The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the worst environmental disaster the US has faced, a senior official has said.

White House energy adviser Carol Browner also said the US was "prepared for the worst scenario" that the leak might not be stopped before August.

BP is to try a new tactic after its latest failure to halt the leak, but says there is no guarantee of success.

BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said even if it worked it would only halt a majority of the spill.

At least 20 million gallons have now spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, affecting more than 70 miles (110km) of Louisiana's coastline.

----------------------------

Since Gus is persona non-grata about everywhere, may I suggest you, the smart people, alert your local member of parliament in whichever country you live — especially the USA — to the solutions Gus. BP may have good reason for not trying this heavy duty ad-hoc stuff, but as my opa Adolph used to say "too strong never fails" when he made us (kids) "toys" in solid steel that weighed tonnnnnnns... I still laugh about moments when we could have got killed... But that's history. I know heaps about tonnage, vessels, crane lift (for which I passed my draftsman certificate), buoyancy, anchor points and could work out the engineering figures within a day, on an old slide rule — in metric or imperial. No joke... One thing I think has happened is the engineers are trying high tech precision stuff while one needs the knout on a lazy boiler-maker to make it happen. My view..

By 2 June, BP had received 31,600 suggestions from members of the public on how to plug the well, or deal with the oil slicks already in the sea.

The company's helpline, which has 80 telephone operators, deals with interested citizens. Of the 31,600 ideas, 8,000 have been submitted on paper.

BP then puts the plans through a four-stage process. The first is a primary evaluation to weed out ideas that have already been considered or are just not possible. The second stage is classification into categories such as "dispersants" or "mechanical".

The third stage is a more detailed technical review and the fourth stage is field testing.

Interested amateurs

There are 235 ideas currently in stage three and four, says BP. Of those, just 10% are about how to plug the well.

Some might ridicule the idea that interested amateurs might be able to solve a problem that is foxing a giant company with immense resources at its fingertips.

--------------------

Gus: I would think that some of these suggestions might not be printable... Some of us are not amateurs, but professionals who have been in sticky situations before and have successfully sorted things out, and lived to tell the tale. Sure sometimes a bit of good luck went our way but often luck is a manageable entity. I might make some stupid sugestions here but since I do not have all the data at hand, I can only speculate or bring the grandiose fail safe solutions — like an upturned ship on top of the leaks... Doing fine surgery at 5,000 feet below isn't in my repertoire, but I'm prepared to give it the benefit of the odds...

from the New York Times

New government and BP documents, interviews with experts and testimony by witnesses provide the clearest indication to date that a hodgepodge of oversight agencies granted exceptions to rules, allowed risks to accumulate and made a disaster more likely on the rig, particularly with a mix of different companies operating on the Deepwater whose interests were not always in sync.

And in the aftermath, arguments about who is in charge of the cleanup — often a signal that no one is in charge — have led to delays, distractions and disagreements over how to cap the well and defend the coastline. As a result, with oil continuing to gush a mile below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico, the laws of physics are largely in control, creating the daunting challenge of trying to plug a hole at depths where equipment is straining under more than a ton of pressure per square inch.

Tad W. Patzek, chairman of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Austin, has analyzed reports of what led to the explosion. “It’s a very complex operation in which the human element has not been aligned with the complexity of the system,” he said in an interview last week.

His conclusion could also apply to what occurred long before the disaster.

Exceptions Are the Rule

Deep-water oil production in the gulf, which started in 1979 but expanded much faster in the mid-1990s with new technology and federal incentives, is governed as much by exceptions to rules as by the rules themselves.

Under a process called “alternative compliance,” much of the technology used on deep-water rigs has been approved piecemeal, with regulators cooperating with industry groups to make small adjustments to guidelines that were drawn up decades ago for shallow-water drilling.

Of roughly 3,500 drilling rigs in the gulf, fewer than 50 are in waters deeper than 1,000 feet. But the risks and challenges associated with this deeper water are much greater.

“The pace of technology has definitely outrun the regulations,” Lt. Cmdr. Michael Odom of the Coast Guard, who inspects the rigs, said last month at a hearing.

