Adm. Thad Allen calls it "a significant step forward"; BP has successfully sliced off the top of a damaged riser.
Alaska News and Views .. Presidential Politics
10 years ago
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
'Top kill' method 'slows BP oil leak' in Gulf of Mexico
Oil has been gushing from the well for the past five weeks BP has slowed the flow of oil and gas from a ruptured well into the Gulf of Mexico, a US official told local media.
The company's "top kill" effort has "stabilised the wellhead", Coast Guard commander Admiral Thad Allen said.
But he cautioned it was too early to declare success. This is the first step in BP's plan to seal the well for good.
'Low pressure'
Footage from BP's underwater camera
Adm Allen told US media the "top kill" procedure, which began on Wednesday, has pumped enough drilling fluid to block some of the oil and gas escaping from the well.
Adm Allen told National Public Radio that BP engineers had "been able to force mud down and not allow any hydrocarbons to come up."
It was the first positive official assessment of BP's latest attempt to plug the well, after previous efforts failed.
BP shares were up more than 5% in London trading following the announcement.
BP has not yet commented in detail on the situation, saying merely that its "subsea efforts [were] advancing on several fronts".
The company's "top kill" effort has "stabilised the wellhead", Coast Guard commander Admiral Thad Allen said.
But he cautioned it was too early to declare success. This is the first step in BP's plan to seal the well for good.
'Low pressure'
Footage from BP's underwater camera
Adm Allen told US media the "top kill" procedure, which began on Wednesday, has pumped enough drilling fluid to block some of the oil and gas escaping from the well.
Adm Allen told National Public Radio that BP engineers had "been able to force mud down and not allow any hydrocarbons to come up."
It was the first positive official assessment of BP's latest attempt to plug the well, after previous efforts failed.
BP shares were up more than 5% in London trading following the announcement.
BP has not yet commented in detail on the situation, saying merely that its "subsea efforts [were] advancing on several fronts".
BP: Top Kill Operation - Animated - May 26, 2010
Animation showing the Top Kill process designed to stop the flow of oil from the well. Heavy "kill mud" is pumped down a drill pipe, then through hoses that go through the manifold on the seafloor. The mud then moves through another set of hoses attached to the Deepwater Horizon blow-out preventer's choke and kill lines, then into the well.
Animation showing the Top Kill process designed to stop the flow of oil from the well. Heavy "kill mud" is pumped down a drill pipe, then through hoses that go through the manifold on the seafloor. The mud then moves through another set of hoses attached to the Deepwater Horizon blow-out preventer's choke and kill lines, then into the well.
Click here to see animation on YouTube.
Deepwater Horizon Response
Animation showing the Top Kill process designed to stop the flow of oil from the well. Heavy "kill mud" is pumped down a drill pipe, then through hoses that go through the manifold on the seafloor. The mud then moves through another set of hoses attached to the Deepwater Horizon blow-out preventer's choke and kill lines, then into the well.
Click here to see animation on YouTube.
Deepwater Horizon Response
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Kevin Costner oil spill cleanup idea interests BP
By Mark Guarino
Film star Kevin Costner is joining the ranks of scientists, engineers, and lawmakers in an international effort to figure out how to contain and clean up oil streaming into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of 210,000 gallons a day.
Mr. Costner appeared in New Orleans last week to demonstrate a $24 million oil extraction device he is pitching to BP and Coast Guard officials. Costner says the device will clean oil from the water at a rate of 97 percent. BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said Wednesday that his team will test the device next week.
Costner's involvement in helping solve oil spill crises is not new. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster in Alaska motivated the actor to help fund a consortium of scientists to develop technology that mitigates oil-infected water before it hits the coast. The technology is ready to combat the BP spill, he told reporters last week.
"It's not anymore about talk," Costner told WWL-TV in New Orleans. "It's about doing the walk, and that phrase was probably invented down here."
Costner's company, Ocean Therapy Solutions, provides multiple machines designed to address spills of different sizes. The largest can clean as many as 200 gallons per minute, Costner said. The company reports it has 20 such machines ready to be employed.
"The machines are basically sophisticated centrifuge devices that can handle a huge volume of water and separate [the oil] at unprecedented rates," Ocean Therapy Solutions CEO John Houghtaling said last week.
Costner said the machines work by drawing in the infested water where it then breaks it down, allowing the oil to discharge through a separate pipe. His audience, a gathering of local parish presidents, appeared eager to get the device to the Gulf.
"To me, this is a major tool for a tool box that should be tested," said Craig Taffaro, St. Bernard Parish president.
Besides saying that Costner's device will be tested next week, BP's Suttles said his company and the Coast Guard have been collecting ideas from the public since Day One of the crisis. The command center receives 100 ideas a day, Suttles said.
Costner said his decision to fund the technology was a result of needing to use the wealth he was "lucky" to accumulate instead of "piling it" for no real purpose.
