August 4, 2010, Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Response, Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center
Federal Science Report Details Fate of Oil from BP Spill
WASHINGTON – The vast majority of the oil from the BP oil spill has either evaporated or been burned, skimmed, recovered from the wellhead or dispersed using chemicals – much of which is in the process of being degraded. Much of this is the direct result of the federal response efforts.
A third (33 percent) of the total amount of oil released in the Deepwater Horizon/BP spill was captured or mitigated by the Unified Command recovery operations, including burning, skimming, chemical dispersion and direct recovery from the wellhead, according to a federal science report released today.
An additional 25 percent of the total oil naturally evaporated or dissolved, and 16 percent was dispersed naturally into microscopic droplets. The residual amount, just over one quarter (26 percent), is either on or just below the surface as residue and weathered tarballs, has washed ashore or been collected from the shore, or is buried in sand and sediments. Dispersed and residual oil remain in the system until they degrade through a number of natural processes. Early indications are that the oil is degrading quickly.
These estimates were derived by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of the Interior (DOI), who jointly developed what’s known as an Oil Budget Calculator, to provide measurements and best estimates of what happened to the spilled oil. The calculator is based on 4.9 million barrels of oil released into the Gulf, the government’s Flow Rate Technical Group estimate from Monday. More than 25 of the best government and independent scientists contributed to or reviewed the calculator and its calculation methods.
“Teams of scientists and experts have been carefully tracking the oil since day one of this spill, and based on the data from those efforts and their collective expertise, they have been able to provide these useful and educated estimates about the fate of the oil,” says Jane Lubchenco, under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “Less oil on the surface does not mean that there isn’t oil still in the water column or that our beaches and marshes aren’t still at risk. Knowing generally what happened to the oil helps us better understand areas of risk and likely impacts.”
The estimates do not make conclusions about the long-term impacts of oil on the Gulf. Fully understanding the damages and impacts of the spill on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem is something that will take time and continued monitoring and research.
Dispersion increases the likelihood that the oil will be biodegraded, both in the water column and at the surface. While there is more analysis to be done to quantify the rate of biodegradation in the Gulf, early observations and preliminary research results from a number of scientists show that the oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill is biodegrading quickly. Scientists from NOAA, EPA, DOE, and academic scientists are working to calculate more precise estimates of this rate.
It is well known that bacteria that break down the dispersed and weathered surface oil are abundant in the Gulf of Mexico in large part because of the warm water, the favorable nutrient and oxygen levels, and the fact that oil enters the Gulf of Mexico through natural seeps regularly.
Residual oil is also degraded and weathered by a number of physical and biological processes. Microbes consume the oil, and wave action, sun, currents and continued evaporation and dissolution continue to break down the residual oil in the water and on shorelines.
The oil budget calculations are based on direct measurements wherever possible and the best available scientific estimates where measurements were not possible. The numbers for direct recovery and burns were measured directly and reported in daily operational reports. The skimming numbers were also based on daily reported estimates. The rest of the numbers were based on previous scientific analyses, best available information and a broad range of scientific expertise. These estimates will continue to be refined as additional information becomes available.
7/9/2010 Gulf of Mexico 6 days before the leaking well was capped. photo NASA
67% of this is going to go away all by itself, naturally, according to the finest scientific minds available. Image from NOAA and the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center.
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.
Lump-sum compensation offered in return for waiving the right to sue,
but uncertainty remains for those indirectly affected
Tim Webb, guardian.co.uk — August 1, 2010
BP will begin its legal offensive this month to cap its liabilities from the Gulf of Mexico disaster by offering those affected one-off compensation payouts in return for them waiving the right to sue.
[…]
The fund does not cap BP’s liabilities at $20bn. But privately the company believes that it will not have to pay out anywhere near this sum. BP has hired a battery of lawyers to protect itself, and so far it has paid out $261m in claims.
[…]
According to BP, 1.8m gallons of dispersant have been pumped into the Gulf. Scientists say that the resulting high toxicity levels could harm marine life for years to come.
Hmmm … Seems BP is a bit worried about the long-term effects of that 1.8 Millions of gallons of Corexit, they used — to help make that spill problem disappear?
How much oil is in the Gulf now is up for debate. Several Louisiana leaders, including St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis have argued that million of gallons of oil are underwater, waiting to surface.
“We haven’t found that,” [Bob] Dudley [new BP CEO] said.
Dudley said six ships and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are working to locate underwater oil.
“It’s a big hunt going on right now,” Dudley said. “It’s going to keep going on.”
