BP finally cuts off the oil leak in the Gulf?

[Christopher Marlowe]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... 2568.story

COLLEEN LONG, HARRY R. WEBER Associated Press Writers

5:20 p.m. CDT, July 15, 2010

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — BP finally choked off the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday — 85 days and up to 184 million gallons after the crisis unfolded — then began a tense 48 hours of watching to see whether the capped-off well would hold or blow a new leak.

To the relief of millions of people along the Gulf Coast, the big, billowing brown cloud of crude at the bottom of the sea disappeared from the underwater video feed for the first time since the disaster began in April, as BP closed the last of three openings in the 75-ton cap lowered onto the well earlier this week.

"Finally!" said Renee Brown, a school guidance counselor visiting Pensacola Beach, Fla., from London, Ky. "Honestly, I'm surprised that they haven't been able to do something sooner, though."

But the company stopped far short of declaring victory over the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history and one of the nation's worst environmental disasters, a catastrophe that has killed wildlife and threatened the livelihoods of fishermen, restaurateurs, and oil industry workers from Texas to Florida.

Now begins a waiting period during which engineers will monitor pressure gauges and watch for signs of leaks elsewhere in the well. The biggest risk: Pressure from the oil gushing out of the ground could fracture the well and make the leak even worse, causing oil to spill from other spots on the sea floor.

Ultimately, the cap may have to be opened up, allowing oil to spill into the sea again.

"For the people living on the Gulf, I'm certainly not going to guess their emotions," BP vice president Kent Wells said. "I hope they're encouraged there's no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico. But we have to be careful. Depending on what the test shows us, we may need to open this well back up."

The news elicited joy mixed with skepticism from wary Gulf Coast residents following months of false starts, setbacks and failed attempts. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley's face lit up when he heard the oil flow had stopped.

"That's great. I think a lot of prayers were answered today," he said.

"I don't believe that. That's a lie. It's a (expletive) lie," said Stephon LaFrance, an oysterman in Louisiana's oil-stained Plaquemines Parish who has been out of work for weeks. "I don't believe they stopped that leak. BP's trying to make their self look good."

President Barack Obama called it a positive sign, but cautioned: "We're still in the testing phase."

The stoppage came 85 days, 16 hours and 25 minutes after the first report April 20 of an explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11 workers. Somewhere between 94 million and 184 million gallons spilled into the Gulf, according to government estimates.

The skepticism comes after a string of failed attempts by BP to contain the leak, including the use of a giant concrete-and-steel box that became clogged with ice-like crystals; a colossal stopper and siphon tube that trapped very little oil; and an effort to jam the well by pumping in mud and shredded rubber.

Wells said the oil stopped flowing into the water at 2:25 p.m. CDT after engineers gradually dialed back the amount of crude escaping through the last of three vents in the cap, an 18-foot-high metal stack of pipes and valves.

On the video feed, the violently churning cloud of oil and gas coming out of a narrow tube thinned, and tapered off. Suddenly, there were a few puffs of oil, surrounded by cloudy dispersant BP was pumping on top. Then, there was nothing.

"I am very pleased that there's no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, I'm really excited there's no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico," Wells said.

The cap is designed to stop oil from flowing into the sea, either by bottling it up inside the well, or capturing it and piping it to ships on the surface. Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the Obama administration's point man on the disaster, said if the cap holds, it will probably be used to pipe oil to the surface, with the option of employing it to shut the well completely if a hurricane threatens.

Even if it works, the cap is not a permanent fix, and not the end of the crisis by any means. BP is drilling two relief wells so it can pump mud and cement into the leaking well in hopes of plugging it permanently by mid-August. After that, the Gulf Coast faces a monumental cleanup and restoration that could take years.

BP stock, which has mainly tumbled since the spill began, closed nearly 8 percent higher on the New York Stock Exchange after the news.

