"There's Another Leak, Much Bigger, 5 to 6 Miles Away"

[Dok]

Gotta get out my HP Lovecraft books and study them just to be on the safe side.


{that's just a little humor, NWO trolls} There aren't any deep old ones under the sea. er... I think.  

Not in the Gulf any way. 

[citizenx]

Still think the  BP (Anglo-Persian Oil Company, once upon a time) disaster is somehow linked to Iran and the upcoming war somehow.  Wouldn't be surprised if there was another leak and that was intentional as well.

[Kilika]

Well, the love of money being the root of all evil, you can be sure at the heart of this, greed is fueling actions. Who's to say there isn't some infighting in the industry? Maybe ExxonMobile has decided they want the gulf oil and the methane hydrate all to themselves. I'd be curious to know what kind of relationships Halibuton had in the gulf with any oil companies. I think Halibuton is being overlooked in this. They have a history that must be taken into account.

How can a huge multi-national corporation be so unresponsive as BP is appearing to be? Wouldn't it better serve BP to show they have the ability to drill and if things break, fix them asap, so as to make a positive case for more gulf drilling and mining? What would motivate BP to intentionally screw up the repairs of the leak? It only makes them look worse. And it can as well be a case of equipment failure, which caught BP offguard, and now they aren't sure how to fix it, thinking this wouldn't happen it was so remotely possible, and being so unlikely, maybe they skimped on plans in case it did.

Whatever the reason, the leaks needed to be verified for real, independent of BP and the government, then make the leak stop. At this point, I don't trust what these corporations tell people when their in trouble. They tend to fudge the facts at the insistance of lawyers. I also know that there has been a money grab of US funds we don't have, which puts money in European Central banks through debts. It's hard to tell where the rat is because they pretty much are all rats.

[Georgiacopguy]

Excellent points, everyone keeps talking about the possibility of Governmental sabotage, but it's still within the realm of possibility it was nothing more than industrial espionage. One might look at the changes i nthe stock market mere hours and days after the event to see who benefitted most as to a culprit or conspirator.

Well, the love of money being the root of all evil, you can be sure at the heart of this, greed is fueling actions. Who's to say there isn't some infighting in the industry? Maybe ExxonMobile has decided they want the gulf oil and the methane hydrate all to themselves. I'd be curious to know what kind of relationships Halibuton had in the gulf with any oil companies. I think Halibuton is being overlooked in this. They have a history that must be taken into account.

How can a huge multi-national corporation be so unresponsive as BP is appearing to be? Wouldn't it better serve BP to show they have the ability to drill and if things break, fix them asap, so as to make a positive case for more gulf drilling and mining? What would motivate BP to intentionally screw up the repairs of the leak? It only makes them look worse. And it can as well be a case of equipment failure, which caught BP offguard, and now they aren't sure how to fix it, thinking this wouldn't happen it was so remotely possible, and being so unlikely, maybe they skimped on plans in case it did.

Whatever the reason, the leaks needed to be verified for real, independent of BP and the government, then make the leak stop. At this point, I don't trust what these corporations tell people when their in trouble. They tend to fudge the facts at the insistance of lawyers. I also know that there has been a money grab of US funds we don't have, which puts money in European Central banks through debts. It's hard to tell where the rat is because they pretty much are all rats.

[citizenx]

That wouldn't explain why the gov't. was so shy to take over even after repeated failures to stop the leak and after more than a month had gone by.  Gov't. and industry seem to be keeping this thing going intentionally.

It looks like more than mere industrial sabotage for profit to me.

[Georgiacopguy]

That wouldn't explain why the gov't. was so shy to take over even after repeated failures to stop the leak and after more than a month had gone by.  Gov't. and industry seem to be keeping this thing going intentionally.

It looks like more than mere industrial sabotage for profit to me.

Could just be a case of why waste a good crisis.

[citizenx]

You say the administration has been lucky, then.  I say they have been making their own luck -- a witches brew,as it were.

[Georgiacopguy]

You say the administration has been lucky, then.  I say they have been making their own luck -- a witches brew,as it were.

You know me man; to say that, I need evidence. I'm not saying they aren't capable, but its a hell of a jump in logic for me to say catastrophe> government culpability>conspiracy. Right now, there is simply evidence of Governmental innaction.