As a result, deep-water rigs operate under an ad-hoc system of exceptions. The deeper the water, the further the exceptions stretch, not just from federal guidelines but also often from company policy.

So, for example, when BP officials first set their sights on extracting the oily riches under what is known as Mississippi Canyon Block 252 in the Gulf of Mexico, they asked for and received permission from federal regulators to exempt the drilling project from federal law that requires a rigorous type of environmental review, internal documents and federal records indicate.

As BP engineers planned to set certain pipes and casings for lining the well in place in the ocean floor, they had to get permission from company managers to use riskier equipment because that equipment deviated from the company’s own design and safety policies, according to internal BP documents obtained by The New York Times.

And when company officials wanted to test the blowout preventer, a crucial fail-safe mechanism on the pipe near the ocean floor, at a lower pressure than was federally required, regulators granted an exception, documents released last week show.

-----------------

see toon at top...

from the ABC

Efforts to siphon off oil gushing from a ruptured deep-sea wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico seem to be working, US officials said as president Barack Obama defended his handling of the environmental crisis.

Forty-seven days into the crisis and after several false starts, the containment cap that British energy giant BP clamped over the leak collected about 6,000 barrels of oil on Friday (local time), well above initial estimates, US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said at a briefing in Theodore, Alabama.

BP estimated the collection at 6,077 barrels and on its Twitter feed said that "improvement in oil collection is expected over the next several days."

The collection rate is still only about one-third of one day's flow from the leaking oil well, which has been estimated by the government at about 19,000 barrels (3 million liters) per day.

Admiral Allen said the full capacity of BP's containment device was 15,000 barrels per day, which he called the "upper limit" of the current leak control effort.

BP does not expect to fully halt the oil flow until August, when two relief wells are due to be completed.

Meanwhile, Admiral Allen said that winds continue to push parts of the giant oil slick closer to the coastline across an area more than 320 kilometres from the Mississippi/Alabama border to Port St Joe in the Florida Panhandle.

----------------------

 

Gulf oil spill: Containment cap working well so far, says BP

 

Engineers trying to contain the oil spill from the stricken BP Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico have expressed optimism over the "containment cap" placed over the broken well, although it remains uncertain just how effective the method will be in capturing all of the oil.

Latest estimates released today suggest that about 10,000 barrels of oil a day are being caught in the device that was placed over the leaking pipe using remotely operated equipment. The oil is being collected in the funnel-like cap and then ushered up to the surface, where it is collected in a tanker called the Discoverer Enterprise sitting above the wellhead.

In a familiar pattern in the crisis, now in its 48th day, a notably more upbeat impression of the containment operation was given by BP than by the US government. BP's chief executive Tony Hayward told the BBC that, once the production flow was up to full speed, he would expect the proportion captured "to be the majority, probably the vast majority of the oil".

But Thad Allen, the US coastguard admiral who is co-ordinating the response of government agencies in the Gulf, gave a much more cautious assessment. He told Face the Nation on CBS: "I'm hoping we catch as much oil as we can, but I'm withholding any comment until production is at a full rate."

Efforts in Gulf to Limit Flow of Spill News

By JEREMY W. PETERS

When the operators of Southern Seaplane in Belle Chasse, La., called the local Coast Guard-Federal Aviation Administration command center for permission to fly over restricted airspace in Gulf of Mexico, they made what they thought was a simple and routine request.

A pilot wanted to take a photographer from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans to snap photographs of the oil slicks blackening the water. The response from a BP contractor who answered the phone late last month at the command center was swift and absolute: Permission denied.

“We were questioned extensively. Who was on the aircraft? Who did they work for?” recalled Rhonda Panepinto, who owns Southern Seaplane with her husband, Lyle. “The minute we mentioned media, the answer was: ‘Not allowed.’ ”

Journalists struggling to document the impact of the oil rig explosion have repeatedly found themselves turned away from public areas affected by the spill, and not only by BP and its contractors, but by local law enforcement, the Coast Guard and government officials.