Steve Shepard, Gulf Coast chairman of the Mississippi Chapter of the Sierra Club, said: "I think it's a little premature to say it's definitely over. They've gotten our hopes up so many times before that in my mind I don't think it's going to be over until Christmas."

Nine-year-old Lena Durden threw up her hands in jubilation when her mother told her the oil was stopped.

"God, that's wonderful," said Yvonne Durden, a Mobile-area native who now lives in Seattle and brought her daughter to the coast for a visit. "We came here so she could swim in the water and see it in case it's not here next time."

Randall Luthi, president of the Washington-based National Ocean Industries Association, a national trade group representing the offshore oil industry, said: "This is by far the best news we've heard in 86 days. You can bet that industry officials and their families are taking a big sigh here."

1) I hope this is Final.
2) I find it very suspicious that BP did very little to reclaim the "omewhere between 94 million and 184 million gallons spilled into the Gulf". Then a Chinese billionaire sends an oil-sucking tanker to the gulf. A week later, there is no oil leaking. If the tanker was allowed to suck up the oil that was alleged to be gushing out of the sea floor, the tanker would have to show real oil.

I still believe this might have been an asphalt volcano.

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Good news at least it is stopped.
,
I just know they have been going deeper into areas that are not really "Charted" that well in terms of pressure, temperature and stability. It was obvious they were taking big gambles with this well.

Z.H. has fairly decent coverage:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bp-has ... -temporary

Keep an eye on BP's stock price, if it has problems in the next few days with insiders dumping, then it may mean the cap has issues short term.

[scorpio]

1rsaoor2]

[scorpio]

2z3r549n]

[Panoptimist]

Ominous reports are leaking past the BP Gulf salvage operation news blackout that the disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico may be about to reach biblical proportions.

251 million years ago a mammoth undersea methane bubble caused massive explosions, poisoned the atmosphere and destroyed more than 96 percent of all life on Earth. [1] Experts agree that what is known as the Permian extinction event was the greatest mass extinction event in the history of the world. [2]



55 million years later another methane bubble ruptured causing more mass extinctions during the Late Paleocene Thermal Maximum (LPTM).

The LPTM lasted 100,000 years. [3]

Those subterranean seas of methane virtually reshaped the planet when they explosively blew from deep beneath the waters of what is today called the Gulf of Mexico.

Now, worried scientists are increasingly concerned the same series of catastrophic events that led to worldwide death back then may be happening again-and no known technology can stop it.

The bottom line: BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling operation may have triggered an irreversible, cascading geological Apocalypse that will culminate with the first mass extinction of life on Earth in many millions of years.

The oil giant drilled down miles into a geologically unstable region and may have set the stage for the eventual premature release of a methane mega-bubble.

Ryskin's methane extinction theory

Northwestern University's Gregory Ryskin, a bio-chemical engineer, has a theory: The oceans periodically produce massive eruptions of explosive methane gas. He has documented the scientific evidence that such an event was directly responsible for the mass extinctions that occurred 55 million years ago. [4]

Many geologists concur: "The consequences of a methane-driven oceanic eruption for marine and terrestrial life are likely to be catastrophic. Figuratively speaking, the erupting region "boils over," ejecting a large amount of methane and other gases (e.g., CO2, H2S) into the atmosphere, and flooding large areas of land. Whereas pure methane is lighter than air, methane loaded with water droplets is much heavier, and thus spreads over the land, mixing with air in the process (and losing water as rain). The air-methane mixture is explosive at methane concentrations between 5% and 15%; as such mixtures form in different locations near the ground and are ignited by lightning, explosions and conflagrations destroy most of the terrestrial life, and also produce great amounts of smoke and of carbon dioxide..." [5]

The warning signs of an impending planetary catastrophe—of such great magnitude that the human mind has difficulty grasping it-would be the appearance of large fissures or rifts splitting open the ocean floor, a rise in the elevation of the seabed, and the massive venting of methane and other gases into the surrounding water.

