Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster...

tsst said:

I am kind of split on the BP control thing. I have NO doubt a large corporation would like to hide everything it can. I have little doubt it would try everything in its means to hide it like putting the rent a cops on the beach. But I have doubts that their power goes so far as to control the press. If that is actually happening the gov is probably the one behind it not BP. Just my opinion.

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11 JUNE 2010, 4:52 PM
Terry Winckler
EPA Reveals What's In Gulf Oil Spill Dispersants

Earthjustice demanded ingredient information, will seek expert opinions

The government wouldn't dare let a doctor give out an experimental drug without years of extensive testing, yet it has allowed British Petroleum to flood the Gulf of Mexico with more than a million gallons of a secret chemical compound in an untested experiment on human communities, hundreds of animal species, and myriad ecological systems.

We're talking about Corexit and other dispersants, made up of classified chemicals and spread over and injected into Gulf waters to break up BP's oil spill. The spill alone is in many ways unmatched in human history, scientists say, and because of dispersants may be wreaking special devastation in the Gulf. Aside from the fact that dispersants never before have been used on such a vast scale, we have been forced to guess at the danger they pose because BP and the dispersants' manufacturer refused to reveal the ingredients.

Today, after Earthjustice demanded the information through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Environmental Protection Agency finally provided a list of what's in these chemical compounds. Now, we can turn to experts to assess their danger. Our clients, the Gulf Restoration Network and Florida Wildlife Federation, who have long worked to protect the Gulf, must know what is happening to its rich fisheries, sea turtles, birds, and entire ecosystem.

At one point, the EPA told BP to quit using Corexit because of its toxicity and to find a less harmful dispersant, but BP ignored the order and the EPA acquiesced. The agency, which is all that stands between us and the toxic effects of dispersants, said the urgency of the spill situation was worth the risk. But, who is to say what the risk is unless we know what is being deliberately put into the waters, how it interacts with oil, and what its inherent toxicity is? BP certainly can't be trusted.

We already know what untreated oil does to us and the environment. It is a thick, suffocating mass that kills and maims mostly in upper water columns and as it comes ashore, is visually horrifying and creates economic havoc in the tourism and fishing industries. Dispersants are supposed to neutralize some of that harm, but what we are seeing with this Gulf spill is unlike anything we've seen before.

Even without dispersants, the oil likely would be found throughout the water column because it is flowing from a mile deep at hundreds of miles per hour. But, dispersants have been injected directly into that oil as it escapes and have been spread by boat and plane across hundreds of square miles of surface. BP tried to convince us that most of that oil disappeared, but scientists have found clouds of oil particles and droplets miles wide and long, hovering at various depths from the sea floor where many creatures dwell to surface waters where most fish and other animals feed and spawn.

One plume is 15 miles wide, 3 miles long and about 600 feet thick. Scientist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia, who led an expedition tracking the oil plumes, says: "The primary producers—the base of the food web in the ocean—is going to be altered. There's no doubt about that. We have no idea what dispersants are going to do to microorganisms. We know they are toxic to many larvae." Of special concern is the larvae of the endangered western bluefin tuna, which spawns exclusively in these Gulf waters. Of no less concern is the harm we all have seen to oiled birds, turtles, dolphin, and fish.

And then there are the long-range potential impacts on human health. Dispersants don't eliminate oil, they make it less visually obvious by breaking it into small pieces spread over a vast area and throughout the depths. This makes the oil/dispersant droplets available to all the life forms that may ingest it and in turn are ingested. Anything in the oil or attached to it are thus entering the food chain. We know about oil's toxic components - human carcinogens like napthalenes, benzene, toluene and xylenes—but we don't know about the dispersants that are partnering with it.

Nalco, the manufacturer of Corexit, put out a release trying to allay concerns about the ingredients in its dispersants, but its statement raises more concerns than it answers. First, it asserts that all of the ingredients "have been determined safe and effective by the EPA." While the Food and Drug Administration makes such determinations for drugs, the Toxics Substances Control Act is so weak that it does not require that EPA make such safety findings before chemicals are allowed on the market. That is why a diverse health, environmental, and labor coalition (including Earthjustice) are calling for an overhaul of that law.

