Gulf Oil Platform Explosion and Spill

mudra wrote:an official Italian geophysics site where that pdf appears as well:
http://www.associazionegeofisica.it/Notiziario.html

spiritwarrior wrote:chrome 2010-07-16
06-19-18-16_mpeg2video.mpg


BP Live feeds for 07/16/10 6:19am
EST. #2
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doesn't seem to have stopped

http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/spill_cam/watch-the-oil-leak-live/888518/

spiritwarrior wrote:http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:45685.asx?bkup=49182

anyone any idea of what this white light is?

Raw Video: BP Places Cap Over Leaking Oil Well
From: AssociatedPress | 11 juillet 2010 | 35692 vues

BP has placed a new cap atop the Gulf oil well that could allow it to capture all the crude that's leaking from the well. However, it still must run tests on whether the cap can withstand the pressure of oil pushing up from below the seafloor. (July 11)

Allen Updates New Oil Cap Progress
From: AssociatedPress | 13 juillet 2010 | 2748 vues

Chargement…
Starting Tuesday, a new cap on the leaking Gulf of Mexico well will be tested to see if it can withstand pressure from the gushing oil and gas. The tests could last between six to 48 hours, according to National Incident Commander Thad Allen. (July 13)

mudra wrote:
Do we still have a gushing well ?
Was there never a gushing well at all ?

metaw3 wrote:

mudra wrote:
Do we still have a gushing well ?
Was there never a gushing well at all ?

Because nobody came forward to substantiate that claim, I think the gusher is real. However, these live cams are full of contradictions. Something is going on with these cams. They might not be the real thing.

Washington, DC, United States — The sound energy from seismic testing is potentially damaging to many species of marine life, including whales, dolphins and seals. The ocean is an acoustic environment, not a visual one and marine mammals rely heavily on sound for their survival. Without their heightened sense of hearing, marine mammals cannot find food, avoid predators or communicate with each other.

Seismic testing is an exploration technique used by oil and gas companies to explore the ocean for oil and gas sediments. In order to measure these sediments, large ships fire high-intensity air guns deep into the ocean. The sound energy from these air guns is potentially damaging to many species of marine life, including whales, dolphins and seals.

BP has succeeded in capping the well and stopping oil from flowing into the Gulf of Mexico ... at least temporarily.

The official Deepwater Horizon Response Twitter feed noted:

NO OIL FLOWING INTO THE GULF

This can be confirmed by looking at the underwater video cams.

As of this writing, Skandi ROV 2's cam is showing the cap (no oil), and Skandi ROV 1's cam is showing sonar of the seafloor:


However, numerous industry experts have warned that there is no upside to temporarily capping the well as part of the well integrity test, and that it might actually cause the well to blow out.

Indeed, Don Van Nieuwenhuise - director of geosciences programs at the University of Houston - told CNN today:

We don’t know if there ae significant leaks deep in the well.

There’s a couple of weak points at 9,000 feet, and one at 17,000 feet, that they might be particularly interested in looking and watching in the seismic.

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[With seismic testing, you can look beneath the seafloor. Sonar only tests at the seafloor itself].

Admiral Thad Allen previously said that the test will be considered a success if pressure in the well stays at 8,000 psi or higher for 48 hours. So we won't know for a couple of days whether the test has succeeded.

As AP correctly notes:

Now begins a waiting period to see if the cap can hold the oil without blowing a new leak in the well. Engineers will monitor pressure readings incrementally for up to 48 hours before reopening the cap while they decide what to do.

Interestingly, as CNN's Situation Room noted a couple of minutes ago, the cap might soon be re-opened, and closed again only during hurricanes:

Admiral Thad Allen releasing a statement to us just a short while ago…

He cautions “This isn’t over”…

Very interesting here. He talks about the cap as a temporary measure to be used for hurricanes…

“It remains likely that we will return to the containment process… until the relief well is completed”

So it looks like the plan is to go back to releasing the oil and letting it pump up to the surface.

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So is the well integrity test a meaningless PR stunt, which is delaying completion of the relief wells, and failing to bring us any closer to permanently killing the oil gusher?

Or is it a valuable tool to see if the well can be protected from further damage during a hurricane?

Only time will tell ...

As Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen has explained, sustained pressure readings above 8,000 pounds per square inch (psi) would show that the wellbore is more or less intact, while pressures of 6,000 psi or less would mean there could be major problems:

We are looking for somewhere between 8,000 and 9,000 PSI inside the capping stack, which would indicate to us that the hydrocarbons are being forced up and the wellbores are being able to withstand that pressure. And that is good news.

If we are down around in the 4,000 to 5,000, 6,000 range that could potentially tell us that the hydrocarbons are being diverted someplace else, and we would have to try and assess the implications of that. And as you might imagine, there are gradations as you go up from 4,000 or 5,000 PSI up to 8,000 or 9,000. …

We will at some point try to get to 8,000 or 9,000 and sustain that for some period of time, and these will be done basically, as I said — if we have a very low pressure reading, we will try and need (ph) at least six hours of those readings to try to ensure that that is the reading. If it’s a little higher, we want to go for 24 hours. And if it’s up at 8,000 or 9,000, we would like to go 48 hours just to make sure it can sustain those pressures for that amount of time.