"We all make decisions about what we want to be a part of. I'm just one person focusing on a specific problem and throwing a little resources to a lot of talent and manpower ... to come up with what is a [solution]," he said.
Read More
Film star Kevin Costner is joining the ranks of scientists, engineers, and lawmakers in an international effort to figure out how to contain and clean up oil streaming into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of 210,000 gallons a day.
Mr. Costner appeared in New Orleans last week to demonstrate a $24 million oil extraction device he is pitching to BP and Coast Guard officials. Costner says the device will clean oil from the water at a rate of 97 percent. BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said Wednesday that his team will test the device next week.
Costner's involvement in helping solve oil spill crises is not new. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster in Alaska motivated the actor to help fund a consortium of scientists to develop technology that mitigates oil-infected water before it hits the coast. The technology is ready to combat the BP spill, he told reporters last week.
"It's not anymore about talk," Costner told WWL-TV in New Orleans. "It's about doing the walk, and that phrase was probably invented down here."
Costner's company, Ocean Therapy Solutions, provides multiple machines designed to address spills of different sizes. The largest can clean as many as 200 gallons per minute, Costner said. The company reports it has 20 such machines ready to be employed.
"The machines are basically sophisticated centrifuge devices that can handle a huge volume of water and separate [the oil] at unprecedented rates," Ocean Therapy Solutions CEO John Houghtaling said last week.
Costner said the machines work by drawing in the infested water where it then breaks it down, allowing the oil to discharge through a separate pipe. His audience, a gathering of local parish presidents, appeared eager to get the device to the Gulf.
"To me, this is a major tool for a tool box that should be tested," said Craig Taffaro, St. Bernard Parish president.
Besides saying that Costner's device will be tested next week, BP's Suttles said his company and the Coast Guard have been collecting ideas from the public since Day One of the crisis. The command center receives 100 ideas a day, Suttles said.
Costner said his decision to fund the technology was a result of needing to use the wealth he was "lucky" to accumulate instead of "piling it" for no real purpose.
"We all make decisions about what we want to be a part of. I'm just one person focusing on a specific problem and throwing a little resources to a lot of talent and manpower ... to come up with what is a [solution]," he said.
Read More
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Gulf Spill: The Blame
May 19, 2010: While politicians and environmental groups step up to posture in the face of the Deep Water Horizon disaster, the company who is taking the brunt of the criticism has not been afforded the right to a fair hearing of facts in the press.
Since the well blew in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20th, several things have happened that warrant a clear and concise explanation.
In what stands to be one of the biggest oil spills in the history of the United States, the cause of the spill now appears to be an unauthorized modification of the blow out prevention (BOP) valve.
The Blame
BP's Deep Water Horizon oil rig exploded and sank off the cost of Louisiana last month. Eleven rig workers are missing, which was operated by Swiss-based Transocean Ltd, the largest independent driller in the world.
Meanwhile, the BOP failed to stop the flow of oil as it should have after the explosion and allowed oil to pour into the Gulf of Mexico. Fingers are being pointed at BP, even though Transocean was the sub-contractor.
Eventually, BP will be exonerated. But first we will all have to play a game of cover our asses.
From the subcontractor who reportedly modified the BOP without the knowledge or permission of BP, to the government regulators who okayed the modified BOP, to the Obama administration who wants to look tough on BP even thought they had no culpability, everyone is running for cover.
After the BOP was installed, the modifications made after the fact are assumed to have prevented the part from operating properly.
These modifications were discovered by remote operated vehicles whose pictures transmitted to engineers trying to find out why the BOP didn't activate, showed the part had been altered.
Government Response
Meanwhile, the Federal Government responded by splitting up the regulating and revenue collecting functions of the Minerals Management Agency, to as President Obama described, break up the cozy relationship between regulators and the oil industry.
However, the action to split up the functions draws attention to just who was responsible for permitting the BOP that failed to work. Could it have been that an MMS inspector didn't properly follow through with the BOP test monitoring?
BP's Safety Record
Much has been written since the well blew four weeks ago about BP's safety record. But that says nothing about the company today and the focus on safety they have made the last two years.
While many press accounts recall the explosion at BP's Texas City refinery in 2005, and the spill at Prudhoe Bay a year later, those incidents occurred before BP's current CEO Tony Hayward assumed control.
Since the spill, Hayward has been a visible point man for BP. He wasted no time in appearing on major network news shows to describe the situation on the ground. He has mobilized 2,500 workers to the site, including several from Anchorage, and he has accepted full responsibility for the disaster.
This shouldn't be surprising. After all it was Hayward, who in 2005 won accolades from BP employees for speaking out against the way the company was handling the Texas City disaster, criticizing his bosses for "a leadership style that is too directive and doesn't listen sufficiently well."
The Politics
The politics are bare knuckle.
The spill has given fodder to environmentalist to once again raise a ruckus about offshore oil & gas drilling. Congressmen, one right after another, attempting to look tough, are demanding answers from BP they already have received. And the White House continues to posture on the real issue which is; energy supplies come at a risk.