Second, Nalco tries to prove that the dispersant's ingredients are safe by pointing to their presence in cosmetics, lotions and stain blockers. That offers little comfort. Cosmetics and lotions often contain phthalates, which have been associated with reproductive impacts and endocrine disruption. And some stain blockers contain ingredients classified as cancer-causing or neurotoxins.

When we have more information about how the dispersant ingredients work, we will let you know.

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but what I have NO way of assessing is whether it is worse for the ecosystem to disperse the oil in the water or for it to come ashore in globs & sheets.

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wade said:

That is an interesting point Betsy. Sheets and Globs are bad PR, that is for sure. I hope that isn't the only reason for the dispersant.

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Matt Simmons Believes Oil Covers 40% Of Gulf Beneath The Surface

Zero Hedge
June 16, 2010

Matt Simmons was on Bloomberg earlier, adding some additional perspective to his original appearance on the station, in which he initially endorsed the nuclear option as the only viable way to resolve the oil spill. Simmons refutes even the latest oil spill estimate of 45,000-60,000 barrels per day, and in quoting research by the Thomas Jefferson research vessel which was compiled late on Sunday, quantifies the leak at 120,000 bpd. What is scarier is that according to the Jefferson the oil lake underneath the surface of the water could be covering up to 40% of the entire Gulf of Mexico. Simmons also says that as the leak has no casing, a relief well will not work, and the only possible resolution is, as he said previously, to use a small nuclear explosion to convert the rock to glass. Simmons concludes that as punishment for BP’s arrogance and stupidity the government “will take all their cash.” Now if only our own administration could tell us the truth about what is really happening in the gulf…

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dougr on June 13, 2010 - 3:17am

OK let's get real about the GOM oil flow. There doesn't really seem to be much info on TOD that furthers more complete understanding of what's really happening in the GOM.
As you have probably seen and maybe feel yourselves, there are several things that do not appear to make sense regarding the actions of attack against the well. Don't feel bad, there is much that doesn't make sense even to professionals unless you take into account some important variables that we are not being told about. There seems to me to be a reluctance to face what cannot be termed anything less than grim circumstances in my opinion. There certainly is a reluctance to inform us regular people and all we have really gotten is a few dots here and there...

First of all...set aside all your thoughts of plugging the well and stopping it from blowing out oil using any method from the top down. Plugs, big valves to just shut it off, pinching the pipe closed, installing a new bop or lmrp, shooting any epoxy in it, top kills with mud etc etc etc....forget that, it won't be happening..it's done and over. In fact actually opening up the well at the subsea source and allowing it to gush more is not only exactly what has happened, it was probably necessary, or so they think anyway.

So you have to ask WHY? Why make it worse?...there really can only be one answer and that answer does not bode well for all of us. It's really an inescapable conclusion at this point, unless you want to believe that every Oil and Gas professional involved suddenly just forgot everything they know or woke up one morning and drank a few big cups of stupid and got assigned to directing the response to this catastrophe. Nothing makes sense unless you take this into account, but after you do...you will see the "sense" behind what has happened and what is happening. That conclusion is this:

The well bore structure is compromised "Down hole".

That is something which is a "Worst nightmare" conclusion to reach. While many have been saying this for some time as with any complex disaster of this proportion many have "said" a lot of things with no real sound reasons or evidence for jumping to such conclusions, well this time it appears that they may have jumped into the right place...

TOP KILL - FAILS:
This was probably our best and only chance to kill this well from the top down. This "kill mud" is a tried and true method of killing wells and usually has a very good chance of success. The depth of this well presented some logistical challenges, but it really should not of presented any functional obstructions. The pumping capacity was there and it would have worked, should have worked, but it didn't.

It didn't work, but it did create evidence of what is really happening. First of all the method used in this particular top kill made no sense, did not follow the standard operating procedure used to kill many other wells and in fact for the most part was completely contrary to the procedure which would have given it any real chance of working.