Hey BOB! — MAYBE you haven’t “found it” because of 1.8 Million Gallons of Toxic Dispersants you managed to spray — Kept much of it Underwater, eh?
They’ll find ALL that missing Oil — just give them some more time … that’s all they ask …
Now for a little exercise in News Spin Cycles, vs the Scientific Process …
When the Facts, finally come in, IS Anyone even still Paying Attention?
“What we have learned completely changes the idea of what an oil spill is,” said chemical oceanographer David Hollander, one of three USF researchers credited with the matching samples of oil taken from the water with samples from the BP well. “It has gone from a two-dimensional disaster to a three-dimensional catastrophe.”
[…]
Together, the two studies confirm what in the early days of the spill was denied by BP and viewed skeptically by NOAA’s chief – that much of the crude that gushed from the Deepwater Horizon well stayed beneath the surface of the water.
For the past several days, everyone has been speculating on what would be done with the unfinished relief wells and new but ever so slightly oozing sealing cap and 3 ram stack assembly, should the relatively calm Gulf coast weather turn on them. Today’s the one week anniversary of the BP oil well successfully being turned off.
Previously no decision had been made, with hints that the well might have to be opened up again, if they had to abandon the Macondo Canyon 252 site because of a hurricane or tropical cyclone.
Per Admiral Thad Allen’s latest press briefing this afternoon, ongoing, they are planning to leave the broken BP oil well capped if they have to evacuate the area because of an oncoming weather system.
The relief well that is farther along, and only about 4 feet horizontally from intersecting the old Deepwater Horizon wellbore, with just a bit of casing to put in at the very end for the last 100 feet they still have to drill, has received a temporary plug, called a “storm packer ” which they stuff down it 300 feet below the sea floor.
Tropical Depression #3, not looking real organized yet.
Here’s the storm that will be named “Bonnie” if it gets organized. Right now, Bonnie is still Tropical Depression #3 with a “high” aka 50% or greater, probability of going to cyclone status within 48 hours, and a projected storm track to head possibly for the Louisiana Delta. T.D. #3 is over land right now, which is keeping it milder. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo_a…
Here’s a live, updating, easy to load satellite link to watch “Bonnie to Be” which is currently the leading edges on the very right hand side of this image, Thurs, July 22, at 1:35 pm PDT. ( pic was taken 2:45 pm local )
Here’s that NOAA cafeteria page of every possible weather graphic you’d ever want to see for New Orleans/Baton Rouge, loads more slowly http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lix/?n…
The Federal Government has been sort of quiet the last 24 hours.
Today July 20, 2010 10:00 am CST
National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen’s press briefing has been postponed until this afternoon. Details will be provided as they become available.
Guess they want the DNC Villager Pundits, WAPO, and the Beltway to have a front row seat, and the locals in Louisiana, not so much.
I’m sure they won’t announce anything too exciting, but it will be in time for this evening’s news and and they will be reporting from in front of the Dept of Justice in DC, which makes a nice backdrop.
Headline from Nola.com David Hammer of the Times- Picayune BP did not suspend drilling operations after reporting leaking blow out preventer
Well site leader Ronald Sepulvado told a Marine Board investigative panel in Kenner that before he wrapped up his stint as BP’s top man on the rig four days before the April 20 accident, he reported that one of the control pods on the blowout preventer, or BOP, had a leak.
He said he told his supervisor in Houston, BP team leader John Guide, and assumed that Guide would notify federal regulators at the Minerals Management Service. According to investigators, that never happened.
Federal Regulation 250.451(d) states that if someone drilling in federal waters encounters “a BOP control station or pod that does not function properly” the rig must “suspend further drilling operations until that station or pod is operable.”
Asked if that was done, Sepulvado said it wasn’t.
Oh, and about the old, original, and now officially leaky BOP- it was serviced in CHINA before being put on top of the well. Story originates in the British press, of course.
Blow out preventer was sent to the Far East at BP’s request rather than overhauled in US
There is no evidence that the significant modifications to the blowout preventer (BOP), which were carried out in China in 2005, caused the equipment to fail. But industry lawyers said BP could be made liable for any mistakes that a Chinese subcontractor made carrying out the work. It would be almost impossible to secure damages in China, where international law is barely recognised.
This week David Cameron will travel to the US to meet Obama and other politicians where he will stress the importance of BP to the UK economy. Business figures such as Lord Jones, the UK trade ambassador and former CBI boss, criticised Cameron for not being sufficiently supportive of the company last month after he said that he “understood the US government’s frustrations” over BP’s failed attempts to stop the leak.