[larsonstdoc]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/29/us.gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1


FAIL AGAIN


4 TO 7 MORE DAYS UNTIL NEXT ATTEMPT!!!!
'Top kill' fails, BP moves on 'to next option'
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 29, 2010 8:25 p.m. EDT


'
Robert, Louisiana (CNN) -- Three attempts to pump mud and 16 tries to stuff solid material into a breached Gulf of Mexico oil well failed to stop the flow, top BP executives said Saturday, and engineers and executives with the oil giant have decided to "move on to the next option."
That option: Place a custom-built cap to fit over the "lower marine riser package," BP chief operation officer Doug Suttles said. BP crews were already at work Saturday to ready the materials for that option, he said.
Suttles said three separate pumping efforts and 30,000 barrels of mud -- along with what chief executive officer Tony Hayward described as "16 different bridging material shots" -- just didn't do the trick.
"We have not been able to stop the flow," a somber Suttles told reporters. " ... Repeated pumping, we don't believe, will achieve success, so we will move on to the next option."
Suttles and other officials said that the "top kill" attempt to stop the flow did so -- but only as long as they were pumping. When the pumping stopped, the oil resumed its escape. And Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said that BP would resume using undersea dispersants for the new attempt to trap the oil.
Suttles said the lower marine riser package cap "should be able to capture most of the oil" that has fed what is now the largest oil spill in U.S. history, but he cautioned that the new cap will not provide a "tight mechanical seal."
"We're confident the job will work, but obviously we cannot guarantee success at this time," he said.

Engineers should be ready in about four to seven days to make the fresh attempt, he said. Landry said officials were "disappointed in today's announcement," but noted that the immediate efforts to stop the flow were never intended to be permanent.
"The real solution, the end state, is a relief well," she said. BP currently is working on two relief wells, but they are not expected to be ready until August, Suttles said.
Earlier, Suttles said that BP engineers would try to place a second blowout preventer -- the piece of equipment that failed when the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20 -- should the lower marine riser package fail. The failed blowout preventer is a 48-foot-tall, 450-ton apparatus that sits atop the well 5,000 feet underwater.
Suttles and Landry praised the clean-up efforts, however, in light of the failure of the "top kill" attempt to stop the flow.
"It's a tribute to everybody that we only have 107 miles of shoreline oiled and only 32 acres of marsh," Landry said.
Meanwhile, teams in Louisiana were working Saturday on a clean-up project aimed at protecting coastal marshes. Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser has said that machines would suck oil out of marshes Saturday after crews determined where to deploy them.
But Nungesser told CNN that BP needed to "step up to the plate tonight to save our wetlands" by using its might to create sand barriers to prevent the oil from moving into the marshes.
"BP needs to say it will pay to move those dredges and pump that sand berm," he said. "We are gonna die a slow death if we don't get that berm. We've got to have that barrier island."
President Barack Obama, who toured the area Friday, said federal officials were prepared to authorize moving forward with "a portion of" an idea proposed by local officials, who want the Army Corps of Engineers to build a "sand boom" offshore to keep the water from getting into the fragile marshlands.
But Nungesser said the marshes couldn't wait and that the effort needed to start immediately to save the Louisiana wetlands.
Government scientists on Thursday said as many as 19,000 barrels (798,000 gallons) of oil were spewing into the ocean every day, making this disaster perhaps twice the size of the Exxon Valdez incident.
Previously, BP officials and government scientists had said 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) of crude were flowing out daily.
"This is clearly an environmental catastrophe," Hayward said Friday. "There's no two ways about it."
In an e-mail message sent out after the announcement Saturday, Hayward said he was "disappointed that this operation didn't work."
"The team executed the operation perfectly, and the technology worked without a single hitch," he said. "We remain committed to doing everything we can to make this situation right."
Obama's visit to the region came under intense political pressure to take control of the situation.
"We want to stop the leak, we want to contain and clean up the oil and we want to help the people in this region return to their lives and livelihoods as soon as possible," the president told reporters.
About 25 percent of the Gulf of Mexico exclusive economic zone has been put off limits, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and fishermen are worried the gushing oil will take a more serious toll than Hurricane Katrina did in 2005.
"Katrina was nothing but rain, water and wind. This is poison. It's gas," oysterman Arthur Etienne said.