When a well is "Killed" using this method heavy drill fluid "Mud" is pumped at high volume and pressure into a leaking well. The leaks are "behind" the point of access where the mud is fired in, in this case the "choke and Kill lines" which are at the very bottom of the BOP (Blow Out Preventer) The heavy fluid gathers in the "behind" portion of the leaking well assembly, while some will leak out, it very quickly overtakes the flow of oil and only the heavier mud will leak out. Once that "solid" flow of mud is established at the leak "behind" the well, the mud pumps increase pressure and begin to overtake the pressure of the oil deposit. The mud is established in a solid column that is driven downward by the now stronger pumps. The heavy mud will create a solid column that is so heavy that the oil deposit can no longer push it up, shut off the pumps...the well is killed...it can no longer flow.

Usually this will happen fairly quickly, in fact for it to work at all...it must happen quickly. There is no "trickle some mud in" because that is not how a top kill works. The flowing oil will just flush out the trickle and a solid column will never be established. Yet what we were told was "It will take days to know whether it
worked"...."Top kill might take 48 hours to complete"...the only way it could take days is if BP intended to do some "test fires" to test integrity of the entire system. The actual "kill" can only take hours by nature because it must happen fairly rapidly. It also increases strain on the "behind" portion and in this instance we all know that what remained was fragile at best.

Early that afternoon we saw a massive flow burst out of the riser "plume" area. This was the first test fire of high pressure mud injection. Later on same day we saw a greatly increased flow out of the kink leaks, this was mostly mud at that time as the kill mud is tanish color due to the high amount of Barite which is added to it to weight it and Barite is a white powder.

We later learned the pumping was shut down at midnight, we weren't told about that until almost 16 hours later, but by then...I'm sure BP had learned the worst. The mud they were pumping in was not only leaking out the "behind" leaks...it was leaking out of someplace forward...and since they were not even near being able to pump mud into the deposit itself, because the well would be dead long before...and the oil was still coming up, there could only be one conclusion...the wells casings were ruptured and it was leaking "down hole"

They tried the "Junk shot"...the "bridging materials" which also failed and likely made things worse in regards to the ruptured well casings.

"Despite successfully pumping a total of over 30,000 barrels of heavy mud, in three attempts at rates of up to
80 barrels a minute, and deploying a wide range of different bridging materials, the operation did not overcome the flow from the well."
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7062487

80 Barrels per minute is over 200,000 gallons per hour, over 115,000 barrels per day...did we seen an increase over and above what was already leaking out of 115k bpd?....we did not...it would have been a massive increase in order of multiples and this did not happen.

"The whole purpose is to get the kill mud down,” said Wells. “We'll have 50,000 barrels of mud on hand to kill this well. It's far more than necessary, but we always like to have backup."

Try finding THAT quote around...it's been scrubbed...here's a cached copy of a quote...
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...ave+backup.%E2%80%9D&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

"The "top kill" effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, had pumped enough drilling fluid to block oil and gas spewing from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well was very low, he said, but persisting."

"Allen said one ship that was pumping fluid into the well had run out of the fluid, or "mud," and that a second ship was on the way. He said he was encouraged by the progress."
http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20100527/ARTICLES/100529348

Later we found out that Allen had no idea what was really going on and had been "Unavailable all day"
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/05/27/interview_with_coas...

So what we had was BP running out of 50,000 barrels of mud in a very short period of time. An amount far and above what they deemed necessary to kill the well. Shutting down pumping 16 hours before telling anyone, including the president. We were never really given a clear reason why "Top Kill" failed, just that it couldn't overcome the well.

There is only one article anywhere that says anything else about it at this time of writing...and it's a relatively obscure article from the wall street journal "online" citing an unnamed source.

"WASHINGTON—BP PLC has concluded that its "top-kill" attempt last week to seal its broken well in the Gulf of
Mexico may have failed due to a malfunctioning disk inside the well about 1,000 feet below the ocean floor.

