroEngineers and Nuclear Engineers...;} "There is no question that the oil seepages, gas columns, fissures and blowout craters in the seafloor around the Macondo wellhead… have been the direct result of indiscriminate drilling, grouting, injection of dispersant and other undisclosed recover activities. As the rogue well had not been successfully cemented and plugged at the base of the well by the relief wells, unknown quantities of hydrocarbons are still leaking out from the reservoir at high pressure and are seeping through multiple fault lines to the seabed. It is not possible to cap this oil leakage. BK Lim, the letter’s author, has more than 30 years of experience working inside the oil and gas industry for companies like Shell, Petronas and Pearl Oil. More from Mr. Lim’s letter: The continuing hydrocarbon seepage would have long term, irreversible and potentially dire consequences in the GOM (Gulf of Mexico)…
Those test results seem to disprove the other theory surrounding this spate of recent “fresh oil” reports. That is: All the oil BP strategically sunk to the seafloor with nearly 2 million gallons of toxic dispersant is beginning to break free and rise to the surface en masse, and in turn, blacken the coastline with fresh oil. According to civil engineer and petroleum expert, Marco Kaltofen, oil that has been lying on the seafloor for several months would be much significantly more weathered than the fresh oil we’re seeing more and more of.
Drill it all. Drill as fast as you can. Especially the Arctic. Go for it....;} "So while we watch in horror as the “second wave” of the BP disaster rolls in – complete with fresh oil and newly hired Vessels of Opportunity cleanup workers – BP continues to make the absurd argument that the Gulf has made a full recovery. While geohazard specialist BK Lim predicts “long term, irreversible and potentially dire consequences” tied to the ongoing seepage around the Macondo wellhead, BP attempts to shutdown further “future loss” payments to spill victims, including commercial fishermen. It’s clear that our friends at BP are in a 5,000-foot-deep state of denial.
James, keep 'em coming. You find the best stuff.
Ffffffffffffffft . . . . {{cough, cough}} yeah, man . . . __________________________________________________________________________________________ Good advise, are you feeling all right? Abiogenic oil production has increased the pressure, and hObama the eco-nut has canceled drilling and outsourced the drilling rigs to the coast of Africa. He's green with envy that Bush got Katrina, and all he got was a little oil leak. The death toll just isn't stacking up to the Bush administration, and those Cajuns are still clinging to their guns and Bibles!
Obama's watch stopped on 24 May 2008, but he's been too busy smoking crack to notice.
Top of my game. How about you? Obama an Eco Nut? Better do some fact checking. A few more like Obama and the Planet's humans won't make it to 2020. LMFAO
;}
But that's so sick. Like you can do both...;} 'Alright, we got the oil. Now let's go catch some shrimp!"
#2. To: Capitalist Eric, Bp Denies Reports Of Oil Leaking From Site Of Deepwater Horizon Disaster (#0)
#3. To: Capitalist Eric (#0)
No, this isn’t a post from last year. Oil from the Macondo Well site is fouling the Gulf anew – and BP is scrambling to contain both the crude and the PR nightmare that waits in the wings.
They may have filled some of the fissures,...which will weaken over time due to the incredible pressures at that depth.
margins that the shattered crustal zones will expand in time [not immediately,...over time]
and that will allow the pressure to exit along fracture lines and ya.....its gonna bleed out oil and gas's for ever more....amen.
Unless they nuked the crustal zone and tried to fuse the matrix.
if they fail,....it lets go like a Super volcano.
#4. To: Brian S (#1)
Not good but at least the shrimp boat operators are experienced this time.
#5. To: All (#4)
#6. To: All (#5)
#7. To: mcgowanjm (#6)
#8. To: Fred Mertz (#7)
James, keep 'em coming. You find the best stuff.
HA! The tea-party, INDEED! They're so . . . ah . . . common
#9. To: mcgowanjm, *Extended Clip Progressives* (#6)
(Edited)
Drill as fast as you can.
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#10. To: hondo68 (#9)
Good advise, are you feeling all right?
#11. To: Fred Mertz (#7)
#12. To: Brian S (#1)
Not good but at least the shrimp boat operators are experienced this time.
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