[attietewd]

The government likes to wait until the people are yelling "why isnt the government taking this over??"  The people literally give contol over to the government and then complain about government control.

[Georgiacopguy]

Well if we are demanding they take over and do something about it, we can't complain about them being in control, now can we???

[attietewd]

Well if we are demanding they take over and do something about it, we can't complain about them being in control, now can we???

Exactly!

[Shroom!]

There's a difference between them being in control of what they should be controlling, and them being in control of all the other things that they definately shouldn't be.

[Dok]

(Reuters) - The amount of oil and gas leaking from BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico could increase as much as 20 percent while efforts are made to cap it, the White House said on Sunday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64O5JX20100530

What the?? How is it going to increase? by 20% at that?

[foreverfree]

from what I understood, the leak is kinda on the side of the pipe, so it's hard to just set something on top to plug it.  So the new plan D is to shear off some of the pipe and make the hole bigger, but also at a better angle to try and cap it.  but that will fail too though. 

[Jackson Holly]

The pressure from the well is about 165,000 - 170,000 POUNDS PER SQUARE INCH!

They have nothing to stop it ...

They had their best equipment installed to control the damn thing and it blew it all to h*ll.

The well is breaking up, the oil/gas is escaping through natural fissures and blowing new holes in the sea bottom ... it will continue as long as the pressure of the deposit chamber is greater than the pressure at the sea floor ... when it equalizes, the flow will stop.

From all I have read, this appears to be the case. 

[Kilika]

Now we have Israel acting up and killing people again, so this oil leak story I suspect will fall right off the media screen.

[Freeski]

AJ said last night, on the Sunday show, that there might be a third leak.

[citizenx]

Lefty, I hope the leak story doesn't fall of the radar screen.

BP (Anglo-Persian Oil) -- Iran -- Israel -- Korean False-Flag

All three of these things should be on the national radar-screen and may well all be related.

[Shroom!]

This had better not slip off the radar. It makes me so angry every time this shit happens, all the marine life & birds that are affected... We humans are a disgusting breed.

[Jackson Holly]

INDEED ... the BP gusher definitely will change the dynamic of world forces if it continues unabated. The crude will eventually affect ALL the planet's oceans and who knows what will happen with the air currents. 

There will be intense PRESSURE to end all offshore drilling (especially deep water) as this catastrophe unfolds ... the OIL wars will no doubt shift to high gear.

[donnay]

INDEED ... the BP gusher definitely will change the dynamic of world forces if it continues unabated. The crude will eventually affect ALL the planet's oceans and who knows what will happen with the air currents.  

There will be intense PRESSURE to end all offshore drilling (especially deep water) as this catastrophe unfolds ... the OIL wars will no doubt shift to high gear.

Could have been the agenda all along...   It will help blow out the fishing industry (which is a billion dollar industry), and will also kill the supply vessel industry (another billion dollar industry) as well.  Another quick and easy way to blow out North American economy. (Pardon the puns)

[Shroom!]

The fishing industry could well do with a knock. We're running out of cod! Not to mention all the other species of fish that are endangered just because we scoop every one of them out of the sea.

[trailhound]

Could have been the agenda all along...   It will help blow out the fishing industry (which is a billion dollar industry), and will also kill the supply vessel industry (another billion dollar industry) as well.  Another quick and easy way to blow out North American economy. (Pardon the puns)

 Its such a great tragedy im sure Rahm 'bathboy' and company will have a field day with it, surely they wont let this tragedy go to waste.  

 I havent been able to wrap my mind around the thought that the whole thing was pre-planned. Thats too evil.. Same time when I look at how long it is taking to do something about it I fear the worst.  Maybe lordssyndicate is right, if so it is difficult to comprehend the amplitude of evil we are facing.

First off thanks AI for the additional articles. As we can See this whole rig being blown was part of an NLE DRILL!!!!!!!!!!!

The PDF is  especially damning it shows they let a rig worth over 350 million dollars burn... Why did they not want to  salvage any of it? Perhaps it's the same reason that Blackwater and the coast gaurd were given orders no to allow any survivors capable of testifying  about it!
This back fired  when 1 of the survivors went on NPR and said that they were tortured into signing amnesty agreements and  gag orders  granting the Government and HALIBURTON / BLACKWATER AMNESTY!
NPR LATER RELASE THIS STREAM O ALL THINGS CONSIDERED AFTER HEAVY EDITING AS A PIECE BLAMING BP FOR NOT LETTING THE SURVIVOR CONTACT HIS WIFE!!!!!!!!!


