The cap has stopped all oil flow as part of testing. No one knows if this will hold and if so, for how long. It's a joyous event but there is extremely guarded optimism. Let's pray for the best!

The Gulf Coast people deserve something good, especially with the meat of the hurricane season coming...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- BP took measures to cut costs in the weeks before the catastrophic blowout in the Gulf of Mexico as it dealt with one problem after another, prompting a BP engineer to describe the doomed rig as a "nightmare well," according to internal documents released Monday.

The comment by BP engineer Brian Morel came in an e-mail April 14, six days before the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that killed 11 people and has sent tens of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf in the nation's worst environmental disaster.

The e-mail was among dozens of internal documents released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the explosion and its aftermath.

In a letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward, Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., noted at least five questionable decisions BP made in the days leading up to the explosion.

"The common feature of these five decisions is that they posed a trade-off between cost and well safety," said Waxman and Stupak. Waxman chairs the energy panel while Stupak heads a subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

"Time after time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense," the lawmakers wrote in the 14-page letter to Hayward. "If this is what happened, BP's carelessness and complacency have inflicted a heavy toll on the Gulf, its inhabitants, and the workers on the rig."

The letter, supplemented by 61 footnotes and dozens of documents, outlines a series of questions Hayward can expect when he comes before Stupak's subcommittee on Thursday.

The hearing will be Hayward's first appearance before a congressional committee since the explosion and sinking of the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig. BP America President Lamar McKay and other officials represented the company at earlier hearings.

The letter by Waxman and Stupak focuses on details such as the design of the well, saying that the company apparently chose a riskier option among two possibilities to provide a barrier to the flow of gas in space surrounding steel tubes in the well.

Despite warnings from its own engineers, "BP chose the more risky casing option, apparently because the liner option would have cost $7 to $10 million more and taken longer," Waxman and Stupak said.

In the brief e-mail, Morel said the company is likely to make last-minute changes in the well.

"We could be running it in 2-3 days, so need a relative quick response. Sorry for the late notice, this has been nightmare well which has everyone all over the place," Morel wrote.

BP apparently rejected advice of a subcontractor, Halliburton Inc., in preparing for a cementing job to close up the well. BP rejected Halliburton's recommendation to use 21 "centralizers" to make sure the casing ran down the center of the well bore. Instead, BP used six centralizers.

In an e-mail on April 16, a BP official involved in the decision explained: "It will take 10 hours to install them. I do not like this." Later that day, another official recognized the risks of proceeding with insufficient centralizers but commented: "who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine."

Confidential Email Transcript:
From: Hafle, Mark E Sent: Wed Apr 14 23:09:46 2010
To: Miller, Richard A
Subject: RE: Macondo APB
Importance: Normal

Thanks Rich. This has been a crazy well for sure.

Mark

From: Miller, Richard A
Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 6:03 PM
To: Morel, Brian P Cc: Hafle, Mark E
Subject: RE: Macondo APB

We have flipped design parameters around to the point that I got nervous. I did a rough update of both my disk calculations and my WellCat model. All looks fine. If we run the 9-7/8" x 7" as a long string, then the design resembles the original configuration, at least from an APB standpoint. The outward-acting 16" rupture disks mitigate 9-7/8" collapse loads due to B annulus APB. I do not have the final disk depth, so I guessed it is around 9,500'. If the
9-7/8" x 7" is run as a liner (per your schematic), then there is a risk that a trapped annulus forms between the 7" and 9-7/8" liners. The WellCat model predicts an incremental 2,350 psi APB in that annulus. To keep the 7" from collapsing, the pressure inside the 7" at 17,157' TVD needs to be 4,800 psi
or greater. Assuming that the production packer is set above this depth, then the 4,800 psi could dictate a reservoir abandonment pressure limit. We
can hash this out in the completion phase, but you may want to alert completions of that possible issue. Let me know if you have questions. I'll be in
Westlake Thursday morning and have an early afternoon flight to catch.

Rich

From: Morel, Brian P
Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 1:31 PM
To: Miller, Richard A Cc: Hafle, Mark E
Subject: Macondo APB

Rich,

There is a chance we could run a production liner on Macondo instead of the planned long string. As this does not change much for APB based on the original design assumptions of a trapped annular, I don't see any major effects, but wanted to confirm I am not missing something. Attached is the proposed schematic, please let me know if you have any questions. We could be running it in 2-3 days, so need a relative quick response. Sorry for the late notice, this has been nightmare well which has everyone all over the place. Thanks
BP-HZN-CEC021857 Brian
Confidential BP-HZN-CEC021858

Courtesy of HuffingtonPost.com

BP has given the green light for funding of a device that can separate oil from water.