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The former director of Sandia National Laboratories says the pressure readings so far have been ambiguous.

As the Washington Post points out:

The initial pressure readings are in an ambiguous range, and officials will have to make a difficult judgment call on whether to keep the well shut in or reopen it, according to Tom Hunter, retired director of the Sandia National Laboratories and a member of the federal government's scientific team overseeing the test.

"If it were a lot higher, it would be an easier decision to make," Hunter said.

***

Hunter, who witnessed the test from BP's war room in Houston, told The Washington Post that the pressure rose to about 6,700 psi and appeared likely to level out "closer to 7,000." He said one possibility is that the reservoir has lost pressure as it has depleted itself the past three months.

"It's just premature to tell. We just don't know whether something is leaking or not," Hunter said.

We will need to wait another 24 hours or so - and engineers will have to continue monitoring sonar and visual images (both help determine if any oil is leaking from the seafloor), and seismic data (to determine if there are any new leaks below the seafloor) - before engineers can determine how stable the well is.

With Pressure Tests Delayed, Chairman Renews Call for Information on Potential Hazards

WASHINGTON (July 14, 2010) – Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) today renewed his request to BP to release information on the integrity of the wellbore and sea floor leaks, especially in light of the delayed attempt to conduct pressure tests on the new containment cap system for the BP Macondo well. These efforts were delayed, at least in part, because of the need to review seismic data -- which could provide information about the integrity of the wellbore -- from around the well site.
Rep. Markey had originally requested this information on June 23rd, several weeks prior to this test, and has still not received any answers which might shed light on the current potential path of shutting in the well using the new cap system as well as with challenges that could be encountered as BP attempts to permanently stop the flow of oil and gas using a relief well. Rep. Markey also sent a letter to Thad Allen asking for information provided to Incident Command on these matters.

“Everyone is hoping for a successful outcome for this capping system, and for the relief wells,” said Rep. Markey. “But given BP’s bad track record on all of its efforts thus far, all information about the risks of these tactics must be provided to Congress and to the public.”

While BP told Rep. Markey’s staff that this information would eventually be provided, it has already been made available to executive branch staff, and is easily obtained.

“This information is available. Yet BP would rather stonewall than provide information on the potential hazards lurking in the rock formations around the well, and other risks,” said Rep. Markey.

Rep. Markey asks BP for answers to several questions from his June letter (available HERE ), all of which potentially relate to the current situation occurring at the well site as well as the future relief well efforts.

In the letter sent today, available HERE , Rep. Markey writes:

“Question 3 of my June 23rd letter asked BP for information needed to better understand what is known about the condition of the wellbore and about reports of sea floor leaks. It asks the following:

‘Please provide documents related to the condition of the wellbore.

--Has BP attempted to determine whether the casing inside the wellbore has been damaged and if so, what were the results? Please provide all measurements, images, and other documents related to the condition of the wellbore, as well as any future plans for such measurements going forward.

--Has BP confirmed or attempted to confirm the presence of hydrocarbons leaking from anywhere other than the containment cap? If so, what were the results? Please provide all related documents.

--Has BP surveyed the vicinity of the well to look for any leaks from the sea floor? If so, what area was surveyed? Please provide all measurements, images, and other documents related to any survey(s) to identify hydrocarbon leakage from the sea floor. If no survey has been performed, why not?’”

Rep. Markey’s letter to Thad Allen, which asks for information provided to Incident Command on these questions, is available HERE .

BP’s response to the order from congress was to totally ignore the orders of Rep. Markey’s committee to release the data regarding damaged well casing and leaks from cracks in the seafloor.

Markey is now once again demanding that BP release the data to congress and has ordered BP to comply within 48 hours in a letter sent to BP today.

In the BP’s response to Markey’s initial order to release the data BP revealed that the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, which includes the Coast Guard, is already in posses ion of the data that Markey’s committee is seeking.

Given the fact that the Coast Guard already has the information that Congress is seeking and yet neither the Coast Guard or BP is releasing it to Congress makes the Feds just as guilty as BP of stonewalling the release of the data.

Markey has also now issued a formal letter to the Coast Guard requesting the release of the data.

Here is the plain text of Representative Markey’s letter to Thad Allen requesting the release of any and all data on the integrity of the well bore and any information about sea floor leaks.

http://globalwarming.house.gov/files/LTTR/2010-06-13_ThadAllenWellIntegrity.pdf

source: http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/07/14/bp-feds-stonewalling-congress-bore-integrity-bp-gulf-oil-spill-sea-floor-leaks/

anomalous cowherd wrote:
meanwhile, your tax dollars hard at work, but not BO, because he is busy attending Bohemian Grove worshipping the 30 foot owl god Moloch and dressing up ( or down?) for the cremation of care ritual ,so fret not... and what's next? Is BG on a major fault line? I can dream...

mudra wrote:

Do they think we are stupid ?


Do we still have a gushing well ?
Was there never a gushing well at all ?

Love Always
mudra