Such occurrences can lead to the rupture of the methane bubble containment—it can then permit the methane to breach the subterranean depths and undergo an explosive decompression as it catapults into the Gulf waters.  [6]

All three warning signs are documented to be occurring in the Gulf.

Ground zero: The Gulf Coast

The people and property located on the greater expanse of the Gulf Coast are sitting at Ground Zero. They will be the first exposed to poisonous, cancer causing chemical gases. They will be the ones that initially experience the full fury of a methane bubble exploding from the ruptured seabed.

The media has been kept away from the emergency salvage measures being taken to forestall the biggest catastrophe in human history. The federal government has warned them away from the epicenter of operations with the threat of a $40,000 fine for each infraction and the possibility of felony arrests.

Why is the press being kept away? Word is that the disaster is escalating.

Cracks and bulges

Methane is now streaming through the porous, rocky seabed at an accelerated rate and gushing from the borehole of the first relief well. The EPA is on record that Rig #1 is releasing methane, benzene, hydrogen sulfide and other toxic gases. Workers there now wear advanced protection including state-of-the-art, military-issued gas masks.

Reports, filtering through from oceanologists and salvage workers in the region, state that the upper level strata of the ocean floor is succumbing to greater and greater pressure. That pressure is causing a huge expanse of the seabed-estimated by some as spreading over thousands of square miles surrounding the BP wellhead-to bulge. Some claim the seabed in the region has risen an astounding 30 feet.

The fractured BP wellhead, site of the former Deepwater Horizon, has become the epicenter of frenetic attempts to quell the monstrous flow of methane.

The subterranean methane is pressurized at 100,000 pounds psi. According to Matt Simmons, an oil industry expert, the methane pressure at the wellhead has now skyrocketed to a terrifying 40,000 pounds psi.

Another well-respected expert, Dr. John Kessler of Texas A&M University has calculated that the ruptured well is spewing 60 percent oil and 40 percent methane. The normal methane amount that escapes from a compromised well is about 5 percent.

More evidence? A huge gash on the ocean floor—like a ragged wound hundreds of feet long—has been reported by the NOAA research ship, Thomas Jefferson. Before the curtain of the government enforced news blackout again descended abruptly, scientists aboard the ship voiced their concerns that the widening rift may go down miles into the earth.

That gash too is hemorrhaging oil and methane. It's 10 miles away from the BP epicenter. Other, new fissures, have been spotted as far as 30 miles distant.

Measurements of the multiple oil plumes now appearing miles from the wellhead indicate that as much as a total  of 124,000 barrels of oil are erupting into the Gulf waters daily-that's about 5,208,000 gallons of oil per day.

Most disturbing of all: Methane levels in the water are now calculated as being almost one million times higher than normal. [7]

Mass death on the water

If the methane bubble—a bubble that could be as big as 20 miles wide—erupts with titanic force from the seabed into the Gulf, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will immediately sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists participating in the salvage operation will die instantly.

Next, the ocean bottom will collapse, instantaneously displacing up to a trillion cubic feet of water or more and creating a towering supersonic tsunami annihilating everything along the coast and well inland. Like a thermonuclear blast, a high pressure atmospheric wave could precede the tidal wave flattening everything in its path before the water arrives.

When the roaring tsunami does arrive it will scrub away all that is left.

A chemical cocktail of poisons

Some environmentalist experts are calling what's pouring into the land, sea and air from the seabed breach 'a chemical cocktail of poisons.'

Areas of dead zones devoid of oxygen are driving species of fish into foreign waters, killing plankton and other tiny sea life that are the foundation for the entire food chain, and polluting the air with cancer-causing chemicals and poisonous rainfalls.

A report from one observer in South Carolina documents oily residue left behind after a recent thunderstorm. And before the news blackout fully descended the EPA released data that benzene levels in New Orleans had rocketed to 3,000 parts per billion.

Benzene is extremely toxic and even short term exposure can cause agonizing death from cancerous lesions years later.