Development of the machine, which uses a centrifuge to separate the fluids, has been backed by actor Kevin Costner to the tune of $25 million.

John Houghtaling, Costner's chief partner in the project, told WWL First News that the oil company has ordered 32 of the devices for use in the Gulf of Mexico.

"In a matter of weeks, we can be manufacturing ten of these a week," Houghtaling said. "So we're hoping by the first of August to have all 32 of these things in the Gulf."

Listen to Houtaling talk about the deployment of the device:

According to Houtaling, the machines cost roughly half a million dollars to build, but also require the hiring of vessels to take them out onto the water.

Though the world-famous actor and Houtaling are both pleased that BP has now agreed to deploy the devices, Costner told members of Congress earlier this week. that he'd had a hard time getting an opportunity to try out his centrifuge for the Coast Guard.

"We would offer to take our machines out there but we couldn't get onto the spots because the Coast Guard would regulate that we couldn't get there," Costner testified.

Houghtaling said that in addition to providing clean-up duty in the gulf, deployment of even more of the devices could aid in shortening the six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling.

He said that he'd like to see the government use the machines as a safety measure to keep the deep-water drilling rigs in operation as safety procedures are reviewed.

"By the end of August...our company can have thirty-three of the machines around the rigs. If there's a spill, we can deploy," Houtaling said.

To view an animation of how the device works, click the window below:

Meanwhile Costner's company is moving toward leasing 16 more oil sucking and separating machines to Plaquemines Parish officials directly. They say if BP won't pay for that, they may sell the oil local officials pull from the water and fund the machines that way.

June 10, 2010 – The amount of oil flowing from the ruptured BP Deepwater Horizon oil well into the Gulf of Mexico for more than seven weeks is much greater than previous estimates. Marsha McNutt, Director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) announced today that 20,000 – 40,000 barrels were gushing out of the well before the riser pipe was cut. This is the conclusion reached by the researchers tasked with analyzing the oil flow.

This report is based on analysis of the video which was originally available to the group, not the recent release of the high resolution images. No numbers given on estimates of flow rate after the riser pipe was cut so that the containment system could be installed. The government had estimated a 20 per cent increase in the oil spill after the cut was made.

Earlier today, the Associated Press reported, "At the bottom of the sea, the containment cap on the leaking well is capturing 630,000 gallons a day and pumping it to a ship at the surface, and the amount could nearly double by next week to roughly 1.17 million gallons, the Coast Guard has said."

Source: Deepwater Horizon Incident JIC

"Based on additional video that BP was directed to provide, members of the Plume Modeling Team have now calculated updated lower and upper bound range estimates for a period of time before the Riser Insertion Tube Tool was inserted and before the riser was cut. Most of the experts have concluded that, given the limited data available and the small amount of time to process that data, the best estimate for the average flow rate for the leakage prior to the insertion of the RITT is between 25,000 to 30,000 barrels per day, but could be as low as 20,000 barrels per day or as high as 40,000 barrels per day."

BP/Halliburton Deadly Pollution Record (Only the Most Recent)

* In 2005, an explosion at BP's Texas City refinery (third-largest in the country) and fires ripped through the giant site, killing 15 workers, injuring 180 others, as 43,000 people fled for their lives into indoor shelters. The investigation determined the blast was caused by failure at all levels of the BP Corporation including, significantly, repeated cost-cutting safety and maintenance violations. A criminal investigation by the Bush-Cheney Justice Department resulted in a $50 million fine against the company for violating the Clean Air Act. One EPA administrator said the fine was but a slap on the wrist, a laughingstock for a company with profits in excess of $17 billion in 2007. The Justice Department slammed the door on EPA continuing a criminal probe of BP.

* In 2006 BP was at it again, drawing criminal investigations from the EPA and Justice Department for two massive corroded oil pipe leaks into the Alaskan tundra of 200,000 gallons of oil. BP's contemptuous compliance with the Alaska U.S. Attorneys office request for a surgical release of documents was to scan 62 million pages. EPA Special Agent in Charge Scott West remembers thinking, Holy shit, I cant breathe. If he and his woefully understaffed three or four people printed out all of the pages it would have filled a warehouse.

