Comment

Comment by Cindy on August 25, 2010 at 10:34am

BP was warned of gas danger, contractor says

He incriminates engineers, including one who refuses to testify at presidential inquiry.

msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 8/24/2010

Jesse Gagliano is sworn in during the Deepwater Horizon joint investigation hearings on Tuesday in Houston, Texas.

HOUSTON — A contractor to BP testified Tuesday that he warned BP that it risked gas leaks in the Macondo well if it cut back on stabilizers for the pipe going down the hole. The warning, he told the Coast Guard-led inquiry into the disaster, was sent via e-mails to BP engineers, including one who refused to testify on Tuesday.

Jesse Gagliano, a technical advisor for Halliburton, which was contracted to cement the well, testified that two days before the explosion he sent BP a computer model showing severe risk of gas flowing into the cemented well if it used fewer than seven "centralizers" at different depths of the pipe.

"I notified BP of the potential issue," he said, adding that in addition to e-mails he shared his concerns with BP engineers with whom he shared an office.

A BP lawyer who cross-examined Gagliano noted that three days after the explosion — in which gas surged up the drill pipe, causing a fireball — Gagliano wrote a report that never mentioned concerns about the stabilizers.

Earlier Tuesday, BP engineer Brian Morel invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself by answering questions.

House lawmakers in June revealed e-mails from Morel defending the decision to use fewer centralizers. "Hopefully, the pipe stays centralized due to gravity," he wrote, adding that "it's too late to get any more product to the rig."

He also told a BP colleague that the company was likely to make last-minute changes in the well. "We could be running it in 2-3 days, so need a relative quick response. Sorry for the late notice, this has been nightmare well which has everyone all over the place," Morel wrote.

The e-mail chain, which included Gagliano, culminated with the following message by another worker: "This has been a crazy well for sure."

The federal commission is holding a fourth round of hearings this week. Tomorrow's testimony is to focus on the history of offshore drilling, regulations and the risks involved.

The only others who have failed to testify are the top two BP officials on the rig when it exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and setting off the Gulf spill. Robert Kaluza also invoked the Fifth Amendment, while Don Vidrine has cited illness.

Earlier Tuesday, a worker with BP partner Transocean said a high-ranking Transocean employee indicated a pressure test problem had been resolved hours before BP's Gulf of Mexico well blew out.

Daun Winslow testified that there was confusion among workers in the drill shack who were talking before the explosion about a negative pressure test, a procedure typically done before a well is plugged.

Winslow said he left while the drill team and tool pushers were discussing the pressure test to avoid disturbing them. Jim Harrell, the highest-ranking Transocean person on the rig, later gave him a "thumbs up," indicating it had been resolved, he added.

Transocean owns the rig that exploded April 20.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38837179/from/toolbar

Comment by Cindy on August 25, 2010 at 8:36am

Job Losses Over Drilling Ban Fail to Materialize

While deepwater rigs in the Gulf of Mexico have been idled, many companies have shifted attention to other operations.

By JOHN M. BRODER and CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: August 24, 2010

WASHINGTON — When the Obama administration called a halt to virtually all deepwater drilling activity in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon blowout and fire in April, oil executives, economists and local officials complained that the six-month moratorium would cost thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in lost revenue.

Oil supply firms went to court to have the moratorium overturned, calling it illegal and warning that it would exacerbate the nation’s economic woes, lead to oil shortages and cause an exodus of drilling rigs from the gulf to other fields around the world. Two federal courts agreed.

Yet the worst of those forecasts has failed to materialize, as companies wait to see how long the moratorium will last before making critical decisions on spending cuts and layoffs. Unemployment claims related to the oil industry along the Gulf Coast have been in the hundreds, not the thousands, and while oil production from the gulf is down because of the drilling halt, supplies from the region are expected to rebound in future years. Only 2 of the 33 deepwater rigs operating in the gulf before the BP rig exploded have left for other fields.

While it is too early to gauge the long-term environmental or economic effects of the release of 4.9 million barrels of oil into the gulf, it now appears that the direst predictions about the moratorium will not be borne out. Even the government’s estimate of the impact of the drilling pause — 23,000 lost jobs and $10.2 billion in economic damage — is proving to be too pessimistic.