The disk, part of the subsea safety infrastructure, may have ruptured during the surge of oil and gas up the well on April 20 that led to the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig, BP officials said. The rig sank two days later, triggering a leak that has since become the worst in U.S. history.

The broken disk may have prevented the heavy drilling mud injected into the well last week from getting far enough down the well to overcome the pressure from the escaping oil and gas, people familiar with BP's findings said. They said much of the drilling mud may also have escaped from the well into the rock formation outside the wellbore.

As a result, BP wasn't able to get sufficient pressure to keep the oil and gas at bay. If they had been able to build up sufficient pressure, the company had hoped to pump in cement and seal off the well. The effort was deemed a failure on Saturday.

BP started the top-kill effort Wednesday afternoon, shooting heavy drilling fluids into the broken valve known as a blowout preventer. The mud was driven by a 30,000 horsepower pump installed on a ship at the surface. But it was clear from the start that a lot of the "kill mud" was leaking out instead of going down into the well."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870487560457528013357716426...

There are some inconsistencies with this article.
There are no "Disks" or "Subsea safety structure" 1,000 feet below the sea floor, all that is there is well bore. There is nothing that can allow the mud or oil to "escape" into the rock formation outside the well bore except the well, because it is the only thing there.

All the actions and few tid bits of information all lead to one inescapable conclusion. The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking. Now you have some real data of how BP's actions are evidence of that, as well as some murky statement from "BP officials" confirming the same.

I took some time to go into a bit of detail concerning the failure of Top Kill because this was a significant event. To those of us outside the real inside loop, yet still fairly knowledgeable, it was a major confirmation of what many feared. That the system below the sea floor has serious failures of varying magnitude in the complicated chain, and it is breaking down and it will continue to.

What does this mean?

It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot...the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?...the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?...it doesn't leak so bad, you close the nozzle?...it leaks real bad,
same dynamics. It is why they sawed the riser off...or tried to anyway...but they clipped it off, to relieve pressure on the leaks "down hole". I'm sure there was a bit of panic time after they crimp/pinched off the large riser pipe and the Diamond wire saw got stuck and failed...because that crimp diverted pressure and flow to the rupture down below.

Contrary to what most of us would think as logical to stop the oil mess, actually opening up the gushing well and making it gush more became direction BP took after confirming that there was a leak. In fact if you note their actions, that should become clear. They have shifted from stopping or restricting the gusher to opening it up and catching it. This only makes sense if they want to relieve pressure at the leak hidden down below the seabed.....and that sort of leak is one of the most dangerous and potentially damaging kind of leak there could be. It is also inaccessible which compounds our problems. There is no way to stop that leak from above, all they can do is relieve the pressure on it and the only way to do that right now is to open up the nozzle above and gush more oil into the gulf and hopefully catch it, which they have done, they just neglected to tell us why, gee thanks.

A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons.
There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the "system" including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil "Product" rushing through it. There are abrasives still present, swirling flow will create hot spots of wear and this erosion is relentless and will always be present until eventually it wears away enough material to break it's way out. It will slowly eat the bop away especially at the now pinched off riser head and it will flow more and more. Perhaps BP can outrun or keep up with that out flow with various suckage methods for a period of time, but eventually the well will win that race, just how long that race will be?...no one really knows....However now?...there are other problems that a down hole leak will and must produce that will compound this already bad situation.

This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?...we are beginning to the results of the well's total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore.

The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly lose material of sand and silt. It doesn't hold up anything and isn't meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself. The very large steel connectors of the initial well head "spud" stabbed in to the sea floor. The Bop literally sits on top of the pipe and never touches the sea bed, it wouldn't do anything in way of support if it did. After several tens of feet the seabed does begin to support the well connection laterally (side to side) you couldn't put a 450 ton piece of machinery on top of a 100' tall pipe "in the air" and subject it to the side loads caused by the ocean currents and expect it not to bend over...unless that pipe was very much larger than the machine itself, which you all can see it is not. The well's piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over...and it is now showing signs of doing just that....falling over.