A government adviser said that Cameron and Obama shared common interests over the crisis, and that both wanted BP to survive the incident. BP accounts for over a tenth of all share dividends paid by UK companies, and pension funds rely on the income it generates. Politicians in the US want BP to make enough profits to pay potentially billions of dollars in compensation and damages arising from the spill.
BP needs cash. BP having garage sale, raises $1.7 billion. Announced today.
BP to sell assets in Vietnam and Pakistan to pay for oil spill Tue Jul 20, 2010
As British Prime Minister David Cameron sought to defend the energy giant before meeting President Barack Obama and U.S. senators, the energy company outlined its latest plans to raise money.
Exactly three months after an explosion on an offshore rig killed 11 workers and caused millions of barrels of crude to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, BP announced it would sell its Vietnam pipeline and upstream assets as well as its Pakistan assets.
Pakistan ? Isn’t that where we’ve had the CIA droning along looking for the Taliban lately ? US Secretary of State H. Clinton just announced a $1.5 billion aid package allegedly for domestic infrastructure for Pakistan yesterday….
Oh, now we get it. Sleight of hand !
If you thought “Top Kill” was dead, guess again, it might be back. Only now with the well wearing a sealing cap and ram stack on top, which has temporarily stopped the leak, they’re calling it a “Static Kill” or “Bullhead Kill.”
(Kent Wells of BP ) Wells characterised the second attempt as a “static kill” because the cap provides a closed system that has back pressure to pump against rather than the first “dynamic kill,” attempt, which essentially was pumping contest between the vessels on the surface and the producing reservoir.
It is the first time BP has talked about trying a second kill operation before the relief wells intercept the Macondo bore.
Wells said scientists realised it might be possible when pressure in the capping stack did not build as high as expected.
Because of the low pressure and the closed system, crews would not have to pump at as high rates and pressures as they did during the first attempt, Wells said.
This is important because BP was worried that high pressure could cause some of the components of the well to fail, he explained.
Even if the top kill is successful, BP will still finish the relief well to ensure that the Macondo bore is shut and stable.
Kent Wells of BP also claimed in the above story that the tests show the wellbore is likely not damaged. Pressure is at 6811 psi – pounds per square inch, and rising at about 1 psi per hour.
Oh, and the U.S. House of Lords, aka “the Senate,” is going to try to put the Kerry- Lieberman bastard love child energy bill on the floor of the Senate during the last week of July, before August recess, for a vote. The phrase they are using is “utility only.” This means the bill focuses on carbon emitted by utilities and not on manufacturers and industrial sources. Currently Lindsey Graham and Olympia Snowe, the reasonable bait and switch Republicans, like the “utility only” approach. You know what that means later. Anything for those 60 votes because only in America is 51 not a majority, and since the election of Barack The Constitutional Law Scholar O’Bush in the year 2000, only the Senate writes legislation, and the House takes it or goes fish. Wait, there are no fish anymore…. Maj. Leader Reid of Nevada noticed he was up for re election, and decided to put this turkey on the floor July 26th. It’s not that opponent, nutcase neoconservaflatearthfundi Sharron Angle is a great candidate, it’s that she has the full bore power thrusters of the Oil Industry/Pentagon warhawks funding her, and the swiftboaters are just getting warmed up.
It would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the utility and potentially other industrial sectors by 17 percent by 2020 and 42 percent by 2030.
It would mandate that electric utilities participate in a cap-and-trade program by 2012 but allow manufacturers and other industrial sources to elect to “opt in” to the program. While some manufacturers who do not participate would not receive free emission allowances to offset higher electricity costs, local distribution company allowances would go to residential consumers and certain industrials regardless.
“New Mexico” means this bill will be full of goodies for the nuclear industry, which, because of its toxicity of the fuel and security concerns, is about as right wing as any segment of industry can get. More Homeland Security money, anyone ?
Opt – in. Yeah, sort of describes the entire Democratic administration so far, electing to “opt in” to the issues concerning the liberals whenever there is a need for a catchy buzzphrase or to get elected.
Outrageous. Our U.S. Government is ordering them to resume oil bombing the Gulf.
It’s only cute the first time. screenshot ROV Skandi cam and 2 ROVs checking out the new top of the seal cap and stack assembly that was installed over the old well BOP
BP’s Deepwater Horizon Macondo oil well, which was successfully turned off last Thurs July 15 at 1:20 pm PDT after 86 days of uncontrolled gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, will be turned back on to start re gathering oil and gas, as soon as the pressure tests are done, according to today’s Bloomberg.com.