The people of Louisiana have been exposed for more than two months—and the benzene levels may be much higher now. The EPA measurement was taken in early May. [8]

Doomsday

While some say it can't happen because the bulk of the methane is frozen into crystalline form, others point out that the underground methane sea is gradually melting from the nearby surging oil that's estimated to be as hot as 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Most experts in the know, however, agree that if the world-changing event does occur it will happen suddenly and within the next 6 months.

So, if events go against  Mankind and the bubble bursts in the coming months, Gregory Ryskin may become one of the most famous people in the world. Of course, he won't have long to enjoy his new found fame because very shortly after the methane eruption civilization will collapse.

Perhaps if humanity is very, very lucky, some may find a way to avoid the mass extinction that follows and carry on the human race.

Perhaps.
............

Sources

[1] The Permian extinction event, when 96% of all marine species became extinct 251 million years ago.

[2] "The Day The Earth Nearly Died," BBC Horizon, 2002

[3] Report about the Late Paleocene Thermal Maximum (LPTM), which occurred around 55 million years ago and lasted about 100,000 years. Large undersea methane caused explosions and mass extinctions.

[4] Ryskin Theory
Huge combustible clouds produced by methane gas trapped under the seas and explosively released could have killed off the majority of marine life, land animals, and plants at the end of the Permian era—long before the dinosaurs arrived.

[5] James P. Kennett, Kevin G. Cannariato, Ingrid L. Hendy, Richard J. Behl (2000), "Carbon Isotopic Evidence for Methane Hydrate Instability During Quaternary Interstadials," Science 288.

[6] "An awesome mix of fire and water may lie behind mass extinctions"

[7] "Methane in Gulf 'astonishingly high'-US scientist"

[8] Report: "Air Quality - Oil Spill" TV 4WWL video

Links

"BP engineer called doomed rig a 'nightmare well'"

History Channel Mega Disasters - Methane Explosion

"BP Official Admits to Damage Beneath the Sea Floor"

http://www.helium.com/items/1882339-doo ... ling-event

[ahaze]

Thanks for the vids Scorpio.  Here's an article detailing cracks in the seafloor pondering how they demonstrate leakage preceding the cap and with pressure tests we should expect to increase.  Plus this article delineates defense lines of the BP information firewall we're up against.  

BP's Latest Risky Top-Down Scheme
Cap and Blow?

What the hell are they thinking in Washington, and down at the "Unified Command" in New Orleans, letting BP try to close off the oil volcano spewing out the top of the damaged Blowout Preventer (BOP) stack?

And what the hell is the mainstream press doing not asking about the clear evidence of oil or gas spewing out under pressure from cracks in the seafloor around the base of the BOP? (Link to "ROV films oil leak coming from rock cracks on seafloor." *http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2RxIQP0IBU)

Sure the initial partial closing of the valves is working, but they haven't built up much pressure yet--just to 6000 lbs/square inch, which isn't much above the 5000 lbs/square inch at that depth of the ocean--and a lot could go wrong. seriously wrong, and good reason to think it will.

I made a call to the media office of the Unified Command, the office set up to respond to public and media inquiries about the disaster, which is supposedly composed of people from the US Coast Guard, other federal agencies, and BP. When I mentioned the videos taken by BP's own remote operating vehicles (ROVs) of the oil and/or gas spewing from cracks in the sea floor, I was told I had to call the press office in Houston, "because you're asking us a question about the sub-surface well."

But here's the thing. The press office in Houston is not run by the Unified Command. The people at the office there answer the phone with the phrase: "BP Press." They do this because they are BP employees, and the office is in BP headquarters.

This means if you want to know anything about the structural integrity of the well below the BOP, you have to get that information from BP, not from the government. That's the same BP that told government regulators that they could handle any emergency. The same BP that assured us when the well blew that the spill was just leaking 1000 barrels of oil a day--a figure that appears to have been knowingly understated by a factor of 50 to 100.