To some critics of the response effort by BP and the government, instances of news media being kept at bay are just another example of a broader problem of officials’ filtering what images of the spill the public sees.

Scientists, too, have complained about the trickle of information that has emerged from BP and government sources. Three weeks passed, for instance, from the time the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20 and the first images of oil gushing from an underwater pipe were released by BP.

“I think they’ve been trying to limit access,” said Representative Edward J. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts who fought BP to release more video from the underwater rovers that have been filming the oil-spewing pipe. “It is a company that was not used to transparency. It was not used to having public scrutiny of what it did.”

-------------

read more at the NYT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM

BP Chief Draws Outrage for Attending Yacht Race

By LIZ ROBBINS

BP officials on Saturday scrambled yet again to respond to another public relations challenge when their embattled chief executive, Tony Hayward, spent the day off the coast of England watching his yacht compete in one of the world’s largest races.

Two days after Mr. Hayward angered lawmakers on Capitol Hill with his refusal to provide details during testimony about the worst offshore oil spill in United States history, and one day after BP’s chairman said the chief executive would not be as involved in daily operations in the Gulf of Mexico, Mr. Hayward sparked new controversy from afar.

“He is having some rare private time with his son,” a BP spokeswoman, Sheila Williams, said in a telephone interview on Saturday.

But Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, who taped an interview for ABC’s “This Week,” called Mr. Hayward’s attendance at the race “part of a long line of P.R. gaffes and mistakes” that he has made.

“To quote Tony Hayward, he’s got his life back,” Mr. Emanuel said.

On May 31, six weeks after the spill began, Mr. Hayward uttered “I’d like my life back,” a comment that struck many in the gulf region as insensitive, and for which he eventually apologized.

On Saturday, Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, called Mr. Hayward’s yacht outing the “height of arrogance,” in an interview with Fox News.

“I can tell you that yacht ought to be here skimming and cleaning up a lot of the oil,” Mr. Shelby said. “He ought to be down here seeing what is really going on. Not in a cocoon somewhere.”

--------------------------

Gus sailed the Solent in the early 1960s... No pictures though, except memories of drizzle, cold and wet drizzle that drenched Cowes — and warm beer in the old pub near the jetty...

Meanwhile, fifty years later — cripes time flies — the BP chief should be solving the Gulf spill in 2010... Or go on his hands and knees to Louisiana, with a few absorbent towels... Too many people are affected by the problem — people who do not have the luxury of removing themselves from it...

from The Guardian

The gusher in the Gulf of Mexico returned to full force yesterday after BP had to remove a cap that had been containing some of the oil spewing out of its ruptured wellhead.

The coast guard said an underwater robot had accidentally bumped into the "top hat" device and damaged one of the vents. Its failure represents a major setback in efforts to control the spill.

Underwater video showed crude and gas billowing from the ocean floor unchecked for the first time in three weeks yesterday. BP said last night it was trying to reinstall the cap. The beaches of Florida also saw their worst day since the Deepwater Horizon went down 65 days ago, with a thick soup of oil coming ashore in the beach resort town of Pensacola. Fish and wildlife officials reported three beached dolphins washed up on shore.

"It's pretty ugly, there's no question about it," Florida's governor, Charlie Crist, told reporters. The Associated Press said the beach looked as if it had been paved with a six-foot-wide ribbon of asphalt. Only minutes earlier, Ken Salazar, the US interior secretary, had told a congressional committee the top hat device had achieved a new milestone, collecting 27,900 barrels (4.4m litres) of oil in the previous 24 hours – still less than half the oil fouling the Gulf each day.

BP Is Pursuing Alaska Drilling Some Call Risky

By IAN URBINA

The future of BP’s offshore oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico has been thrown into doubt by the recent drilling disaster and court wrangling over a moratorium.

But about three miles off the coast of Alaska, BP is moving ahead with a controversial and potentially record-setting project to drill two miles under the sea and then six to eight miles horizontally to reach what is believed to be a 100-million-barrel reservoir of oil under federal waters.

All other new projects in the Arctic have been halted by the Obama administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling, including more traditional projects like Shell Oil’s plans to drill three wells in the Chukchi Sea and two in the Beaufort.