Haven’t we seen enough of that at this point ? This was the Gulf of Mexico the day the new cap was placed over the BOP, 7/12/10 before they started cranking it down slowly. photo NASA
BP had been considering whether the positive test results would allow it to keep the well sealed, stopping the flow of oil until the leak could be permanently plugged. Allen has said consistently that it was “likely” the government would choose to use BP’s new, tighter-fitting cap to resume capturing oil after the tests.
More Oil Spilling
While the company eventually plans to reach collection capacity of 80,000 barrels a day, more than the estimated size of the leak, reopening the well would lead to some oil escaping to the sea before the vessels are connected, Wells said yesterday.
“Thad Allen wants to do containment because they want to find out what the real flow rate was,” Don Van Nieuwenhuise, director of Petroleum Geoscience Programs at the University of Houston, said in an interview yesterday. “Unless they do something like that, they’ll almost never be able to prove what the true flow rate was.”
Pressure inside the well had risen to 6745 pounds per square inch by Saturday. Originally BP said they wanted to see 7,500 psi to say that the well was safely intact, yesterday, they fudged that a little in a press briefing around 29 hours along and said at 6745 psi “there is no evidence that we don’t have well integrity.” Bloomberg quotes BP’s Kent Wells as saying “we feel more comfortable we have integrity.”
The area around the well has been very closely monitored since the test started for seismic disruptions and seafloor disturbances, and sonar has been deployed on surface ships circling the wellhead seafloor area from above.
Once reopened, oil and gas would be sucked up by a new, untested riser cap that would be placed on top of the new ram stack assembly that was installed over the old BOP, and by the Q4000 sucking the oil out of the old choke/kill pipes routed through a special manifold, and the Helix Producer. A new riser pipe tower with a connection on top that can be detached more quickly and easily has been built on the sea floor to do this. The problem with using oil processing ships on the surface to flare off the natural gas that comes along with this oil, is that they still must be disconnected and moved offsite during hurricanes.
Here’s a screen shot grab I took on 7/12/10, from Skandi cam, when the new sealing cap and stack assembly (left) were being lowered past the new floor riser pipe tower (center) on its journey down to the BOP. I tried to sharpen it up a little but it was still pretty murky down there at that point. But after watching the webcams for hours, it was exciting to see it finally go past something recognizable. There are several ROVs all hovering around this in the background tracking the cap with their headlights.
But the ability to shut the well down completely again during the next tropical cyclone or hurricane instead of letting it spill unchecked into the Gulf of Mexico has not been discussed publicly.
So far we have dodged a weather bullet, in that the first hurricane to cross the Gulf this season, Alex, went across the southern Gulf from southeast to northwest and missed the Louisiana delta area entirely. While the current forecast this morning from NOAA http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo_a… says a tropical storm is unlikely in the next 48 hours, as hurricane season progresses anything could happen. And that means more oil spewing into the Gulf, as much as 80,000 barrels a day of oil, even if the reconnect times would be faster this round- if everything new works and goes to plan.
The Further Adventures of Macondo, the Misbehaving Well.
Oh, Macondo, you were supposed to save us, and now look what you’ve done!
Can you hear the drums, Fernando ? I remember long ago another starry night like this
In the firelight Fernando, You were humming to yourself and softly strumming your guitar
I could hear the distant drums , and the sound of bugle calls were coming from afar
They were closer now, Fernando, every hour every minute, seemed to last eternally. I was so afraid Fernando, We were young and full of life and none of us prepared to die
and I’m not afraid to say, the roar of guns and cannons almost made me cry
There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, they were shining there for you and me, For Liberty, tho we never thought that we could lose, there’s no regret, if I had to do the same again, I would my friend, Fernando
Enjoying a stroll today at Acadia National Park in Maine, Properly Attired for the Neighborhood.
A small earthquake hit Washington DC, this morning. The 3.6 magnitude rattler was the largest recorded within 30 miles of the nation’s capitol since 1974. There were no reports of damage from the 2.0 aftershocklette.
Matt Simpson’s Prediction Comes True at Last.
The House of Congress adjourned the day before, and scheduled its next meeting for lunchtime on Monday, July 19, 2010. The Senate also adjourned at 6:33 pm Thursday, and vowed to return next Monday afternoon, whereby they will take up the Jobs Bill. Or the Energy Bill. Or something.
It was the 87th day since the pierced earth in block 252 of the Macondo prospect in Mississippi Canyon, nearly a mile under the sea, had bled out all the ancient dead liquified souls that it had held for eons, and covered it, shifted it back and forth by wind, strangled it in its carbon and sulfur stench, and mired its living things in tar and fed the swimming things the liquid toxins. People of the coastal Gulf waters watched with cynical eyes as the British Petroleum company and the government told them that first they had shut it off, and then they would wait and see, and then maybe they would turn it back on, after all.