WTF !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[donnay]

The fishing industry could well do with a knock. We're running out of cod! Not to mention all the other species of fish that are endangered just because we scoop every one of them out of the sea.

 

[needguide]

It has been gushing for a while.. I think the integrity of the pipe is compromised, in short if they do plug it.. the pipe could rupture in a different spot. 

[Shroom!]

You think it's OK to almost make a species extinct just to fill our bellies?

[Michal Ptacnik]

Well, it might be that we are overfishing the seas but... I fail to see the positive benefit the leak has to ocean biodiversity. Unless now there are too many living things in the seas and they have to be returned to their pristine, lifeless state as they were during the first days of cooled Earth...

[Dok]

Well, it might be that we are overfishing the seas but... I fail to see the positive benefit the leak has to ocean biodiversity. Unless now there are too many living things in the seas and they have to be returned to their pristine, lifeless state as they were during the first days of cooled Earth...

isnt that the same plna as the NWO?

[needguide]

It must be... A "What can we do?" "O you want environmental controls on everything?"  O.K were do I sign.. anything to stop the world from getting ruined.


FALSE FLAG!

[Shroom!]

Well, it might be that we are overfishing the seas but... I fail to see the positive benefit the leak has to ocean biodiversity. Unless now there are too many living things in the seas and they have to be returned to their pristine, lifeless state as they were during the first days of cooled Earth...

The only positive thing regarding the leak is that it could slow down the fishing industry. Of course the leak could well do more harm to aquatic life over a shorter period (but with long lasting results). Bad mojo all round really.

[needguide]

The only positive thing regarding the leak is that it could slow down the fishing industry. Of course the leak could well do more harm to aquatic life over a shorter period (but with long lasting results). Bad mojo all round really.

Combine it with all the nuke waste that is being dumped in there,, The food chain is in big trouble

[Shroom!]

Indeed. And what better way to force GM crap on us than by eradicating as much natural sea life as possible. "Sorry, there's no Cod left, we ate most of them and the rest are radioactive. But wait! We have special cloned Cod with frog genes - yummy!"

[donnay]

You think it's OK to almost make a species extinct just to fill our bellies?

Fishing has been happening since the dawn of man--to say that fisherman deserve the fall is a bit callous---wouldn't say?  I am defending the Independent fisherman not the corporate fisherman.  Government protects the corporate fisherman not the Independent fisherman.  

[Shroom!]

Fishing has been happening since the dawn of man--to say that fisherman deserve the fall is a bit callous---wouldn't say?  I am defending the Independent fisherman not the corporate fisherman.  Government protects the corporate fisherman not the Independent fisherman.  

Of course. Nothing wrong with the little guy fishing. It's the big guys I have a problem with. The little guy doesn't make nearly as much of a detrimental impact.

[Dok]

Scientists warn of unseen deepwater oil disaster

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Independent scientists and government officials say there's a disaster we can't see in the Gulf of Mexico's mysterious depths, the ruin of a world inhabited by enormous sperm whales and tiny, invisible plankton.

Researchers have said they have found at least two massive underwater plumes of what appears to be oil, each hundreds of feet deep and stretching for miles. Yet the chief executive of BP PLC - which has for weeks downplayed everything from the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf to the environmental impact - said there is "no evidence" that huge amounts of oil are suspended undersea.

BP CEO Tony Hayward said the oil naturally gravitates to the surface - and any oil below was just making its way up. However, researchers say the disaster in waters where light doesn't shine through could ripple across the food chain.

"Every fish and invertebrate contacting the oil is probably dying. I have no doubt about that," said Prosanta Chakrabarty, a Louisiana State University fish biologist.

On the surface, a 24-hour camera fixed on the spewing, blown-out well and the images of dead, oil-soaked birds have been evidence of the calamity. At least 20 million gallons of oil and possibly 43 million gallons have spilled since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank in April.

That has far eclipsed the 11 millions gallons released during the Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska's coast in 1989. But there is no camera to capture what happens in the rest of the vast Gulf, which sprawls across 600,000 square miles and reaches more than 14,000 feet at its deepest point.

