Senate Performs Successful Top Kill For BP

(10AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

This is going to be a mish mash of various links relevant to today’s oil spill news, Tues Aug 3, 2010.  I took one look at the amusing picture of the moonshine still on the open thread and saw instead the Blow Out Protector on the Macondo Oil Well of Doom.

I was trying not to laugh my arse off about a certain fp diary at a certain blog yesterday which was a repeat of a certain breathless Washington Post article announcing that The Oil Spill Was Really BIGGER than they all thought according to the “new” government figures.

Which was as big as the government knew all along, from April 23, 3 days after the blowout, when they were doing estimates based on BP’s internal documents that weren’t released yet, and then the government and BP have colluded since then to lie their a$$es off about.   NOAA released a chart of the potential leak impact on the coast line back in April with the higher number.

3 months minus 5 days times 50,000 to 60,000 barrels a day.  Duh.  As if BP Tony hadn’t mentioned 60,000 a day back in June in front of Congress, either.

Yes, they really do think we are THAT stupid.

http://ht.ly/2k2dQ

WASHINGTON – Based on new pressure readings, data, and analysis, the U.S. scientific teams charged by National Incident Commander Thad Allen with determining the flow of oil from BP’s leaking well have refined their estimates of the oil flow prior to the well being capped on July 15. Today’s estimates, which draw heavily on recent oil reservoir modeling and on pressure readings of a closed system, are the most accurate to date and have an uncertainty of plus or minus approximately 10 percent.

The scientific teams estimate that 53,000 barrels of oil per day were leaking from BP’s well immediately preceding its closure via the capping stack.

Recent measurements and modeling also show that, as a result of depletion of the hydrocarbon reservoir, the daily flow rate decreased over the 87 days prior to the well’s closure. Based on these measurements and modeling, the scientific teams estimate that, at the beginning of the spill, 62,000 barrels of oil per day were leaking from the well.

Overall, the scientific teams estimate that approximately 4.9 million barrels of oil have been released from the well. Not all of this oil and gas flowed into the ocean; containment activities conducted by BP under U.S. direction captured approximately 800,000 barrels of oil prior to the capping of the well.

The govt JIC twitter still isn’t talking about what’s going on much in real time. The relief well is waiting on the static top kill which keeps getting delayed.   Static, or top kill Redeux II, is going to be mud and then cement pumped into the well from the top, again.

The Oil Drum continues to follow this

http://www.theoildrum.com/node…

According to one commenter

http://www.theoildrum.com/node…

Maybe BP deserves that 4.1 million barrel X 4300$/B = 17 billion $ fine for spilling oil into GOM and being reckless.

Yes, that’s $17 billion dollar fine for 4.1 million barrels of spilt oil, if they enforce it.

The President had BP set aside $20 billion for the entire cleanup…..  

BP’s twitter feed http://twitter.com/BP_America  

says the “integrity test” (pressure test)  went according to plan, and that static kill is going on.

BP’s Kent Wells claims the well “has integrity.”

BP now twitting that relief wells are final solution. 17 minutes ago. 4:00pm PDT

http://twitter.com/BP_America/…

webcams for slow computers http://www.occupantunknown.com…

faster computers  http://www.ustream.tv/pbsnewshour

The wellhead assembly is still there so they’ve not managed to blow anything huge up yet as of 3:40 pm PDT

transcript of Thad Allen’s briefing this morning Tues Aug 3, fr McClatchy (thanks to WhoDat35, who continues to have the best links

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/201…

and from the Guardian UK, Obama admin scientists admit alarm over chemicals in the Corexit dispersant crap

http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi…

The Environmental Protection Agency has come under withering attack in Congress and from independent scientists for allowing BP to spray almost 2 million gallons of the dispersant Corexit on the slick and, even more controversially, pump the chemical into the leak site 5,000ft below the sea. Now it emerges the EPA’s own experts have been raising similar concerns within the agency.

Jeff Ruch, exective director of the whistleblower support group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said he had heard from five scientists and two other officials who had expressed concerns to their superiors about the use of dispersants.

http://twitter.com/WhoDat35 Linda Leavitt

Senate bags on passing any legislation on energy, goes home for August vacation    8/3/2010  Switchboard NRDC blog

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/bl…

This continued inaction is a testament to Big Oil’s stranglehold in Congress.

Last year, the oil and gas industry spent a record $168 million to lobby the U.S. Congress and the administration in Washington. That’s not counting the millions spent lobbying officials in Texas, Louisiana, Alaska and other coastal states. Nor does it include advertising intended to influence public opinion on topics such as climate change and the importance of offshore drilling.

Spreading this much money around appears to get results. It has persuaded some lawmakers to place the profits of one sector above the interests of the entire Gulf of Mexico-its fishing economy, its tourism trade, its coastal communities, its marine ecosystems, its cultural traditions, and its families.

The Hill: Oil industry trade group cheers spill bill delay in Senate  8/3/2010

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wi…

On Tuesday Reid shelved the bill – a blend of oil-spill response and energy policy measures – until after the August recess, citing a lack of GOP votes. The bill faces opposition from Republicans and a few Democrats.

“Provisions eliminating the cap on liability provided in the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 would discourage major integrated oil companies as well as independent producers from exploring in domestic waters, as they would be unable to afford adequate insurance to cover the potential liability risk, if they could obtain insurance coverage at all,” said Bruce Josten, the Chamber’s top lobbyist, in a letter to senators Tuesday. It adds that independent oil-and-gas producers “would be particularly hard hit.”

The US Chamber of Commerce also lobbied against the bill.

Karen Harbert, who heads the Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, said the bill and even more far-reaching legislation the House approved last week would “essentially shut down America’s oil and gas industry, which would harm our economy, shed more jobs and force us to become even more reliant on foreign oil.”

Isn’t it an amazing serendipity that BP starts Static Kill the day the Senate starts Static Body of Congress Fundraising ?