“There’s a couple of weak points at 9,000 feet, and one at 17,000 feet, that they might be particularly interested in looking at watching in the seismic. ”
Another telegenic oil wonk, Rob Cavner, of Houston, put it thus:
“they are just sitting there circulating on the bottom at 17,840 (feet). Just sitting there. Wells claims they are doing that for “safety reasons” during the well integrity test. What ? …. what the hell are they doing ? They now have an ability to capture all the oil and stop this massive pollution of the Gulf, as well as measure it. We have great weather to get the relief well completed. We already know without the “well integrity test” that they have severe damage to the BOP and other surface equipment and casing. If that were not true, it wouldn’t have blown out in the first place.”
____
“As soon as they do capture all the flow, then a real, measurable number will be in front of the public, and that’s the last thing BP wants, since that number will then be used to extrapolate environmental damage, hence per barrel fines that will likely run to the tens of billions anyway.”
But for those who need help before a heart is available, or for whom a transplant is too risky, we have a gizmo called the left ventricular assist device, a $200,000 item. The LVAD is a cumbersome almost-artificial heart that requires the recipient to wear heavy batteries, a shoulder sling with various parts, tubes going through the chest and into the heart and abdomen, and other substantial inconveniences. It helps push a portion of the heart’s blood forward, doing the work the failing ventricle no longer can accomplish. Once used only to stabilize people awaiting heart transplant, it now is referred to, not ironically, as a “destination therapy”-the exact intervention that you want, not the half-assed loaner you are stuck with till the real McCoy arrives.
Six years ago, the doctor and medical historian Howard Markel, writing in The Atlantic, assembled seven fancy cardiologists and discussed Anonymous Patient C’s medical history with them; all were surprised that he was still puttering along, and even more surprised to then be informed that he was at the time their vice president. Stated most simply, he should have died long, long ago. Most people with his heart, his weight and sedentary habits, his history of cigarette smoking and who knows what else already have heard the bell toll. But not Cheney-pointing out that, though useful to define national trends, population-based statistics are completely useless for predicting the fate of an individual. The extremely unlikely happens every day, all of the time: Just as it’s the rare person who wins the lottery, or is struck by lightning, or rolls snake eyes 50 times in a row, so too does a bad guy with a worse heart beat all the odds to stay alive.
So too does a destructive national energy policy, with a bad deepwater oil well, beat all the odds to stay alive.
____________
Saturday Dawning:
Break out the champaign for brunch, darlings!
BP announces at its only press briefing of the day that :
[13:39] “This is quite normal. First piece of pipe put in down to 500′. Build well on top of that”
[13:39] “There are 6 or 8 valves around this piece of pipe, it’s quite caution. But we’ll go take a sample and make sure it’s not gas from deeper down in the riser”
[13:40] ahh
[13:40] “Could be nitrogen or biodegrading methane”
[13:40] “As the well cools down, that’s probably what caused those bubbles”
Next technical update will be tomorrow (July 18) at 7:30 am CT. Any other updates btwn now & then will be announced.
More than one scientist interviewed by the Press-Register described being offered $250 an hour through BP lawyers. At eight hours a week, that amounts to $104,000 a year.
[…]
The contract makes it clear that BP is seeking to add scientists to the legal team that will fight the Natural Resources Damage Assessment lawsuit that the federal government will bring as a result of the Gulf oil spill.
Is it their Scientific Expertise, that they want —
…numerous industry experts have warned that there is no upside to temporarily capping the well as part of the well integrity test, and that it might actually cause the well to blow out.
Admiral Thad Allen previously said that the test will be considered a success if pressure in the well stays at 8,000 psi or higher for 48 hours. So we won’t know for a couple of days whether the test has succeeded.
Now begins a waiting period to see if the cap can hold the oil without blowing a new leak in the well. Engineers will monitor pressure readings incrementally for up to 48 hours before reopening the cap while they decide what to do.
Interestingly, as CNN’s Situation Room noted a couple of minutes ago, the cap might soon be re-opened, and closed again only during hurricanes:
Admiral Thad Allen releasing a statement to us just a short while ago…
He cautions “This isn’t over”…
Very interesting here. He talks about the cap as a temporary measure to be used for hurricanes…
“It remains likely that we will return to the containment process… until the relief well is completed”
So it looks like the plan is to go back to releasing the oil and letting it pump up to the surface.
So is the well integrity test a meaningless PR stunt, which is delaying completion of the relief wells, and failing to bring us any closer to permanently killing the oil gusher?