Every night, the denizens of the deep make forays to shallower depths to eat - and be eaten by - other fish, according to marine scientists who describe it as the largest migration on earth.

In turn, several species closest to the surface - including red snapper, shrimp and menhaden - help drive the Gulf Coast fishing industry. Others such as marlin, cobia and yellowfin tuna sit atop the food chain and are chased by the Gulf's charter fishing fleet.

Many of those species are now in their annual spawning seasons. Eggs exposed to oil would quickly perish. Those that survived to hatch could starve if the plankton at the base of the food chain suffer. Larger fish are more resilient, but not immune to the toxic effects of oil.

The Gulf's largest spill was in 1979, when the Ixtoc I platform off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula blew up and released 140 million gallons of oil. But that was in relatively shallow waters - about 160 feet deep - and much of the oil stayed on the surface where it broke down and became less toxic by the time it reached the Texas coast.

But last week, a team from the University of South Florida reported a plume was headed toward the continental shelf off the Alabama coastline, waters thick with fish and other marine life.

The researchers said oil in the plumes had dissolved into the water, possibly a result of chemical dispersants used to break up the spill. That makes it more dangerous to fish larvae and creatures that are filter feeders.

Responding to Hayward's assertion, one researcher noted that scientists from several different universities have come to similar conclusions about the plumes after doing separate testing.

No major fish kills have been reported, but federal officials said the impacts could take years to unfold.

"This is just a giant experiment going on and we're trying to understand scientifically what this means," said Roger Helm, a senior official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In 2009, LSU's Chakrabarty discovered two new species of bottom-dwelling pancake batfish about 30 miles off the Louisiana coastline - right in line with the pathway of the spill caused when the Deepwater Horizon burned and sank April 24.

By the time an article in the Journal of Fish Biology detailing the discovery appears in the August edition, Chakrabarty said, the two species - which pull themselves along the seafloor with feet-like fins - could be gone or in serious decline.

"There are species out there that haven't been described, and they're going to disappear," he said.

Recent discoveries of endangered sea turtles soaked in oil and 22 dolphins found dead in the spill zone only hint at the scope of a potential calamity that could last years and unravel the Gulf's food web.

Concerns about damage to the fishery already is turning away potential customers for charter boat captains such as Troy Wetzel of Venice. To get to waters unaffected by the spill, Wetzel said he would have to take his boat 100 miles or more into the Gulf - jacking up his fuel costs to where only the wealthiest clients could afford to go fishing.

Significant amounts of crude oil seep naturally from thousands of small rifts in the Gulf's floor - as much as two Exxon Valdez spills every year, according to a 2000 report from government and academic researchers. Microbes that live in the water break down the oil.

The number of microbes that grow in response to the more concentrated BP spill could tip that system out of balance, LSU oceanographer Mark Benfield said.

Too many microbes in the sea could suck oxygen from the water, creating an uninhabitable hypoxic area, or "dead zone."

Preliminary evidence of increased hypoxia in the Gulf was seen during an early May cruise aboard the R/V Pelican, carrying researchers from the University of Georgia, the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi.

An estimated 910,000 gallons of dispersants - enough to fill more than 100 tanker trucks - are contributing a new toxin to the mix. Containing petroleum distillates and propylene glycol, the dispersants' effects on marine life are still unknown.

What is known is that by breaking down oil into smaller droplets, dispersants reduce the oil's buoyancy, slowing or stalling the crude's rise to the surface and making it harder to track the spill.

Dispersing the oil lower into the water column protects beaches, but also keeps it in cooler waters where oil does not break down as fast. That could prolong the oil's potential to poison fish, said Larry McKinney, director of the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

"There's a school of thought that says we've made it worse because of the dispersants," he said.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OIL_SPILL_MYSTERIES_OF_THE_DEEP?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

[Dok]

Markey calls for BP to prove claim of no underwater oil plume

Washington (CNN) -- Rep. Edward Markey on Monday challenged the assertion by oil giant BP's chief executive that no underwater oil plumes have formed because of the Gulf of Mexico spill.

In a letter to BP, Markey, D-Massachusetts, said scientific evidence showed such plumes have formed and he asked for BP CEO Tony Hayward to provide evidence to back up Hayward's claim Sunday that the spilled oil had gone to the surface.