* In 2009 an oil rig exploded into a fireball off the coast of Australia, dumping thousands of barrels of oil into the pristine fishing waters of the region over a ten-week period. The cause, as suspected in the Gulf oil disaster, was a faulty cementing job by Halliburton. The World Wildlife Fund called the spill one of Australia's worst environmental disasters, ruining 80% of the catch for some fishermen.

The Halliburton-Cheney Connection: Cheney's Katrina

Where is Dick Cheney? One of the more curious aspects of this environmental catastrophe is the absence of Big Oilman Dick Cheney from the public eye. In the first days of the crisis, Cheneys surrogates fanned out in a full-court media press to spread disinformation and propaganda, even trying to deflect blame onto President Obama by calling it Obama's Katrina. This charge is so patently absurd and irresponsible that it fell of its own weight when the media, for once, did a good job debunking it. Cheneys fingerprints are all over the misinformation campaign, but he remains out of sight, hunkered down in an undisclosed location.

Cheney has cause to lay low. His filthy fingers may be all over the rights propaganda campaign, but the truth of Cheneys responsibility and potential criminal liability is far more sinister.

The explosions in both the BP Australian and Gulf oil rig (operated by BP subcontractor Deepwater Horizon) increasingly point to Halliburton as the main culprit for faulty cementing. The process is meant to prevent oil and natural gas from escaping by filling gaps between the outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole bored into the ocean floor. The wife of one of the rig workers killed in the explosion has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming Halliburton is culpable: The company prior to the explosion, was engaged in cementing operations of the well and well cap and, upon information and belief, improperly and negligently performed these duties, which was a cause of the explosion.

Halliburton confirmed it had finished cementing 20 hours prior to the Gulf rig explosion, just as it had finished cementing the Australian rig when it blew on August 21, 2009. As the Australian government inquiry into what is called the Monera spill continues, a Halliburton cementer with 20 years on the job testified: have you been taught in, training or otherwise become aware that problems with cementing are the number one cause of blowouts?: No, I wasnt aware of that. From 1996 to 2006, 18 of the 39 offshore blow-outs have been caused by bad cementing, according to the U.S. industry regulator, the Minerals Management Service (MMS), an agency of the Interior Department.

Why is this significant?

Halliburtons alleged criminal negligence was aided and abetted by former CEO Dick Cheneys even more valuable service to the energy industry as a powerful poison pill government insider gutting the very regulatory agencies (Interior-MMS) responsible for public interest oversight and regulation of these transnational corporations. Cheney bagged $44 million during his five-year tenure with Halliburton before becoming Vice President. As Vice President Cheney remained on the companys payroll. After all, he is a valued corporate asset, having ensured that Halliburtons entrails reach into every nook and cranny of Iraq-Afghanistan war profiteering.

Deregulation by the Numbers: An Avoidable Catastrophe

Burn this into memory, deregulators and global warming deniers and laissez-faire capitalist ideologues and limited government libertarians: Based on the facts, proper industry safety standards, oversight, and regulatory protocols would have prevented the catastrophe inexorably poisoning the Gulf. The craven history of Cheneys secret meetings with energy industry tycoons -- to divvy up the deregulatory spoils, line his pockets with present and future IOUs, and gut the Interior Department and its industry enforcement arm, MMS, staffing them with cronies and (literally) industry whores -- leads directly to the Gulf oil disaster.

* In 2000 MMS requested industry advice on problems related to the cementing used around deep sea well caps to stop blowouts. The oil industry never produced recommendations, and no regulation was put in place. When the Bush-Cheney oil regime took office, they put the brakes on comprehensive safety regulation by MMS, which considered a safety redundant device, called an acoustic trigger essential and proposed to mandate them on all Gulf oil rigs.

Acoustic triggers, are mandated for major offshore rig operators off the coast of Brazil and in Norways North Sea operations. BP has voluntarily installed this safeguard in its North Sea rigs. All the worls major companies use the device. It is a remotely triggered shutoff switch that activates when the manual switch fails. This device, which costs $500,000 was not installed in the BP Deepwater Horizon rig. It could have prevented the BP Gulf oil disaster.

* The number of drill site inspections carried out by the MMS fell by 41 percent between 2005 and 2009, even as the number of drill rigs operating in U.S. waters increased. The number of penalties issued by MMS for regulatory violations fell from 66 in 2000 to 20 last year.

