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The Scottish first minister has called on the UK and US governments to publish all of their documents relating to the release of the Lockerbie bomber.Mr Salmond said the documents would vindicate the Scottish governmentThe Scottish first minister has called on the UK and US governments to publish all of their documents relating to the release of the Lockerbie bomber.The Sunday Times claimed to have seen a letter from the US administration to the Scottish government before the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.It said the US government did not want Megrahi released from prison.

Desperate White House Sends Political Team To The Gulf, After Blowing It For The Past Three Months Joe Weisenthal | Jul. 25, 2010, 8:41 AM | 43 | comment 1 The Deepwater Horizon blew up on April 20. It's now almost August. Apparently it took nearly all this time for The White House to realize it was taking a beating over the politics of the situation, and that it ought to start getting head of the controversies. POLITICO: The White House has quietly launched an effort to confront the political backlash along the Gulf Coast over its handling of the...

A critical alarm system that should have warned workers of danger aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig had been disabled before the rig erupted into flames on April 20,

BP PLC's board is set to name managing director Bob Dudley as the company's new chief executive if, as expected, the board on Monday approves the negotiated departure of current chief Tony Hayward, people familiar with the matter said. The plan before the board would elevate Mr. Dudley to the CEO spot on Oct. 1, allowing for a roughly two-month transition from Mr. Hayward, according to someone familiar with the plan. Mr. Hayward would stay on the board for the rest of the year. As expected, he will discuss BP's second-quarter results on Tuesday.

KENNER, LA. -- If there is no smoking gun in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, it is because there is smoke coming from so many places.After months of oil-spill misery and endless recriminations about what happened and why, it is increasingly clear that the complex operation of drilling an exploratory well in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico failed in a complex way. No single decision or misstep in isolation could have caused the blowout, but any number of decisions might have prevented it had they gone the other way. The calamity, the evidence now suggests, was not an...

NEW ORLEANS — Some ships prepared to move back to the site of BP's broken oil well Saturday as the remnants of a weakening Tropical Storm Bonnie rolled into the Gulf of Mexico. The rough weather is still expected to hit the area directly, but the storm - now barely a tropical depression - broke apart as it crossed Florida and moved into the Gulf. Dozens of vessels evacuated the Gulf Friday ahead of the storm on the orders of Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government's spill chief. But by Saturday morning, the rig drilling the relief...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Some 750 boats drafted in to scoop up oil from the Gulf of Mexico are having "trouble" finding any crude in the sea, a top US official said Wednesday, almost a week after a busted well was capped. "We are starting to have trouble finding oil," US pointman Admiral Thad Allen, who is in charge of handling the government's response, told reporters. The boats, which have been drafted in to skim oil off the surface of the Gulf, are "really having to search for the oil in some cases" around the area of the capped well, he...

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.

Because of the number of comments, this is a new thread. The previous thread was http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6754. Update 2:30 pm EDT: Original leak on the pipe has been sealed, but there are two major leaks on the stack now. One is at the bottom of the new "cap" and the other is on both sides of the BOP just underneath the flex joint. Lots of hydrates above the leaks. Update 1:00 pm EDT: Chuck Watson has an update on the potential for a tropical storm, added to the end of this post.

Update 2:30 pm EDT: Original leak on the pipe has been sealed, but there are two major leaks on the stack now. One is at the bottom of the new "cap" and the other is on both sides of the BOP just underneath the flex joint. Lots of hydrates above the leaks.

BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - White House Press Secretary Gibbs Confirms "Ruptured Oil Well Leaking from Top" and a Seep Two Miles Away (and Open Thread 2)Because of the number of comments, this is a second copy of this post. The previous post can be found at http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6749. The White House says the well is leaking at the top and a seep is 2 miles away. Here is the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38304846/. At the end of last week, BP began the testing of the Deepwater well cap, closing all the valves and stopping the flow of oil and natural gas into...

HOUSTON/LONDON (Reuters) – Energy giant BP Plc said on Monday that seepage near its Gulf of Mexico well was unrelated to the massive oil leak that has at least temporarily been capped. BP shares, which had dropped more than 6 percent after engineers detected seepage on the floor of the Gulf after the well was capped on Thursday, recovered in late trade on the news. They were down 3.9 percent in late afternoon trading in New York.BP spokesman Mark Proegler told Reuters: "Scientists have concluded that the seep was naturally occurring."

Seepages Near The Leaking BP Oil Well 'May Be Natural' Seepages on the sea floor near the leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well may be unrelated to the well itself, the government's incident commander says. Adm Thad Allen said there were concerns over three areas of "anomaly" during monitoring for a pressure test on the well. The well has been capped to see if the flow of oil can be stopped without provoking leaks in the sea bed. If the test fails, the well will be re-opened and oil will flow out again. Adm Allen outlined the three areas of...

Spill Investigators Focus on 20 'Anomalies' Aboard Doomed Deepwater HorizonFederal authorities investigating BP PLC's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are zeroing in on bad decisions, missed warnings and worker disagreements in the hours before the April 20 inferno aboard the Deepwater Horizon that spawned one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. In particular, the panel is examining why rig workers missed telltale signs that the well was close to an uncontrolled blowout, according to an internal document assembled by the investigators and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The document lists more than 20 "anomalies" in...

AP has released this story (link here), entitled "(Anonymous) Official: Seep found near BP's blown out oil well." The last open thread where this was being discussed (all throughout, but especially towards the bottom) was http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6745. Doug Suttles was the BP representative on this morning's (Sunday morning) technical update. Mr. Suttles said that pressure is now at 6,778 psi, and continues to build at one to two psi per hour, and this is encouraging. BP still does not see any problems. BP now thinks that there is a possibility that the test can continue from now until the well is...

The Gulf of Mexico's gushing oil well remained shut off Sunday afternoon, as BP and federal officials conferred over when -- and whether -- it should ever be re-opened. The leaking BP well was the subject of dueling media announcements on Sunday, as BP and the government offered different glosses on the same basic facts. The well was still capped, as it has been since Thursday, and it hasn't shown signs of a feared underground leak. Sunday morning, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles told reporters that, because a new mechanical cap seems to be holding, "there is no target...

Doug Shuttles was the BP representative on this morning's (Sunday morning) technical update. Mr. Shuttles said that pressure is now at 6,778 psi, and continues to build at one to two psi per hour, and this is encouraging. BP still does not see any problems. BP now thinks that there is a possibility that the test can continue from now until the well is killed by the relief well, probably in August. But this is not a decision that can be made all at once. Instead, careful monitoring will be continued, and a decision made on a day by day...

At this morning's press briefing, Kent Wells of BP reported that pressures have now reached 6,745 psi, and are building at about 2 psi per hour. BP is estimating ultimate pressure will be around 6,800 psi. While this is not as high as originally expected, there are several reasonable explanations for this lower pressure reading, including the possibility that the well is now somewhat depleted, and therefore has lower pressure. BP seems to be encouraged by the results. Mr. Wells said several times, "We are encouraged that we have integrity," and "We find no evidence of lack of integrity."

As a team of scientists works to interpret pressure readings inside the blown-out Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, a geologist who has been following the gusher said a pressure reading of lower than the 8,000 to 9,000 pounds per square inch target that officials have said they are hoping for does not necessarily indicate bad news. The 6,700 pound- per-square inch pressure reading logged inside the blown-out Macondo well this morning may suggest that the well has lost power over the almost three-month-long period it has flowed into the Gulf of Mexico and not that the well is leaking somewhere beneath the sea floor, a geologist who...