Posted on 06/01/2010 6:31:11 PM PDT by slapshot
Given the pressures and volume observed, does this blowout indicate a significant find?
say what?
There’s a huge amount of oil down there. Otherwise, BP wouldn’t have sunk a several million into drilling costs.
Dontcha love the propaganda from the White House, once they cut the top off ‘20%’ more oil could escape....well they don’t know right now how much oil is escaping, how can they determine ‘20%’ more ‘may’ escape? BS.
Also this in now way diminishes the fact that 11 individuals perished in horrific conditions as well as setting off an environmental emergency.
As a historical reference, how did the environment recover after the following disasters:
Torrey Canyon
Exxon Valdez
Venoil/Venpet collision
All petroleum experts are welcome to add their input.
Louisiana’s wetlands make up some 40 percent of all the marshlands in the United States.
Peak oil! Oil comes from all those fossilized dinosaur bones!
Gulf Oil Spill a "Dead Zone in the Making"?Infauna, or small organisms such as clams and tubeworms that live in ocean sediments, are vital food sources for shorebirds and other coastal animals.
After the 1979 Ixtoc oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the area's infauna were reduced by up to 90 percent, Tunnell said—a potential reason many bird species left the area in the wake of the nine-month-long spill.
However, there may be a bright side: Organisms at the bottom of the food chain reproduce more rapidly than bigger animals, Tunnell pointed out by email. After the Ixtoc spill, infauna returned to pre-spill levels within about a year.
That is an engineering estimation by BP which the WH was passing on. BP knows the pressure above the BOP, the area of leaks in the riser pipe, the shape of the leak orifices. With that information, they calculate how much oil will pour out of the unrestricted riser pipe after cutting it off. It has nothing to do with the amount of oil currently coming out of the leaks and everything to do with the size of the orifices.
I hate you.
The oil pressure is immense. You might think that a pressure of over 150 atmospheres due to 5000 ft of water would be enough to hold it down.
They’re still pumping oil from Spindletop. 109 years after the first gusher.
Almost certainly.
The extent of the discovery won't be known for a long time after the well is capped.
Data from the discovery well is probably limited to cuttings, well logs, core samples and limited pressure data readings. It will take many more confirmation wells to determine rock properties, define the reservoir boundaries and obtain control data for seismic mapping. My guess is that it will take BP years to work through the legal and environmental morass before any more drilling can take place.
That said, BP didn't pay the huge acreage acquisition costs and then undertake the enormously expensive exploratory program in deep water without strong indications of a high probability of commercial success. The the volume of oil produced in the last six weeks seems to vindicate their analysis.
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