There are several reasons the suspension has not cut as deeply as anticipated.

Oil companies used the enforced suspension to service and upgrade their drilling equipment, keeping shipyards and service companies busy. Drilling firms have kept most of their workers, knowing that if they let them go it will be hard to field experienced teams when the moratorium is lifted. Oil companies have shifted operations to onshore wells, saving industry jobs.

And the administration has dropped repeated hints that the offshore drilling ban will be eased or removed before it is set to expire on Nov. 30.

Michael R. Bromwich, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, the agency responsible for policing offshore drilling, said Monday in a letter to the presidential commission investigating the accident that it was possible that the moratorium would be lifted before Nov. 30 for certain types of rigs.

Mr. Bromwich’s boss, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, said the agency was “ahead of schedule” in drawing up new rules to allow drilling to resume and suggested that the moratorium could be eased as early as next month.

Oil workers idled by the government-imposed drilling suspension are not eligible for BP money intended for people directly affected by the spill, like gulf shrimpers and charter-boat captains. But BP has set aside $100 million to compensate rig hands and support workers who lose their jobs because of the moratorium. The Rig Workers Assistance Fund has not started to make payments.

Oil companies continue to lobby for a lifting of the ban and warn that if it goes on much longer they will move their operations elsewhere. Yet they are hedging their bets by keeping crews and equipment on standby, expecting the pause to end well before the end of the year.

“It’s like a taxi that stops but the meter keeps going,” Ola Morten Aanestad, a vice president for Statoil, the Norwegian company that is a major producer in the gulf, said of its stranded rigs. Statoil has invested in a half-dozen drilling projects that are now frozen by the moratorium, including two in which it is the main operator.

“We are looking at what other alternatives there are elsewhere, but I can’t predict what will come about,” Mr. Aanestad said.

But he added that Statoil had not laid off any gulf workers. “Our base assumption is we will be able to resume our activities and work with our deepwater leases,” he said.

The Noble Corporation, a major offshore driller, had six rigs operating in the gulf before the BP accident and has since acquired a seventh. All are now in limbo, said John Breed, a company spokesman, who added that the company was “looking at opportunities outside the United States.”

But Mr. Breed said the company had not let any rig workers go so far.

“Our goal has been to try to maintain the continuity of our work force, but how long that will go on we don’t know,” he said.

Mr. Breed said a long moratorium would hurt not only the drillers but also the service companies that do the seismic work, the caterers who feed the thousands of rig workers and the sellers of uniforms and safety boots.

The moratorium is likely to have a modest immediate effect on domestic oil production. The Energy Department projects that the moratorium will bring a decline of 120,000 barrels a day in deepwater production in 2011, but domestic daily crude oil production is still expected to increase by 30,000 barrels a day, to 5.46 million barrels.

Eleven deepwater gulf projects operated by major companies like Shell, Chevron and BP that were supposed to begin operating over the next year have been delayed, meaning that 400,000 fewer barrels of oil will be produced in 2015 than originally anticipated, said Leta K. Smith, director of exploration and production trends at IHS-CERA, an energy consulting firm.

But while that would represent about 7 percent of current domestic production, the probable delay in production would be at most six months to a year. “The total reserves that will eventually be produced will be the same,” Ms. Smith said.

Deepwater oil drilling has played an increasingly important role in world energy markets in recent years, and that has not changed after several accidents in the waters of Australia, Britain, Mexico and the United States.

Since 2006, nearly half the total oil and gas reserves added worldwide have been in deepwater areas. Six million barrels of oil a day, or 7 percent of total global production, are now produced in deepwater areas. Global deepwater oil production is expected to double by 2030.

With the world becoming increasingly dependent on deepwater oil supplies, the BP spill has so far had a very limited effect on drilling around the world. Britain has stepped up inspections of offshore rigs. Brazil has announced a safety review that will take a year to complete before it makes any regulatory changes related to its fast-growing offshore drilling industry. Angola has increased inspections.