But BP’s project, called Liberty, has been exempted as regulators have granted it status as an “onshore” project even though it is about three miles off the coast in the Beaufort Sea. The reason: it sits on an artificial island — a 31-acre pile of gravel in about 22 feet of water — built by BP.

The project has already received its state and federal environmental permits, but BP has yet to file its final application to federal regulators to begin drilling, which it expects to start in the fall.

Some scientists and environmentalists say that other factors have helped keep the project moving forward.

Rather than conducting their own independent analysis, federal regulators, in a break from usual practice, allowed BP in 2007 to write its own environmental review for the project as well as its own consultation documents relating to the Endangered Species Act, according to two scientists from the Alaska office of the federal Mineral Management Service that oversees drilling.

The environmental assessment was taken away from the agency’s unit that typically handles such reviews, and put in the hands of a different division that was more pro-drilling, said the scientists, who discussed the process because they remained opposed to how it was handled.

“The whole process for approving Liberty was bizarre,” one of the federal scientists said.

Biologists find 'dead zones' around BP oil spill in Gulf

 

Scientists are confronting growing evidence that BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is creating oxygen-depleted "dead zones" where fish and other marine life cannot survive.

In two separate research voyages, independent scientists have detected what were described as "astonishingly high" levels of methane, or natural gas, bubbling from the well site, setting off a chain of reactions that suck the oxygen out of the water. In some cases, methane concentrations are 100,000 times normal levels.

Other scientists as well as sport fishermen are reporting unusual movements of fish, shrimp, crab and other marine life, including increased shark sightings closer to the Alabama coast.

Larry Crowder, a marine biologist at Duke University, said there were already signs that fish were being driven from their habitat.

"The animals are already voting with their fins to get away from where the oil spill is and where potentially there is oxygen depletion," he said. "When you begin to see animals changing their distribution that is telling you about the quality of water further offshore. Basically, the fish are moving closer to shore to try to get to better water."

Such sightings – and an accumulation of data from the site of the ruptured well and from the ocean depths miles away – have deepened concerns that the enormity of the environmental disaster in the Gulf has yet to be fully understood. It could also jeopardise the Gulf's billion-dollar fishing and shrimping industry.

-------------------

see solution at top...

TERREBONNE PARISH, La. - Response workers unload boom suspected to have been vandalized in the marshes of Terrebonne Parish, July 3, 2010. Boom vandalism and mishaps involving small craft moving or cutting boom with propellers impedes oil recovery efforts, endangers workers who must return to recover and replace the boom, and slows efforts to conduct booming operations elsewhere. In an effort to reduce boom damage, the Coast Guard recently instituted a safety zone around boom sites, and established a damaged boom hotline. Anyone observing disturbed or damaged boom should call 866-448-5816. U.S. Coast Guard photo.

TERREBONNE PARISH, La. - Response workers examine boom suspected to have been vandalized in the marshes of Terrebonne Parish, July 3, 2010. Boom vandalism and mishaps involving small craft moving or cutting boom with propellers impedes oil recovery efforts, endangers workers who must return to recover and replace the boom, and slows efforts to conduct booming operations elsewhere. In an effort to reduce boom damage, the Coast Guard recently instituted a safety zone around boom sites, and established a damaged boom hotline. Anyone observing disturbed or damaged boom should call 866-448-5816. U.S. Coast Guard photo.

TERREBONNE PARISH, La. - Boom suspected to have been vandalized in the marshes of Terrebonne Parish, July 3, 2010. Boom vandalism and mishaps involving small craft moving or cutting boom with propellers impedes oil recovery efforts, endangers workers who must return to recover and replace the boom, and slows efforts to conduct booming operations elsewhere. In an effort to reduce boom damage, the Coast Guard recently instituted a safety zone around boom sites, and established a damaged boom hotline. Anyone observing disturbed or damaged boom should call 866-448-5816. U.S. Coast Guard photo.

Gus: I have placed in full the photographs and their caption from the official oil response PR machine... Please note that in this instance only one boom was suspected to have been "vandalised".