On Sunday, Markey, who heads the House Energy and Environment subcommittee, had accused BP of issuing false statements about the oil spill.

"BP in this instance means 'Blind to Plumes,'" Markey said in a statement Monday.

There was no immediate response from BP.

Markey's letter to BP said "the confirmation of the presence of large quantities of oil sub-surface could help to inform clean-up and response efforts, and it is vital that there is unfettered access to all relevant data or analysis."

The letter noted that University of South Florida researchers recently reported finding a 22-mile-long plume of dispersed oil.

In a separate letter Monday to BP, Markey called for complete transparency regarding video feeds of the company's underwater operations. BP is launching a new effort to cut an opening to the leaking equipment so that a containment dome can be lowered on it.

"There cannot be any delay or gaps in our understanding of this situation, given that thousands of barrels of oil are spewing forth each day into the Gulf, with catastrophic long-term consequences," said Markey's letter to BP America head Lamar McKay, later adding: "BP should not be controlling the view the American public has of this disaster in our ocean."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/05/31/oil.spill.markey.bp/

[Dok]

BP Oil Leak May Last Until Christmas in Worst Case Scenario


June 2 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc’s failure since April to plug a Gulf of Mexico oil leak has prompted forecasts the crude may continue gushing into December in what President Barack Obama has called the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history.

BP’s attempts so far to cap the well and plug the leak on the seabed a mile below the surface haven’t worked, while the start of the Atlantic hurricane season this week indicates storms in the Gulf may disrupt other efforts.

“The worst-case scenario is Christmas time,” Dan Pickering, the head of research at energy investor Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. in Houston, said. “This process is teaching us to be skeptical of deadlines.”

Ending the year with a still-gushing well would mean about 4 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf, based on the government’s current estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels leaking a day. That would wipe out marine life deep at sea near the leak and elsewhere in the Gulf, and along hundreds of miles of coastline, said Harry Roberts, a professor of Coastal Studies at Louisiana State University.

So much crude pouring into the ocean may alter the chemistry of the sea, with unforeseeable results, said Mak Saito, an Associate Scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

No Guarantee

BP, based in London, says it can’t guarantee the success of its attempt now underway to capture the flow of oil and divert it to a ship at the surface. Thad Allen, the U.S. government’s national commander for the incident, said operations may need to be suspended to allow for an evacuation ahead of a tropical storm or hurricane, during which oil would continue to gush into the Gulf.

The so-called relief well being drilled to intercept and plug the damaged well by mid-August might miss -- as other emergency wells have done before -- requiring more time to make a second, third or fourth try, Dave Rensink, President Elect of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, said.

Robert Wine, a spokesman for BP, declined to detail the company’s own worst-case scenario.

In its original exploration plan for the Macondo well about 40-miles from the Louisiana coast, BP estimated the worst-case scenario for an oil spill was 162,000 barrels of crude a day, according to a filing with the U.S. Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service.

Hurricane Season

BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward has more recently put the maximum potential leak rate at 60,000 barrels a day.

Wine reaffirmed BP’s estimate that it will take 90 days to stop the leak with a relief well, which would be the first half of August. He said an early, vigorous hurricane season could have an impact on the schedule.

The ultimate worst-case scenario is that the well is never successfully plugged, said Fred Aminzadeh, a research professor at the University of Southern California’s Center for Integrated Smart Oil Fields who previously worked for Unocal Corp. That would leave the well to flow for probably more than a decade, he said in a telephone interview.

More likely, the relief wells will eventually succeed, though it might take longer than the three months predicted by BP, he said.

Pemex Spill

It took Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, nine months to plug its Ixtoc I well after an explosion and fire in 1979.

The company’s first attempt with a relief well failed, so it had to drill a second. Eventually, more than 140 million gallons of crude spilled into the Gulf of Mexico -- the biggest offshore oil spill on record.

Last year, an explosion at a well off the Australian coast owned by Thailand’s national oil company, PTT Exploration & Production Pcl, required five attempts before it could be plugged by a relief well 10 weeks after the spill began.

BP has improved its odds by drilling two emergency wells at once. If a first attempt fails, it will have the second well ready to try again. The company is using techniques such as a larger well bore, raising its chances of hitting its mark, said Robert MacKenzie an analyst with FBR Capital Markets in Arlington, Virginia.