But there are few signs of any slowdown in drilling. In Norway, which already has strong regulations, the BP accident at first shook the industry. An auction of about 100 offshore lots was initially postponed, but in the end, only six lots in environmentally sensitive areas were kept off limits. In Nigeria and Ghana, some government officials have expressed caution about deepwater drilling, but there have been no significant delays.

“Other countries are not overreacting,” said Robert Johnston, director of energy and natural resources at Eurasia Group, a consulting firm. “The BP crisis has created new concerns about safety and the environment, but at the same time countries like Norway with declining oil production, or countries like Trinidad with declining gas production have a strong incentive to go forward in deep water.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/us/25drill.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Comment by Cindy on August 20, 2010 at 2:15am

Scientists dispute White House claim that spilled BP oil has vanished

• US government challenged over claims oil has evaporated
• Tests show oil is affecting phytoplankton and staying on seabed

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 August 2010

Dispersed oil from the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion lies on a beach of Grand Isle, Louisiana, during August. Photograph: Win Mcnamee/Getty Images

The White House is facing a growing challenge to its claim that most of the oil from the Deepwater disaster has disappeared from the Gulf of Mexico, as at least two independent teams of scientists reported new evidence of oil persisting deep under the surface of the sea.

Earlier this month, government scientists reported that about 75% of the oil had been captured, burned off, evaporated or broken down in the Gulf.

But University of South Florida scientists, returning from a 10-day research voyage, said they found oil on the ocean floor in the DeSoto canyon, a prime spawning ground for fish far to the east of BP's rogue oil well. Preliminary results suggested that oil was getting into the phytoplankton, the microscopic plants at the bottom of the Gulf food chain.

"The idea that this could have an impact on the food web and on the biological system is certainly a reality," David Hollander, a marine geochemist, told the University of South Florida radio station. Smaller organisms would be likely to be affected the most, he added.

"Fish eggs – if they're in that environment – they may not be consuming it, but it's like paint in the air. You breathe it at low concentrations for a long enough time, you're still going to have that response."

Scientists from the University of Georgia also disputed the White House claim, releasing their own analysis suggesting 70% to 79% of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico remained in the water. "The idea that 75% of the oil is gone and of no concern for the environment is just absolutely incorrect," said Charles Hopkinson, a marine science professor at the university.

And the Gulf Coast Fund, a citizens' group, maintains that oil is still washing ashore in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle. "Just because the oil is no longer on the surface, it does not indicate the area is healthy," said Wilma Subra, a chemist advising the group. "We've received reports from residents all along the coast who continue to see oil on and off shore, as well as reports of hundreds of dead fish, crabs, birds, dolphins, and other sea life."

Congress is due to examine the White House claims at a hearing tomorrow on the fate of the 5m barrels of oil that leaked into the Gulf from BP's well. The energy and commerce committee will also look at official claims that Gulf seafood is safe to eat.

BP might not be able to execute the final kill of its well until September, said Thad Allen, the US Coast Guard's former commander, recently retired.

Allen said that BP and government officials had yet to agree on a way to pump cement into the bottom of the well without putting too much pressure on a cement seal at the top. Engineers are assessing whether to install a new blow-out preventer or a new system for relieving pressure on the cap at the top of the well.

The debate about the fate of the oil is a product of the strategic decision taken by the BP and the Obama administration to tackle the oil offshore and prevent the waste penetrating Louisiana's ecologically fragile wetland; the move involved spraying nearly 2m gallons of chemical dispersants on the oil, some of it at depths of 1,524 metres (5,000ft).

The approach means that scientists are now operating in uncharted waters.

BP's well caused the biggest offshore oil spill but never before had response teams used such quantities of dispersants and at such depths.

The efforts to end the problem also led to fears that the chosen cure, in this case the chemical dispersant Corexit, was more dangerous than the ailment. Research had suggested that Corexit made organisms more vulnerable to the toxic components in the oil.

The uncertainties about the long-term consequences of the oil spill have complicated efforts by BP and the Obama administration to move to a long-term response plan. The administration is demanding new pressure tests before it gives the go-ahead for the completion of a relief well.

