Showing posts with label BP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BP. Show all posts
1/5/11
Official Report: BP Totally Screwed Up. They Could Have Avoided Spill
From the BBC
And we have apparently begun off-shore drilling again without any of the recommended protections.Specific risks the report identifies include:
- A flawed design for the cement used to seal the bottom of the well
- A test of that seal identified problems but was "incorrectly judged a success"
The conclusions run counter to industry efforts to portray the Deepwater Horizon disaster as a rare occurence, as oil companies prod the US government to open greater areas of the US coast to oil exploration.
- The workers' failure to recognise the first signs of the impending blow-out
"The blowout was not the product of a series of aberrational decisions made by rogue industry or government officials that could not have been anticipated or expected to occur again," the report read.
"Rather, the root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur."
9/18/10
BP Has Permanently Capped The Well
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| The Deepwater Horizon oil platform ablaze on April 21, 2010. Credit: U.S. Coast Guard. |
It looks like the Macondo oil well (Deepwater Horizon) has finally been sealed.
8/2/10
BP Spilled Lots Of Oil, Will Owe Lots Of Money In Fines
The blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico gushed even more oil than the worst case scenario envisioned, a whopping total of 4.9 million barrels, or 205.8 million gallons, according to a new analysis by government scientists charged with estimating the flow rate.Washington Post
BP's Macondo well spewed 62,000 barrels of oil a day initially, and as the reservoir gradually depleted itself the flow eased to 53,000 barrels a day until the well was finally capped and sealed on July 15, according to scientists in the Flow Rate Technical Group, supervised by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Energy.
The new numbers, released by the government Monday night, once again nudge upward the scale of the disaster. If correct -- the government allows for a margin of error of 10 percent -- the flow rate would make this spill significantly larger than the Ixtoc I blowout of 1979, which polluted the southern Gulf of Mexico with 138 million gallons over the coursre of 10 months. That had been the record for the largest unintentional oil spill in the planet's history, surpassed only by the intentional spills of the Persian Gulf War.
The flow rate estimates have been a major source of confusion and controversy since the April 20 explosion on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon. Initially the government and BP pegged the leak at 1,000 barrels a day, then 5,000 barrels a day. The flow rate team, assembled in May, examined the surface slick and video from the sea floor, and soon upped the estimate to 12,000 to 25,000 barrels a day. But then came more high-definition video, and pressure readings analyzed by physicists, and by early June the government declared the flow to be 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day.
7/19/10
Sorry Ain't Enough No More
From DM:
New Orleans musicians Bennie Pete of The Hot 8 Brass Band, trumpet player Shamarr Allen, rapper Dee-1 and Paul Sanchez of Cowboy Mouth collaborated on Sorry Ain’t Enough No More, a stinging slap in the face of Tony Hayward and British Petroleum.
Protest music is alive and well in this powerful video.
7/15/10
The Oil Gusher Is Capped And Undergoing Testing
Apparently the cap is in place and BP is testing to make sure the pressure won't blow up the floor of the sea. My BP feeds here, BP's actual feeds page (now updated with all feeds on one page) is here.
6/18/10
$20 Billion? They Got Off Easy
From HuffPo:
BP holds enough oil in its reserves to single-handedly supply the United States for two years. It has little debt for a company of its size and makes more money than Apple and Google combined.
So when the White House arm-twisted its executives into setting aside $20 billion for the Gulf oil spill, investors weren't worried it would bankrupt BP. They barely batted an eye.
"The U.S. government will become insolvent before BP does," said Bruce Lanni, a stock analyst with Nollenberg Capital Partners.
6/16/10
Bob Reich Speaks For Me
From the good doctor:
Tomorrow he’s “informing” the president of BP of BP’s financial obligations. “Informing” is what you do when you phone the newspaper to tell them it wasn’t delivered today. Why not “directing” or “ordering?”
The President distinguished what has happened in the Gulf of Mexico from a tornado or hurricane because they are over quickly while the leak is an ongoing crisis, lasting many weeks and perhaps months more. He likened it to an “epidemic.” But the real difference has nothing to do with time. Tornadoes and hurricanes are natural disasters. Epidemics occur because germs mutate and spread. The spill occurred because of the recklessness and ruthlessness of a giant oil company in pursuit of profit.
6/15/10
Senator Frank Lautenberg Introduces Smart Oil Drilling Bill
I wrote earlier that we need to drill concurrent relief wells. Now Senator Lautenberg has introduced a bill to do just that...
"My bill takes a common-sense step to contain damages that come with the inherently dangerous drilling business. If relief wells had been in place before the BP rig explosion, the gushing oil could have been stopped in weeks instead of months," Lautenberg said in a statement sent to the Huffington Post. "Clean energy that will reduce our dependence on oil is the long-term solution - but while offshore drilling continues in the Gulf and Alaska, this bill provides a proven way to contain oil spill drilling disasters. I will also continue to oppose any energy proposal in the Senate that does not protect New Jersey from oil drilling in the Atlantic."h/t JM
6/9/10
BP: The Juice Gatherer
According to Senator Nelson, top-kill may have blown out the part of the well casing under the sea bed. This means that the well can never be capped. The only way to stop the flow is to drill relief wells.
Since we are clearly not going to stop drilling for oil in the Gulf, the least we can do is require that relief wells be simultaneously drilled from now on, and all existing wells also have relief wells drilled. I assume this would cost a shitload of money, but if we want to protect ourselves, we pay.
All the boom being touted by BP isn't doing much, and from what oil cleanup experts say, it simply won't. But it could at least get tended to better, or at all.
I have 6 of the 8 feeds on the live BP feeds page and watch them frequently. I have not noticed much change in anything. I mean, the feeds are cool, but they don't show how the oil is being captured that BP says is being captured. There must be other feeds--they don't have any other way to do their work down there.
BP totally screwed this up. They are the 4th largest company in the world. They are so big they have virtually nothing to fear. Their greatest asset is the American people. Until we don't need them, or want them, they do what they are supposed to do--make money extracting our juice.
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