If you have been watching the live feed cams you may have noticed that some of the ROVs are using an inclinometer...and inclinometer is an instrument that measures "Incline" or tilt. The BOP is not supposed to be tilting...and after the riser clip off operation it has begun to...

This is not the only problem that occurs due to erosion of the outer area of the well casings. The way a well casing assembly functions it that it is an assembly of different sized "tubes" that decrease in size as they go down. These tubes have a connection to each other that is not unlike a click or snap together locking action. After a certain length is assembled they are cemented around the ouside to the earth that the more rough drill hole is bored through in the well making process. A very well put together and simply explained process of "How to drill a deep water oil well" is available here:
http://www.treesfullofmoney.com/?p=1610

The well bore casings rely on the support that is created by the cementing phase of well construction. Just like if you have many hands holding a pipe up you could put some weight on the top and the many hands could hold the pipe and the weight on top easily...but if there were no hands gripping and holding the pipe?...all the weight must be held up by the pipe alone. The series of connections between the sections of casings are not designed to hold up the immense weight of the BOP without all the "hands" that the cementing provides and they will eventually buckle and fail when stressed beyond their design limits.

These are clear and present dangers to the battered subsea safety structure (bop and lmrp) which is the only loose cork on this well we have left. The immediate (first 1,000 feet) of well structure that remains is now also undoubtedly compromised. However.....as bad as that is?...it is far from the only possible problems with this very problematic well. There were ongoing troubles with the entire process during the drilling of this well. There were also many comprises made by BP IMO which may have resulted in an overall weakened structure of the entire well system all the way to the bottom plug which is over 12,000 feet deep. Problems with the cementing procedure which was done by Haliburton and was deemed as “was against our best practices.” by a Haliburton employee on April 1st weeks before the well blew out. There is much more and I won't go into detail right now concerning the lower end of the well and the troubles encountered during the whole creation of this well and earlier "Well control" situations that were revieled in various internal BP e-mails. I will add several links to those documents and quotes from them below and for now, address the issues concerning the upper portion of the well and the region of the sea floor.

What is likely to happen now?

Well...none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact...it's about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don't, they are inviting disaster that much sooner.

Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? ...it won't be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov't must be well aware too, they just are not telling us.

All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn't any "cap dome" or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?....is the only real chance we have left to stop it all.

It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo.

We are not even 2 months into it, barely half way by even optimistic estimates. The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse. No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day. We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said.

Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can "get there first"...us or the well.

We can only hope the race against that eventuality is one we can win, but my assessment I am sad to say is that we will not.

The system will collapse or fail substantially before we reach the finish line ahead of the well and the worst is yet to come.

Sorry to bring you that news, I know it is grim, but that is the way I see it....I sincerely hope I am wrong.

We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause. All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down.

The magnitude and impact of this disaster will eclipse anything we have known in our life times if the worst or even near worst happens...

We are seeing the puny forces of man vs the awesome forces of nature.
We are going to need some luck and a lot of effort to win...
and if nature decides we ought to lose, we will....

Reference materials:

On April 1, a job log written by a Halliburton employee, Marvin Volek, warns that BP’s use of cement “was
against our best practices.”

An April 18 internal Halliburton memorandum indicates that Halliburton again warned BP about its practices,
this time saying that a “severe” gas flow problem would occur if the casings were not centered more carefully.

Around that same time, a BP document shows, company officials chose a type of casing with a greater risk of
collapsing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/us/06rig.html?pagewanted=1&sq=at_issue...

Mark Hafle, the BP drilling engineer who wrote plans for well casings and cement seals on the Deepwater
Horizon's well, testified that the well had lost thousands of barrels of mud at the bottom. But he said models
run onshore showed alterations to the cement program would resolve the issues, and when asked if a cement
failure allowed the well to "flow" gas and oil, he wouldn't capitulate.