BP said it was winding down its claims operation, and that today would be the last day it would consider claims from anyone suffering economic losses through the spill. All new claims would be overseen by Ken Feinberg, an independent administrator appointed to oversee the $20bn BP escrow account. BP said its team had so far paid out $368m to claimants.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/18/bp-oil-spill-vani...

Comment by Cindy on August 16, 2010 at 9:19am

Relief Well to Be Completed in Gulf

By HENRY FOUNTAIN
Published: August 13, 2010

HOUSTON — Although tests of BP’s blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico appear to show that it is fully sealed, the government said Friday that work on a relief well would continue to complete the job of permanently plugging the gusher.



“The relief well will be finished,” Thad W. Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral who leads the spill response, said at a press briefing in Schriever, La. But he said BP and government scientists were still studying the test results to determine the precise procedures to be followed in completing the relief well.

Admiral Allen said the tests showed that there was no “communication” in the well between the reservoir of oil and the surface. But he stopped short of declaring victory in the more than three-month effort to stem the leak.

He said that some oil — perhaps 1,000 barrels, according to BP estimates — was still trapped in the well.

BP and government scientists decided to conduct the test to determine the effectiveness of the so-called static kill, in which heavy mud had been pumped into the damaged well, followed by cement. BP engineers knew that the cement had plugged the well’s metal casing pipe; the question was whether cement had also plugged the space between the pipe and the well bore, known as the annulus.

Admiral Allen said the tests appeared to show that there was cement in the annulus. But he said there was no way of knowing how thick the cement was.

One concern with the relief well, he added, is that if it is used to pump more mud into the blown-out well, the increased pressure could affect seals at the top of the well.

“Everybody is in agreement we need to proceed with the relief well,” he said. “The question is how to do it.”

He said once that question was answered, drilling of the relief well would resume. It would be expected to intercept the blown well about four days later.
A version of this article appeared in print on August 14, 2010, on page A11 of the New York edition.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/us/14spill.html?emc=eta1

Comment by Cindy on August 13, 2010 at 11:39pm

Oil spill shows difficulty the Coast Guard faces as it balances traditional tasks with post-9/11 missions

By Joe Stephens and Mary Pat Flaherty
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 13, 2010

The U.S. Coast Guard in recent years has fought international terrorism, defended Iraqi pipelines and patrolled for pirates in the Arabian Sea. This Story

*
Coast Guard feels the strain of greater workload
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The Coast Guard's many missions
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BP oil spill cleanup and containment
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Feds: Relief drilling needed to kill BP's well
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Special Report: The Gulf Coast Oil Spill

View All Items in This Story
View Only Top Items in This Story

Its work in such high-visibility missions accelerated after Sept. 11, 2001, when Congress swept the Coast Guard into the Homeland Security Department. More funding followed.

But the changes had the unintended consequence of lowering the profile of the Coast Guard's vital programs related to oil. "Priorities changed," a 2002 Coast Guard budget report said.

Internal and congressional studies highlighted the difficulty the agency faces in balancing its many added responsibilities. "Oil-spill issues were not at the top of the list," said retired Capt. Lawson Brigham, a former strategic planner for the Coast Guard.

When Coast Guard inspectors board offshore drilling rigs such as the Deepwater Horizon, which exploded and killed 11 workers in April, they rely on regulations put in place three decades ago, when offshore drilling operations were far less sophisticated, records show. The Coast Guard acknowledged 11 years ago in a little-noticed disclosure that its regulations had "not kept pace with the changing offshore technology or the safety problems it creates."

Since the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, investigations into oversight gaps have focused on systemic problems within the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which in recent weeks has been renamed and revamped.

But the Coast Guard, which shared oversight with MMS, has largely escaped scrutiny. While the MMS inspected drilling equipment, the Coast Guard inspected rigs for worker safety. It also set standards for companies that clean up spills, and has coordinated the joint response to the spill in the gulf.

Some analysts said the spill highlights the need to rethink Coast Guard priorities. In the past 35 years, Congress has handed the agency at least 27 new responsibilities, according to a tally by Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

"They just don't have enough personnel to carry out all those missions," said Oberstar, who favors severing the Coast Guard from the Homeland Security Department. "That's just not possible."