Plugging the well is another challenge even after BP successfully intersects it, Robert Bea, a University of California Berkeley engineering professor, said. BP has said it believes the well bore to be damaged, which could hamper efforts to fill it with mud and set a concrete plug, Bea said.

Evacuating Ships

While these efforts are underway, BP could face delays if a hurricane enters the Gulf, forcing an evacuation. BP says it is developing a mechanism to quickly disconnect the ship collecting oil from the well so that it can evacuate ahead of a storm. That would leave the well gushing oil, Bea said.

Ocean biologists are concerned the oil could linger in deep layers in the sea, generating oxygen-depleted “dead zones” that kill marine life.

Plumes of oil spinning off of the spill have been detected in two directions, and researchers suspect there are more.

“Clearly, oxygen levels are going to be decreased in the vicinity of the plume area, and it looks like it could be a very large plume area,” said Saito, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Birds, Oysters

The crude oil could enter a current that would draw it out of the Gulf and up along the East Coast of the U.S. all the way to Nantucket, Roberts, of Lousiana State University, said.

The American Bird Conservancy has identified 10 key regions on the Gulf Coast where birds could be harmed. If the oil is spread widely by a hurricane, there could be long-term damage to bird populations, the non-profit organization has said.

“What is difficult to measure is the loss of future generations of birds when birds fail to lay eggs or when eggs fail to hatch,” George Fenwick, the organization’s president, said in a statement on at-risk areas in the Gulf Coast.

Marine life may take decades to recover, wiping out businesses along the coastline that depend on the fishing and seafood industry.

Al Sunseri, who runs P&J Oyster Co., the oldest continually operated oyster dealer in the U.S., said he could end up out of business:

“This could be the end of our 134-year-old business,” he said. “I’ve been doing this 30 years. I have a son and I don’t know if he’ll be able to carry on this next generation.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPfFTgqayIKY&pos=9

[Dok]

Effort to contain Gulf oil stalls with stuck saw



PORT FOURCHON, La. – The risky effort to contain the Gulf oil gusher hit a snag Wednesday when a saw became stuck in a thick pipe on a blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said the goal was to free the saw and finish the cut later in the day. This is the latest attempt to contain — not plug — the nation's worst oil spill. The best chance at stopping the leak is still at least two months away.

With the new effort, however, BP PLC hoped to siphon to the surface the majority of the oil spewing into the Gulf.

"I don't think the issue is whether or not we can make the second cut. It's about how fine we can make it, how smooth we can make it," Allen said.

Engineers may have to bring in a second saw if the delay continues. Allen said once the cut is made, crews will inspect it and place a cap over the spill, which could happen as early as Wednesday.

The effort underwater was going on as oil drifted close to the Florida Panhandle's white sand beaches for the first time and investors ran from BP's stock for a second day, reacting to the company's failure to plug the leak by shooting mud and cement into the well, known as the top kill.

The Justice Department also has announced it started criminal and civil probes into the spill, although the department did not name specific targets for prosecution.

Shares in British-based BP PLC were down 3 percent Wednesday morning in London trading after a 13 percent fall the day before. BP has lost $75 billion in market value since the spill started with an April 20 oil rig explosion and analysts expect damage claims to total billions more.

In Florida, officials confirmed an oil sheen Tuesday about nine miles from Pensacola beach, where the summer tourism season was just getting started.

Winds were forecast to blow from the south and west, pushing the slick closer to western Panhandle beaches.

Emergency crews began scouring the beaches for oil and shoring up miles of boom. County officials will use it to block oil from reaching inland waterways but plan to leave beaches unprotected because they are too difficult to protect and easier to clean up.

"It's inevitable that we will see it on the beaches," said Keith Wilkins, deputy chief of neighborhood and community services for Escambia County.

The oil has been spreading in the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded six weeks ago, killing 11 workers and eventually sinking. The rig was being operated for BP, the largest oil and gas producer in the Gulf.

Crude has already been reported along barrier islands in Alabama and Mississippi, and it has polluted some 125 miles of Louisiana coastline.

More federal fishing waters were closed, too, another setback for one of the region's most important industries. More than one-third of federal waters were off-limits for fishing, along with hundreds of square miles of state waters.