Hafle said he made several changes to casing designs in the last few days before the well blew, including the
addition of the two casing liners that weren't part of the original well design because of problems where the
earthen sides of the well were "ballooning." He also worked with Halliburton engineers to design a plan for
sealing the well casings with cement.
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/hearings_bp_ce...

graphic of fail
http://media.nola.com/news_impact/other/oil-cause-050710.pdf
Casing joint
http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/files/OGL00001.gif
Casing
http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/files/OGL00003.gif

Kill may take until Christmas
http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-02/bp-gulf-of-mexico-oil-leak-...

BP Used Riskier Method to Seal Well Before Blast
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/us/27rig.html

BP memo test results
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20100512/Internal.BP.Email.Reg...

Investigation results

The information from BP identifies several new warning signs of problems. According to BP there were three flow
indicators from the well before the explosion.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100525/Memo.BP.Internal.Inve...

BP, what we know
http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100512/BP-What.We.Know.pdf

What could have happened

1. Before or during the cement job, an influx of hydrocarbon enters the wellbore.
2. Influx is circulated during cement job to wellhead and BOP.
3. 9-7/8” casing hanger packoff set and positively tested to 6500 psi.
4. After 16.5 hours waiting on cement, a negative test performed on wellbore below BOP.
(~ 1400 psi differential pressure on 9-7/8” casing hanger packoff and ~ 2350 psi on
double valve float collar)
5. Packoff leaks allowing hydrocarbon to enter wellbore below BOP. 1400 psi shut in
pressure observed on drill pipe (no flow or pressure observed on kill line)
6. Hydrocarbon below BOP is unknowingly circulated to surface while finishing displacing
the riser.
7. As hydrocarbon rises to surface, gas break out of solution further reduces hydrostatic
pressure in well. Well begin to flow, BOPs and Emergency Disconnect System (EDS)
activated but failed.
8. Packoff continues to leak allowing further influx from bottom.
Confidential
http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100512/BP-What.Could.Have.Ha...

T/A daily log 4-20
http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100512/TRO-Daily.Drilling.Re...

Cement plug 12,150 ft SCMT logging tool
SCMT (Slim Cement Mapping Tool)
Schlumberger Partial CBL done.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100530/BP-HZN-CEC018441.pdf

Schlum CBL tools
http://www.slb.com/~/media/Files/production/product_sheets/well_integrit...

Major concerns, well control, bop test.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100530/BP-HZN-CEC018375.pdf

Energy & commerce links to docs.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=articl...

well head on sea floor
http://nca-group.com/bilder//Trolla/A. GVI of Trolla prior to WHP002 (2).jpg

Well head on deck of ship
http://nca-group.com/bilder//Trolla/DSC_0189.JPG

BP's youtube propoganda page, a lot of rarely seen vids here....FWIW
http://www.youtube.com/user/DeepwaterHorizonJIC
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1097505/pg1

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Rich Z said:

Here's what I found -> http://imars.usf.edu/cgi-bin/db?site=gulf&mode=daily&type=st&date=2010.06

So can someone tell me if it is ONLY me that cannot see any of those images on that site? All I see are red 'X's for all of the images.

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wade said:

You have obviously spent a lot of time researching this subject. Instead of quoting the thoughts of other, what are your thoughts. What do you know for a fact and what do you think?

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Bureaucracy frustrates U.S. Gulf oil spill efforts
'You have to kick and scream every step of the way' to get plans approved’


By Jeffrey Jones

GRAND ISLE, Louisiana - Those on the front lines of the U.S. Gulf Coast oil spill say they are forced to fight two battles — one against the crude washing into lush wetlands and another against needless bureaucracy.

Sixty-one days after the BP Plc well began spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, angry local officials blame dozens of federal agencies involved in approving response plans, a maze of regulations and poor coordination for their struggles beating back the slick.

"My experience has been frustration, too much red tape, no sense of urgency. For the state and the coastal parishes that are directly affected to put forth a plan, you have to kick and scream every step of the way to get it approved," said John Young, council chairman for Jefferson Parish in Louisiana.



"The president said it's a war. I agree we're under siege, but if it was a war, we'd be occupied territory now."

