BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Time is Not Our Friend - (Why gov. does not work)

The Oil Drum ^ | June 21, 2010 | Heading Out

[Hojczyk]

There is a certain frustration in hearing some of the officials who act as spokesmen for the management team handling the spill from the Deepwater well in the Gulf of Mexico. Their evaluation of the situation is bound around a full collection and compilation of the existing evidence, a comprehensive and contemplative understanding through a scientific explanation of the causes of whatever anomalies and other behavior that is not following the model anticipated, and subsequently then working out the best steps forward and determining the potential benefits relative to alternative approaches.

[justa-hairyape]

That little tiny plume on Oly 2 is strange. My guess is we have a slowly rising mix of heavy sediments and some oil products. Probably through a 3-4 inch wide hole. The sediments are only rising about a foot to a foot and a half, and then falling back down. So the short plume has a wide top. Then there is a dark cap. Almost looks like a head with a black toupee :> If you look closely, a thin rising funnel of mostly black oil product can be seen rising from the black cap. Got a feeling we are gonna see some very new phenomenon down there the next couple of days. There is also an angular crack in the sea bed. Possible thin wispy plumes rising from that, but almost impossible to tell at this clarity.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I saw that mentioned,...fired up my view and then saw the color strips of a test pattern...

Some strong statements regarding our Government on this subthread:

amerman on July 21, 2010 - 5:27pm

**********************************EXCERPT*********************************

There is going to be no convictions, and if they are it will be just a few scapegoats.

There will be no convictions because there was no criminal negligence.
Accidents happen, and even a tragic result does not prove negligence.
Of course, the failed haliburton cement job, the TransOcean crew failure to detect/avoid the kickback, and the failed TransOcean owned/operated/maintained BOP should be examined.

The last thing the Dems want is a open/uncontrolled investigation which will point fingers on 3.5 years of failed Dem Congress regulation, and 1.5 years of Obama MMS screw ups, waivers, and failure to enforce.
For example, if the drillers, equipment, procedures were inadequate, why didn't the Dem Congress toughen US policy/regs?
Why wasn't the Dem govt prepared for such a spill? Why did they issue the permit to drill and waivers?

I toured Grand Isle last weekend, and failed to find a drop of oil or a single tarball.
The Obama gusher is stopped, Louisiana has reopened it's waters to recreational fisherman, oil patches are getting hard to find, and eventually CNN will quit showing more close angle views of that same poor pelican.
IMHO 90% of the 'the gulf is destroyed'/'the world is ending' hysteria and Dem demagoguery/shouting is over.

Any fiction that Obama/Dems are competent to run/expand Govt or regulate is dispelled (a very good thing).
However, the knee-jerk administration drilling moratorium will cause very bad short and medium term damages.
But IMO the biggest long term damage from this event is the loss in faith in the US Govt's commitment to the 'rule of law'; this lawless Govt reneged on it's legal/contractual/moral/ethical commitments when it bullied/terrorized/shook down BP to waive the 1990 Oil Pollution $75m cap on driller liability.
What company will begin or expand operations/jobs here when it can’t rely on our Govt to follow it’s own law/commitments?

[justa-hairyape]

Been watching it for about 30 minutes now. Just one of my open windows. Here it is. Have a look.

Live feeds from Oly – ROV 2

My guess is the black toupee is oil being separated out of the tumbling sediments. Sometimes the window comes out real dark. Might have to try it a few different ways. Looks bright here.

[justa-hairyape]

Any fiction that Obama/Dems are competent to run/expand Govt or regulate is dispelled (a very good thing).

Poor Obama. I got a feeling he says the following, quite often.

Again ? How many times now have you told me we fixed that ?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks opened it up....got to post this ..from a link near the current bottom of TOD threads....Matt Simmons at Zerohedge:

Matt Simmons Says Gulf Clean Up Will Cost Over $1 Trillion, Sees BP At $1, Says "We Have Now Killed The GoM"

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Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/21/2010 15:04 -0500

Matt Simmons shares some startling revelations in his latest Bloomberg TV interview, in which he says none of the propaganda matters on TV 24/7 (photoshopped or not) as the ultimate clean up cost will likely be well over $1 trillion, and a result he is unconcerned about his BP short. He ultimately see the stock going down to $1. What Simmons alleges however is far more startling and audacious: that this is a joint cover up effort between the administration and BP, in which both entities keep throwing sand in the eyes of observers while distracting everyone from the matter at hand: "What we don’t know anything about is the open hole which is caused by the drill bit when it tossed the blow-out preventer way out of the hole…and 120,000/day minimum of toxic poison has now covered the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. So what they’re talking about is the biggest environmental cover-up ever. And they knew that that well, that riser, would finally deplete. And then they could say it’s over." On blaming the catastrophe on Transocean: "For two days they kept saying it’s a rig fire. When the rig sank they could no longer call it a rig fire. It’s a riser leak…Because if they said the truth they would all go to jail." The conclusion: "Unfortunately, we now have killed the Gulf of Mexico."