Fisherman Hong Le, who came to the U.S. from Vietnam, had rebuilt his home and business after Hurricane Katrina wiped him out. Now he's facing a similar situation.

"I'm going to be bankrupt very soon," Le, 53, said as he attended a meeting for fishermen hoping for help. "Everything is financed, how can I pay? No fishing, no welding. I weld on commercial fishing boats and they aren't going out now, so nothing breaks."

Le, like other of the fishermen, received $5,000 from BP PLC, but it was quickly gone.

"I call that 'Shut your mouth money,'" said Murray Volk, 46, of Empire, who's been fishing for nearly 30 years. "That won't pay the insurance on my boat and house. They say there'll be more later, but do you think the electric company will wait for that?"

BP may have bigger problems, though.

Attorney General Eric Holder, who visited the Gulf on Tuesday, would not say who might be targeted in the probes into the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

"We will closely examine the actions of those involved in the spill. If we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be extremely forceful in our response," Holder said in New Orleans.

The federal government also ramped up its response to the spill with President Barack Obama ordering the co-chairmen of an independent commission investigating the spill to thoroughly examine the disaster, "to follow the facts wherever they lead, without fear or favor."

The president said that if laws are insufficient, they'll be changed. He said that if government oversight wasn't tough enough, that will change, too.

BP has tried and failed repeatedly to halt the flow of the oil, and the latest attempt like others has never been tried before a mile beneath the ocean. Experts warned it could be even riskier than the others because slicing open the 20-inch riser could unleash more oil if there was a kink in the pipe that restricted some of the flow.

"It is an engineer's nightmare," said Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University professor of environmental sciences. "They're trying to fit a 21-inch cap over a 20-inch pipe a mile away. That's just horrendously hard to do. It's not like you and I standing on the ground pushing — they're using little robots to do this."

Engineers have put underwater robots and equipment in place this week after a bold attempt to plug the well by force-feeding it heavy mud and cement — called a "top kill" — was aborted over the weekend. Crews pumped thousands of gallons of the mud into the well but were unable to overcome the pressure of the oil.

The company said if the small dome is successful it could capture and siphon a majority of the gushing oil to the surface. But the cut and cap will not halt the oil flow, just capture some of it and funnel it to vessels waiting at the surface.

BP's best chance to permanently plug the leak rests with a pair of relief wells but those won't likely be completed until August.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill

[agentbluescreen]

Navy Lacks The AUP Torpedo

The undersea navy torpedo penetrator-type weapons needed to (possibly) stop this oil leak unfortunately have never been developed, tried, employed and/or tested for such an application. No undersea target has ever been envisioned for such a (constructive, safety type) defensive AUP pinpoint penetrator torpedo-warhead system, though it certainly should have been, long ago. Government "defense" appropriations to date, are always only for destructive offensive military hardware-garbage.

The under the seafloor oil well shaft can only be (possible explosively) sealed by the use of a single (or multi-concentric seafloor penetrating ring attack of multiple) hard-backed (Depleted Uranium hardened steel) conventional-explosive multiple warhead penetrator-type (AUP Series Warhead) of torpedoes (not airborne cruise missile as was used at the Pentagon on 9/11).

AUP multiple-warhead systems (MWS's) have up to (usually) three separate "bomblets" that are programmed and controlled to detonate at various points and/or depths of travel penetration inside a target. The first opens the entry hole for the hardbacked missile (torpedo in this case) bombs/controller/propulsion package, while the second opens the travel pathway in transit and then, the third (and final) is then used for the final "punch-out" detonation at desired/anticipated depth deep within the penetrated target.

Of course while an undersea detonation near the well should be designed/programmed to collapse it's own *the well) shaft, the hole itself that the penetrator itself "digs" to do it's job is JUST AS BIG A PROBLEM...  Thus a second follow-up AUP or conventional follow-on (single bomb type) torpedo would also be needed to seal the AUP hole itself in the same sequential attack operation.

While wholesale wellhead burial is still the very safest and most certain permanent (and most expensive and manpower intensive) solution, this AUP Torpedo scenario appears to be the only other viable sort of a "quick fix" option.

No other sort of "bunker buster" is small, predictable and precise enough, since such huge oversized destructive weapon(s) would open up an even more serious crater(s)