* Illustrating BP's awesome political clout, In June of 2009, the MMS, now under Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (whose appointment was criticized by environmentalists for being too cozy with the oil industry) exempted BP from producing a legally mandated environmental impact study for the site where Deepwater Horizon would drill. Obama was earlier warned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that MMS studies approving offshore drilling were not reliable.

Chocolate Milk

To hear the industry shills describe it, the oil spill poisoning the Gulf waters as it makes landfall is as benign, warm and cuddly as chocolate milk Rep. Gene Taylor, one more Mississippi Democrat in the pocket of the oil and gas industry, said: A lot of people are scared and I dont think they should be because What I want people to know is, this isnt Katrina, this is not Armageddon. The farther you get from the spill, that chocolate milk looking spill starts breaking up into smaller pieces.

Deepwater Horizon Info

"We do not have real-time off-rig monitoring of what's going on on the vessel," Newman replied.

Part of Halliburton's contract on the Deepwater Horizon was to provide real-time data to officials on shore. That company was able to produce a chart showing events up to two minutes before the explosion. But that document would not be expected to show the key test results.

The chart indicated that shortly before 10 p.m., pressure in the standpipe increased sevenfold to 3,500 pounds per square inch. Halliburton had essentially two minutes' notice that something had gone horribly wrong.

Halliburton monitors temperatures and pressure in offshore wells through sensitive sensors and instruments often capable of transmitting data in real time to officials on the rig and on shore, said Jack Madeley, a consulting safety engineer in College Station, Texas.

"Operators like BP use that information to make sure the well is in the right location," said Madeley, who specializes in forensic investigations of rig accidents. "They need that to make sure the overall procedures for getting it cemented and getting the well secured before they pull the string out and plug up the well are done."

The data help BP and other well operators make crucial decisions about the formations where they are drilling, but it is not always streamed to shore minute by minute, he said.

Since the offshore drilling platform Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank almost two weeks ago, officials from British Petroleum (the oil company responsible for the rig's operations) and the federal government claimed that the open well was only leaking about 1,000 barrels of oil a day.

Subsequent monitoring and analysis of the spill via satellite and aerial data has shown that this was a gross (and probably deliberate) understatement, and that the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico is probably five times that amount.

Five thousand barrels a day is "a bare-bones limit," John Amos, the president and founder of the nonprofit firm SkyTruth, told OnEarth.org. SkyTruth specializes in gathering and analyzing satellite and aerial data to promote environmental conservation.

By SkyTruth's calculations, 12.2 million gallons of oil had already spilled into the Gulf of Mexico by May 1st.

As a result of the potentially deadly threat this poses to marine life throughout the area, the NOAA decided yesterday to begin an immediate ban on all recreational and commercial fishing in the area.

BP was quick to enlist the services of out-of-work fisherman, using their boats to help deploy containment boom. But this move has proven to be more self-serving than first meets the eye.

It turns out that all volunteers were being forced to sign Master Charter Agreements (MCAs) that compromised their existing and future rights- including the right to speak freely about their involvement in clean up efforts.

The MCAs also prevented volunteers from holding BP accountable for any accidents that might occur, and required them to give the oil giant a month's notice before filing any legal claims.

The Commerical Fishermen's Association was quick to spot the compromising language of the agreements, and convinced a federal judge in Louisiana to order BP to stop using them.

BP has already been mandated to take 100 percent responsibility for the oil clean-up, but time will tell whether or not they're really up to the task.
Once again, it's important to remember that you can't believe everything you hear on TV (or on the internet for that matter), and that what you're not hearing is probably the most important part of the story.

Posted by: Beth Buczynski on Care2.com 05/04/2010

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/

This site is providing information regarding the April 20 incident in the US Gulf of Mexico involving a Transocean drilling Rig Deep Water Horizon. The Horizon was engaged in drilling activity on behalf of BP at Mississippi Canyon Block 252, about 52 miles southeast of Venice, La.

BP is assisting in the response and has staffed up its Houston crisis center to provide support for the response.

Please register on the site using the Questions/Comments tab above to receive future updates on response activities. You may also submit questions using this same tab. 

To report oiled wildlife, please call 1-866-557-1401 and leave a message. Messages will be checked hourly.

To discuss spill related damage, please call 1-800-440-0858.

To report oiled shoreline or request volunteer information, please call 1-866-448-5816.