Coast Guard officials said they did not have budget figures to compare how much is spent on oil-related programs now and before Sept. 11, 2001. Even current budget numbers for these programs are unclear because spending falls into two categories that encompass many other activities, including fighting invasive species and oversight of recreational boating. Marine environmental protection was allotted 2 percent of this year's operating expenses, marine safety 8 percent.

The Coast Guard said that before 2001, the agency was organized differently. A private study in 2003 by one Coast Guard officer calculated that, before the attacks, marine environmental programs accounted for 11 percent of operating funds and marine safety accounted for 14 percent.

Congressional staffers said the lack of reliable figures has complicated their efforts to ensure that vital programs are not neglected.

Part 1 of 3 to continue reading click on link below

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/12/AR2...

Comment by Cindy on August 13, 2010 at 8:59am

Oil Well Blow Out in Sugar Cane Field.

CNN producer note

lsucowboy told me he and his father are sugarcane farmers. He shot this video the morning of August 11 showing an oil well blowout. Assumption Parish emergency officials told me the oil well blowout occurred at around 4 a.m. and that the well is still spewing. They also told me that cleanup is underway and a few evacuations have occurred due to the incident. lsucowboy told me he is concerned about runoff due to the blowout, and added that he is in contact with environmental quality.
- nsaidi, CNN iReport producer
iReport —

Oil well in the middle of a sugarcane field blew out last night. Oil and natural gas are shooting into the air. Oil is coming down like rain a mile away. This is in Assumption Parish Louisiana.

Comment by Joni on August 11, 2010 at 6:16am

your very welcome sonja and i agree :)

Comment by Myriel RAouine on August 11, 2010 at 5:22am

Thank you so much for posting, Joni!

What humanity has done to the Gulf area is incredible ... and worst of all: this is just the peak of the iceberg! There are so many other areas in the world where we have done similar things which have been covered up ... sending the Violet Ray and our Loving energies that way will continue yet for a while!
Please stay focused on the positive outcome! Envision the area as healthy and clean even if you know that it is not. On another timeline IT IS! And by focussing on what we WANT we can shift ...

Comment by Joni on August 10, 2010 at 7:17pm

Comment by Joni on August 10, 2010 at 7:16pm

Dear joni,

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Gulf Islands National Seashore to see firsthand what the oil spill means for our national parks. I want to share what I saw with you.

A team of NPCA staff flew over the gulf in a small plane, met many of the clean-up workers, and toured the National Park Service's Oil Spill Command Center. Though informative, these experiences did not have the emotional impact of our time on Gulf Islands' beaches.

Wind and rain from Tropical Storm Bonnie pelted us as we stood watching the brown-tinged surf bring, with every wave, a thin sheen of oil up onto the beach. Though officials advised against it, I touched the oil and felt it between my fingers. I reached down and grabbed some of the oily beach sand and ran it over my hands, but was not prepared for the sting on my fingertips; it was a slight, persistent, chemical sting.

The oil spill and the danger it posed to wildlife and a way of life were no longer an abstraction or a two-dimensional photo; it was now real and it was toxic.

Touching even a small portion of the oil that was spread over the entirety of Gulf Islands' beaches, into its wetlands, and on to its wildlife, I could now in a very small way feel the pain of the Gulf spill.

We filmed our visit so we could share this experience with you. I invite you to watch the video of our tour of Gulf Islands National Seashore.

The sting on my fingers also crystallized for me the importance of NPCA’s work protecting our national parks.

We must take action for parks in the Gulf region and across the country. NPCA regional staff members are creating plans to keep park wildlife safe during the Gulf cleanup efforts. At the national level we are pushing Congress for full funding for the national parks in the coming year’s budget. And we will continue our efforts to ensure full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). After decades of advocacy by NPCA, national park supporters like you, and our allies, full funding for LWCF is currently included in the House and Senate oil spill bills! If these bills become law, they will provide lasting protections for our parks for years to come.
I hope my experience shows you the importance of every action you take, every gift you make. Our national parks can’t protect themselves. They need you to ensure they will be there for your children and grandchildren.

Thanks so much for standing with us, and with the National Park Service, and for helping to ensure a better future for our national parks.

Sincerely,
Thomas C. Kiernan

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