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VIDEO at link

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On whether the well pressure should be a concern:

“No, it’s a total diversion - that’s the gas condensation that was trapped in the drilling riser which blew off the wellhead at 10:01 PM CT on April 20th, it's a mile-long compressed natural gas."

"What we don’t know anything about is the open hole which is caused by the drill bit when it tossed the blow-out preventer way out of the hole…and 120,000 minimum of toxic poison has now covered the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. So what they’re talking about is the biggest environmental cover-up ever. And they knew that that well, that riser, would finally deplete. And then they could say it’s over. And unfortunately, we now have killed the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Some 5-10 miles away is what the NOIA research vessels have now proved is a deep oil lake that is growing by the day and it’s very toxic oil and its gases are very lethal. Basically if we have a hurricane now, we would have to evacuate the Gulf Coast.”

On the financial implications for BP:
“When people find out the magnitude of the story, I don’t know if we can technically clean up the Gulf but it would cost at least a trillion dollars.”

Simmons on his reaction to the rig explosion: 

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

At the end:

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On whether there is hope for a permanent solution now that the oil has stopped leaking:

“No, because that’s not the gusher. That was a little bit of condensation that would have ended anyways. There’s no way to fix the gusher because there’s no casing left in the hole other than doing a small diameter nuclear bomb…It's the only way. With no casing left in the hole, the odds of the relief well working are zero. What the relief wells do-- if they can find the casing, they then cut a 4 inch hole--and then they have something to capture the mud with. With no casing there, it's like pouring oatmeal down a fire hydrant…The casing is not there. It's scattered over the ocean floor. The government now has gamma ray images of the actual blow-out preventer, which is five stories high, weighs 325 tons and it has two sections of casing that pierced through five stories of metal."

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See posts #45 &46.....

I have a really hard time believing anything Simmons is saying,...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

My opinion of Simmons agrees with the comments on the subthread:

Speaking of the devil,

Matt Simmons Says Gulf Clean Up Will Cost Over $1 Trillion, Sees BP At $1, Says "We Have Now Killed The GoM"

[justa-hairyape]

Simmons contribution is that his nuttiness helps to establish the boundaries of normalcy.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

snakehead on July 21, 2010 - 5:08pm.....says

He's talking about a different hole, at some as yet unspecified location, that's belching out 120k bbl/day of heavier than water oil, presumably created by the stuff that blew 10 miles out of the Macondo well even though the BOP magically found its way home and sat down on the stack.

He is not right.

[Quix]

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

thanks.

Great work.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

No idea.

Watching Viking Poseidon - ROV 2 (55030) bkup=56646 XLX-37

stirring up a lot of stuff or....

Doing a sonar survey they say.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

They guy was a Financier in the Oil Business till this...wrote a book....

Who knew he was such a nut....and he just keeps doubling down.

[justa-hairyape]

BTW - Interesting phenomenon currently being studied by Oly 1. Looks like two big holes with sedimentary product flowing slowly out. Possible Sedimentary/Oil mix. Big time flow. Guess we can call those Heavy Smokers or Heavy Plumers.

Live feeds from Oly – ROV 1

They were blowing lighter plumes earlier that rose some. Those are the money shots right now. Oly 1 and Oly 2.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Looks like shimmering snot...but is not rising.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I am gonna have nightmares if I keep watching that....Simmons upsets me enough....got to rest my aching back....nite!

[justa-hairyape]

What I think we have in Oly 1, are just two much bigger version of the Plume in Oly 2. So it is boiling. Medium sediment particles trying to fall back down, light oil particles trying to rise. A fairly effective oil/sediment separation process, but logistics are a biotch.

[justa-hairyape]

Get some rest guy. Expect the time line for the Static Top-Then-Bottom Kill to accelerate.

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

TANKS a bunch for the ping,Ern,,,

I talked to my cuz the other day,,,

Near 40 years with Texas Eastern Pipeline Corp. ,,,

Ret. as EXE VP,,,

He said the same thing I have posted,,,

The only way to kill this blowout is to drill wells all the

way around it and run another undersea pipeline to Port

Fourchon and dump the oil and gas on the market,,,

The one and only reason BP won't do this is because that

would knock the bottom of the oil and gas market,,,

They could hired the two rigs that now goin’

to Africa to drill wells,,,

With enough wells that field could be sucked Dry...

[Smokin' Joe]

Sure seems like Simmons is a panic monger who has a lot of money to gain somewhere by this being an unsolveable and unprecedented disaster, instead of just another blowout with what may be the most intense damage prevention and pre-damage oil interception program ever (in terms of bbl of oil recovered from the water and shipped or burned off).

What he ignores is that you don't need casing to plug an oil well. You use cement in open hole, just as you would in a 'dry' hole (which isn't necessarily dry, it just does not produce enough oil to be commercial). Often those wells will produce salt water at the same pressures as they would have produced oil had it been present, unless they are plugged.