Now, when I called BP I got a PR guy with a Brit accent named Toby Odone, who claimed he was "not aware of any oil leaking around the well itself."

He also said, "We're pretty certain that there is no oil leaking around the well that shouldn't be there."

How then to explain their own ROV videos, showing exactly that? Odone assured me he'd "get back" with an answer. So far, no answer.

Odone also said something else that was disturbing in its facileness. He said that the relief wells were within feet of the original bore, and that they had "not detected any hydrocarbons." This, he assured me, meant that there was no leak from the casing. But I pointed out that those side wells had been drilled from a mile away, on a slant, so that they only approached the original well during the last quarter mile or so from the bottom of the 18000-foot bore. They were nowhere near the bore during the first several miles of casing, so they can offer no clue as to the integrity of the bore above the first quarter mile or so above the oil reservoir. Odone agreed that this was true.

I also put a call in to the US Energy Department, which is supposedly monitoring the science of this disaster and which put the attempted shut-down of the well on hold for 48 hours earlier this week while seismic tests were conducted to try and determine the integrity of the casing that goes from the BOP down to the oil reservoir. A press officer at the DOE asked me to provide a link to the ROV video of the oil leaking from the sea bed, and promised to get back to me with an explanation of the department's thinking about that. So far, no response or explanation. Clearly, though, the Energy Department is worried that shutting down the flow entirely at the top of the stack could cause such high pressures inside the casing that it will blow a crack in the pipe and allow the oil and gas to push upward outside of the control of the pipe.

That's why they are closing the top of the pipe slowly, monitoring the pressure all the time. If they can shut it down and the pressure rises to 9000 lbs/square inch or more, which is roughly the pressure at which the oil is coming up from below ground, then they will know that the integrity of the pipe has been preserved, but if they cannot get the pressure to build beyond 6000 or so lbs/square inch, it would mean that the casing has been compromised, and they would not be able to shut the flow down from the top. leaving successful completion of a relief well as the only possible shut-down option.

But here's the question: If we can already see oil, or perhaps gas, blowing out of cracks around the BOP, doesn't this mean that somewhere below ground, the casing has already breached? And if it has already blown open, isn't any attempt to shut down the flow and build up the pressure in the well just threatening to worsen whatever break already exists? Especially since BP and the government say that this "fix," even if it works and doesn't blow the tube or burst the damaged BOP, is only a temporary fix, until the relief well is drilled and the well is plugged at the bottom. Meanwhile, instead of this risky attempt to shut the well at the top, they could be just attaching pipes to collect all the oil in tankers on the surface, at minimal risk to the wellhead and the casing.

Why isn't the Energy Department or the Coast Guard addressing this question of the threat to the well? Why has no reporter at the regular daily briefings hosted by retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen asked this question?

It seems to me a fairly safe prediction that as they crank shut the opening at the top of the well, the oil pushing up from below at 9000 lbs/square inch of pressure, or even 6000 lbs/square inch of pressure, is going to push through whatever leaks already exist in or around the well casing, and will be blowing up through the ground around the BOP. If it's bursting out through those cracks already, while the pipe is wide open, there should be little doubt that it will burst out even more powerfully when the top of the pipe is capped. That's grade-school physics.

And if things do go badly, as the oil and gas blow out of the casing and push their way up through the fractured well hole and the poorly set concrete that was put down there by Halliburton to fill the well bore, it will widen the pathways to the surface, probably following new fracture lines that will have it coming out even further from the well hole. In no time, we will have oil spewing from a wide are of sea floor which will make it impossible to collect.

I don't claim to be a geologist, engineer or oil well expert, and I don't want to be an alarmist, but having seen the images of oil spewing up from the sea floor, I have enough basic scientific understanding to know that the casing has to have been already breached, and that anything that increases the pressure on that damaged casing is only going to make things worse.

So why are they trying to close down the well from the top?

I'm just asking, because nobody else seems to be.