Having been a bit a bit of a street post bender in my silly youth, vandalism never stops at "one".

I suspect that this incident was the result of a crew on a small boat, possibly caught out at night or in rough weather, where they knew where they were and where they wanted to go but had no idea where to cross the boom barrier that may have been going on for hundred of kilometres.

It could have been an accidental crossing of the boom when visibility was low — or even a deliberate cross in the case of a boat running low on fuel and having to make the decision to take the shortest route for the safety of the crew.

It could have been a manufacturing fault too... who knows?

Vandalism? I don't think so. Vandalism would have been to slash at least 25 booms.

Vandalism is the way PB unleashed millions of tonnes of oil in the gulf and then the way BP treated the public, by fudging the true size of the catastrophe, although we knew it wasn't pretty. Vandalism was to have no plan B, C, D, E, F to stem the flow of oil which, as the days go by, becomes harder and harder to stop.

I will stick to the solutiion of an upturned old vessel (not too rusted of course) sunk to the bottom that would cap the whole lot and one, two or three vents to allow the oil to be captured at the surface. Even the upturned vessel could be fitted with wide flanges on the sides on which more weight could be added, to minimise the lift from the oil pressure and the oil density, lighter than water. Old chains could be thrown on top to add more weight too.

Vandalism is the american (multinationals) oil industry raking in massive profits and still being given subsidies and tax concessions. Vandalism is the succession of lapses in BP, Halliburton and Transocean...  Vandalism is Shell in Nigeria, Exxon in Nigeria... Vandalism is BHP in Ok tedi... Vandalism is the way we all treat the earth as a god-given grab rather than a giver to be respected and nutured.

Vandalism is the way we burn-baby-burn oil in our cars and use plastics to "throw away"...

We all are vandals and one boom being slashed by a propeller — a boom installed after 99 per cent of the oil has already gone onto the other side, a boom that will be a barrier as effective as a matchstick in the next hurricane — does not constitute a speck of misdeed in a world where most misdeeds are rewarded with huge profits.

From the PR machine:

PAST 24 HOURS [04/07/10]

Crews Assess the Effects of Recent Weather on Response Operations

Crews in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast are checking deployed boom and surveying for additional oil deposits after heavy weather moved through the area. Heavy winds and waves have blown sand across beaches, burying oil and boom. Reports of damaged and stranded boom have been received from Plaquemines, Terrebonne, Iberia, Jefferson and Lafourche parishes. Crews are beginning a systematic effort to repair any boom that has been damaged.

BP Continues to Optimize Oil Recovery Rates from its Leaking Well

Under the direction of the federal government, BP continues to capture some oil and burn gas at the surface using its containment dome technique—collecting oil aboard the Discoverer Enterprise, which is linked by a fixed riser pipe to the wellhead, and flaring off additional oil and gas on the Q4000, which is connected to the choke line. The collection capacity is expected to increase to an estimated 53,000 barrels per day once the third vessel, the Helix Producer, begins bringing additional oil up through the kill line—a redundancy measure also taken at the administration’s direction.

Progress Continues in Drilling Relief Wells; Ranging Process Continues

The drilling of relief wells continues and has not been interrupted by elevated sea states. The Development Driller III has drilled the first relief well to a depth of approximately 17,400 feet below the Gulf surface. The Development Driller II has drilled the second relief well—a redundancy measure taken at the direction of the administration—to a depth of more than 13,800 feet below the surface. BP continues the “ranging” process—which involves periodically withdrawing the drill pipe and sending an electrical signal down to determine how close they are getting to the wellbore.