It is time for President Barack Obama's administration to appoint an "oil spill czar" to streamline operations for the 31,000 people fighting the worst spill in U.S. history and avoid the costly delays, Young said as he prepared to board a boat to tour his region's fouled wetlands.

As a guide, many point to the arrival of U.S. Army General Russel Honore in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The tough-talking military man was credited with taking control and kick-starting the city's stalled rescue mission in the weeks after the storm.

Last week, the U.S. Coast Guard shut down 16 vacuum barges that were sucking up crude from Louisiana marshes. The units, which consist of trucks and tanks on barges that suck up thousands of gallons of crude, needed to be checked for stability and if they had life jackets and fire extinguishers.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal had asked officials to inspect them quickly without bringing them back to dock. But the units sat idle for 24 hours before being allowed to travel back to oil-fouled Barataria Bay, Bay Jimmy and Pass A Loutre.

After 24 hours, the barges went back to work, and according to media reports, no inspections were performed.

On Friday, the Coast Guard shut down two more barges, prompting Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser to make an angry call the the White House, which ordered them back into operation, his office said.

Meanwhile, the oil keeps gushing into the Gulf at a rate now estimated as high as 60,000 barrels a day.

'No streamlined system'
Jindal has blasted a lack of coordination between federal departments overseeing the fight and state and local officials waging it.

"It is frustrating because it doesn't seem like the left hand knows what the right hand is doing," he said recently. "There is no streamlined system here. This is why we keep stressing that we need to see more of a sense of urgency from the Coast Guard, federal officials and BP."

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Rich Z said:

There is the curious issue of Goldman Sachs and Tony Hayward selling off large quantities of BP stock three weeks before the explosion on the rig. Couple this with some suggestions that the size of the oil spill is much larger than expected, and you can either come to the conclusion that either the flow is much larger than we are being told, or it has actually been spewing oil for much LONGER than we are being told. Or perhaps even both. There is actually some evidence of that in the media. It wouldn't boggle my mind completely at all if it comes out that the Deepwater Horizon actually did start having problems back in February. By March it became obvious that this was NOT going to be fixed easily, if at all, and the word went out to dump stock in BP because they KNEW what was coming. Possibly Goldman Sachs didn't KNOW what was going on, but deduced something was up when the CEO of BP took such a drastic step.

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Rich Z=1141435 said:

I think that there may be NO conventional way to stop this. Heck, if you have that hole spurting up oil and gas at an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 psi and you drill into that with a "relief" well, what's going to happen? Can they actually control that much pressure? And even if they can, what's the chances that they can intersect a 10 or 12 inch pipe (if it is even still in place there) with another drilling at an angle some 10,000 ft, underneath the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, especially when that is also underneath 5,000 ft. of the waters of the Gulf? I think they know that this is just a futile gesture and doomed to failure, so it may not even be taking place at all. Or else they ARE drilling two "relief" wells, towards the blown out hole, but they are NOT for the purpose they are stating.

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Rich Z=1141435 said:

I think someone way up at the top of the political food chain is being presented with two unpleasant options: (1) admit that there is nothing at all that can be done, and tell the American people (and the world) that there is going to be BILLIONS of gallons of crude oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, and therefore into all the oceans of the world, over the next 25 to 30 years, or (2) take a REAL long shot gamble via the suggestion to try to cauterize that oil artery with a blast from a nuclear device underneath the crust of the ocean floor.

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wstphal said:

I think I have an alternative idea. I think they KNEW something was likely to go wrong, but kept going forward. Goldman Sachs & Tony Hayward dumped stock because of the high likelihood it was 1) going to blow up or 2) that the well would have to be abandoned. Then it blew in April. I don't think they could get the Deepwater Horizon survivors to lie about that part.

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wstphal said:

I don't think there is any choice (1). I think they are going to have to blow the formation, either using very large amounts of conventional HE, or some small nukes. The so-called relief wells could be used to deliver the explosives, and that's what I expect to happen. I do expect that will work, and if the right people are involved, will work with a minimum of catastrophe, but it sure isn't a good idea, just better than letting the entire oil/gas formation empty itself into the ocean.

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