But the fact is the Gulf of Mexico accounts for almost a third of America's oil production and has been where most of the new finds have been for oil companies.
Furthermore, before the April 20th disaster, there hadn't been a leak from an offshore well in 40 years.
As the Economist recently opined, "If Americans do not want to hand more money and clout to the likes of Iran, Russia and Venezuela, the argument runs, they should not curb offshore drilling."
The impacts have reached Alaska. The spill has set off another round of opposition to offshore drilling in Alaska and age old worries about a spill in the Arctic conditions. But these concerns are unfounded.
Currently, as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, Alaska has the toughest regulations in the world. Companies like Shell Oil who are exploring off Alaska's shores are required to abide by and held to a much higher standard of prevention and response then anywhere on the globe.
The more and more you hear of the Deep Water Horizon tragedy the more you'll learn that it was a careless contractor who set the stage for the disaster. And as I said, at the end of the day BP will be exonerated in my opinion.
Let's hope for the future of our nation's energy security we don't use one bad incident in 40 years as an excuse to stop offshore drilling.
And let's hope we get bp: beyond posturing.
Andrew Halcro's blog
Since the well blew in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20th, several things have happened that warrant a clear and concise explanation.
In what stands to be one of the biggest oil spills in the history of the United States, the cause of the spill now appears to be an unauthorized modification of the blow out prevention (BOP) valve.
The Blame
BP's Deep Water Horizon oil rig exploded and sank off the cost of Louisiana last month. Eleven rig workers are missing, which was operated by Swiss-based Transocean Ltd, the largest independent driller in the world.
Meanwhile, the BOP failed to stop the flow of oil as it should have after the explosion and allowed oil to pour into the Gulf of Mexico. Fingers are being pointed at BP, even though Transocean was the sub-contractor.
Eventually, BP will be exonerated. But first we will all have to play a game of cover our asses.
From the subcontractor who reportedly modified the BOP without the knowledge or permission of BP, to the government regulators who okayed the modified BOP, to the Obama administration who wants to look tough on BP even thought they had no culpability, everyone is running for cover.
After the BOP was installed, the modifications made after the fact are assumed to have prevented the part from operating properly.
These modifications were discovered by remote operated vehicles whose pictures transmitted to engineers trying to find out why the BOP didn't activate, showed the part had been altered.
Government Response
Meanwhile, the Federal Government responded by splitting up the regulating and revenue collecting functions of the Minerals Management Agency, to as President Obama described, break up the cozy relationship between regulators and the oil industry.
However, the action to split up the functions draws attention to just who was responsible for permitting the BOP that failed to work. Could it have been that an MMS inspector didn't properly follow through with the BOP test monitoring?
BP's Safety Record
Much has been written since the well blew four weeks ago about BP's safety record. But that says nothing about the company today and the focus on safety they have made the last two years.
While many press accounts recall the explosion at BP's Texas City refinery in 2005, and the spill at Prudhoe Bay a year later, those incidents occurred before BP's current CEO Tony Hayward assumed control.
Since the spill, Hayward has been a visible point man for BP. He wasted no time in appearing on major network news shows to describe the situation on the ground. He has mobilized 2,500 workers to the site, including several from Anchorage, and he has accepted full responsibility for the disaster.
This shouldn't be surprising. After all it was Hayward, who in 2005 won accolades from BP employees for speaking out against the way the company was handling the Texas City disaster, criticizing his bosses for "a leadership style that is too directive and doesn't listen sufficiently well."
The Politics
The politics are bare knuckle.
The spill has given fodder to environmentalist to once again raise a ruckus about offshore oil & gas drilling. Congressmen, one right after another, attempting to look tough, are demanding answers from BP they already have received. And the White House continues to posture on the real issue which is; energy supplies come at a risk.
But the fact is the Gulf of Mexico accounts for almost a third of America's oil production and has been where most of the new finds have been for oil companies.
Furthermore, before the April 20th disaster, there hadn't been a leak from an offshore well in 40 years.
As the Economist recently opined, "If Americans do not want to hand more money and clout to the likes of Iran, Russia and Venezuela, the argument runs, they should not curb offshore drilling."
The impacts have reached Alaska. The spill has set off another round of opposition to offshore drilling in Alaska and age old worries about a spill in the Arctic conditions. But these concerns are unfounded.
Currently, as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, Alaska has the toughest regulations in the world. Companies like Shell Oil who are exploring off Alaska's shores are required to abide by and held to a much higher standard of prevention and response then anywhere on the globe.
The more and more you hear of the Deep Water Horizon tragedy the more you'll learn that it was a careless contractor who set the stage for the disaster. And as I said, at the end of the day BP will be exonerated in my opinion.
Let's hope for the future of our nation's energy security we don't use one bad incident in 40 years as an excuse to stop offshore drilling.
And let's hope we get bp: beyond posturing.
Andrew Halcro's blog
Sunday, May 16, 2010
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