By the Numbers to Date:

• The administration has authorized the deployment of 17,500 National Guard troops from Gulf Coast states to respond to this crisis; currently, 1,577 are active.
• More than 44,500 personnel are currently responding to protect the shoreline and wildlife and cleanup vital coastlines.
• More than 7,000 vessels are currently responding on site, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels to assist in containment and cleanup efforts—in addition to dozens of aircraft, remotely operated vehicles, and multiple mobile offshore drilling units.
• Approximately 2.9 million feet of containment boom and 5.09 million feet of sorbent boom have been deployed to contain the spill—and approximately 935,000 feet of containment boom and 2.36 million feet of sorbent boom are available.
• More than 28.2 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered.
• Approximately 1.68 million gallons of total dispersant have been applied—1.06 million on the surface and 623,000 sub-sea. More than 451,000 gallons are available.
• 275 controlled burns have been conducted, efficiently removing a total of approximately 10 million gallons of oil from the open water in an effort to protect shoreline and wildlife. Because calculations on the volume of oil burned can take more than 48 hours, the reported total volume may not reflect the most recent controlled burns. 
• 17 staging areas are in place to protect sensitive shorelines.
• Approximately 484 miles of Gulf Coast shoreline is currently oiled—approximately 264 miles in Louisiana, 79 miles in Mississippi, 59 miles in Alabama, and 82 miles in Florida. These numbers reflect a daily snapshot of shoreline currently experiencing impacts from oil so that planning and field operations can more quickly respond to new impacts; they do not include cumulative impacts to date, or shoreline that has already been cleared.
• Approximately 80,228 square miles of Gulf of Mexico federal waters remain closed to fishing in order to balance economic and public health concerns. More than 66 percent remains open. Details can be found at http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/.
• To date, the administration has leveraged assets and skills from numerous foreign countries and international organizations as part of this historic, all-hands-on-deck response, including Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, Russia, Spain, United Kingdom, Tunisia the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization and the European Union's Monitoring and Information Centre.

 

A giant tanker refitted to scoop up spilled oil is being tested at the site of the Gulf of Mexico oil leak.

The Taiwanese vessel - called "A Whale" - is designed to vacuum up oily water, separate the oil and return the water to the sea.

It is undergoing two days of testing before starting work, a Coast Guard spokeswoman said.

Much smaller skimming vessels have been working off Louisiana, but they have been affected by rough seas.

"We are skimming today in Louisiana, but not in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida," Coast Guard spokeswoman Stephanie Hebert told the AFP news agency.

Oil has been gushing from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico since 22 April, when BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank.

Crude oil has been leaking at a rate of between 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day, according to US scientists.

Two containment ships capturing about 25,000 barrels of oil per day are now in place, and there are plans to double this by connecting a new vessel, the Helix Producer.

But these plans have been delayed by tropical storm Alex, which brought high seas and strong winds to the region.

Offshore skimming in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida has been on hold for almost a week.

Clean-up boost

Testing of the giant skimmer vessel - which its owners say can process 21 million gallons of oily water per day - began on Saturday.

The 275m (300-yard) tanker takes in oily water through 12 vents.

In a series of tanks, the oil is separated for transfer to another vessel, while the clean water is returned to the sea.

"In many ways, the ship collects water like an actual whale and pumps internally like a human heart," Bob Grantham, a spokesman for TMT Shipping, told the Associated Press news agency.

"A Whale" is currently operating north of the wellhead area and results from the testing are expected on Monday.

If successful, the vessel could provide a boost to clean-up efforts.

Admiral Thad Allen, who is overseeing the response to the spill, also said that he hoped to have the Helix Producer containment vessel in place by Wednesday, AFP news agency reported.

An emergency alarm that could have warned workers aboard the doomed Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico drilling rig was intentionally disabled, a rig engineer has told US investigators.

Mike Williams, chief engineer technician aboard Swiss-based Transocean rig, said the general alarm that could have detected the cloud of flammable methane gas that enveloped the rig's deck on April 20 was "inhibited".

"[Rig managers] did not want people woke up at 3:00am in the morning from false alarms," Mr Williams told a six-member federal board in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner, Louisiana.

Mr Williams' testimony capped a week of testimony from company officials involved in the rig, which exploded on April 20 and sank two days later, killing 11 crewmen and sparking the worst oil spill in US history.

The Transocean-owned rig was drilling a well a mile beneath the Gulf under contract for London-based BP.

Four Transocean witnesses declined to appear voluntarily on Wednesday at the hearings before a joint US panel convened by the US Coast Guard and the interior department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement.