WASHINGTON - Preparing the country for the possibility of even worse news, the Obama administration on Sunday warned that BP's next effort to contain the oil spewing from a damaged well in the Gulf could result in a temporary 20 percent increase in the flow.
That is so dumb. You just know they want to do this so they can still keep getting oil from the well.. I bet there is a way they could have fixed this weeks ago but that would mean they wouldnt be able to get oil from that well anymore..
quasi
06-02-2010 05:51 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by penner2k
(Post 6974371)
That is so dumb. You just know they want to do this so they can still keep getting oil from the well.. I bet there is a way they could have fixed this weeks ago but that would mean they wouldnt be able to get oil from that well anymore..
I don't know if I buy that. You would think the short and long term cleanup costs would far exceed any profit they'd make from syphoned oil.
StylinRed
06-02-2010 07:04 AM
^^^^ its a New Oil Deposit they're not going to give it up over a spill that under law they don't have to really pay all that much for (the governments trying to strike down that limited liability law... but we'll see)
SAN FRANCISCO - Eight months ago, BP Plc was celebrating the discovery of a massive oil find thanks to the work of Transocean's Deepwater Horizon rig, which had just drilled the oil and gas industry's deepest well.
The Horizon is now a wreck on the seabed, following an explosion three weeks ago that killed 11 people, including nine Transocean employees, and precipitated a massive leak from another well it was drilling for BP.
In both cases, rig contractor Transocean Ltd found itself playing second fiddle to the client...
June 1 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government asked a federal judge to reject Transocean Ltd.’s bid to use a 159-year-old law to cap its liability at $27 million for environmental claims tied to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill...
The Obama administration has been repeating the line about keeping the "boot on the neck" of BP to force the oil giant to take full responsibility for the Gulf disaster. But perhaps more attention needs to be paid to Deepwater Horizon owner Transocean, which has made several attempts evade liability in the wake of the oil spill. First, the company tried to invoke an obscure, 159-year-old maritime law to minimize the amount of money it might have to pay out resulting from the spill. Then it came to light that the company had transferred $1 billion to shareholders on May 14. Senators are growing concerned that the largest offshore drilling company in the world is quietly trying to shirk responsibility for the ongoing spill...
edit: omg i just found out that Halliburton is implicated in this as well.... apparently they were working on the pipes (cementing them or something or other) 20hrs (according to halliburton) prior to the Explosion / Fire... and some people who work on the rig claim that Halliburtons work was insufficient and caused the oil pressure to build up and overload and caused the resulting explosions/fire..
I guess that's why the media is concentrating on BP so much... so that good ol evil Halliburton doesn't get any more mud on its face (considering they're facing bankruptcy)
check out the article... i included the bit about Halliburton spoilered it since its kinda long anyhow:
A target of the investigation, according to Rep. Ed Markey, who chairs the House energy subcommittee and met with oil company officials last week, is the final cementing job on the well. Four employees of Halliburton — founded by Erle Halliburton in 1924 as the Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. — were on Deepwater Horizon. They had overseen the main task of cementing the well just 20 hours before the blowout.
This is done by plunging a slurry of cement down the hollow pipe to the bottom of the well, where the cement passes through a one-way valve, then rises back up through the narrow gap, or annulus, between the steel casing and the rock walls of the hole. This stabilizes the casing in the drill hole and keeps gas and oil from rising through the drill hole to the surface.
Or at least that’s the idea. If something goes awry, such as cracks forming in the cement or the cement failing to set properly, gas bubbles can seep upward, and the pressure can begin to build toward calamitous proportions.
Kenneth Deffeyes, a professor emeritus of geology at Princeton who has studied reports of the blowout, said it’s possible that “the cement job wasn’t heavy enough and the gas bubbled up through it.” But he added another factor could have been a malfunction of the valve, or “shoe,” at the bottom of the well, which could have let gas and oil into the steel casing.
Deepwater Horizon was almost home free after several months of drilling the Macondo field. It’s job is to drill an initial well to find a reservoir, temporarily seal the well, and move on, leaving the oil production to other rigs. Before Deepwater Horizon could leave the site, it had to drop two pre-formed cement plugs into the well. The crew [halliburton] had placed one plug in the well when the blowout occurred.
A petroleum engineer whose name is not public, but who called the Mark Levin radio show in New York and is now represented by New Orleans lawyer Scott Bickford, has given an account of what happened in the final moments before the blowout, according to a report in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
He said that the heavy drilling mud was pulled from the well and replaced with lighter sea water before the second cement plug was put in place. According to Bickford, this lowered the resistance to the natural pressure of the well, and a bubble of gas surged upward.
“The well kicked, and we took a humongous gas bubble kick up through the well bore,” said the engineer in the call to the radio show. He said he didn’t know whether human negligence played a role in the accident. Geological forces surely did, he said.
Mugen EvOlutioN
06-02-2010 07:40 AM
^
thx for the info
haymura
06-02-2010 08:03 AM
This is very sad...
i am no math expert or geophysicist or whatever to calculate how much oil is going to spew out until august but i think its a no brainer that we are looking at a global scale for the duration of 2 months. now i know the whole "2012" cliche has been mentioned numerous times already but what i really want to know is, will this trigger a global disaster or will they be able to contain it somehow (given our technology) and hopefully not turn the whole ocean into black liquid.
Gumby
06-02-2010 08:09 AM
This is fucking ridiculous. One failure after another. Obama's just gonna take more and more shit if he doesn't step in and do something fast.
StylinRed
06-02-2010 08:31 AM
^^^ he should get a sub and park it on top of the leak ;)
vl_86
06-02-2010 09:05 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gumby
(Post 6974803)
This is fucking ridiculous. One failure after another. Obama's just gonna take more and more shit if he doesn't step in and do something fast.
What do you expect Obama to do? The US government doesn't have any technological expertise like BP does in order to handle this situtation. The ball is pretty much in BP's park when it comes to this mess
Great68
06-02-2010 09:18 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by vl_86
(Post 6974851)
What do you expect Obama to do? The US government doesn't have any technological expertise like BP does in order to handle this situtation. The ball is pretty much in BP's park when it comes to this mess
No kidding.
A lot of people think that getting the Military involved will do something.
Sorry, but the Military spends their time developing machines for war, not deep sea well drilling.
sunny_j
06-02-2010 09:23 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by vl_86
(Post 6974851)
What do you expect Obama to do? The US government doesn't have any technological expertise like BP does in order to handle this situtation. The ball is pretty much in BP's park when it comes to this mess
obama cant do nothing about the damaged oil well but he can do something about the clean up effort which is a joke.
Gumby
06-02-2010 09:31 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by vl_86
(Post 6974851)
What do you expect Obama to do? The US government doesn't have any technological expertise like BP does in order to handle this situtation. The ball is pretty much in BP's park when it comes to this mess
I just don't have much confidence in having BP in charge of stopping the oil leak. I'm no expert either, but I get the feeling that they're trying to plug the leak AND recover oil, and spare expenses wherever possible.
At this point, they should just focus on stopping the leak at all costs!
obama cant do nothing about the damaged oil well but he can do something about the clean up effort which is a joke.
true that
should focus on it by putting in more effort
vl_86
06-02-2010 10:10 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gumby
(Post 6974881)
I just don't have much confidence in having BP in charge of stopping the oil leak. I'm no expert either, but I get the feeling that they're trying to plug the leak AND recover oil, and spare expenses wherever possible.
At this point, they should just focus on stopping the leak at all costs!
In my opinion I think BP is trying to use everything in their arsenal to cap the leak, not only is oil leaking out day by day which is devastating to their reputation, but there are criminal charges that could put many of the top execs in jail. Not to mention the US government is pushing to have the fine cap removed which if heaven forbids goes on till August could ruin BP as a company
penner2k
06-02-2010 10:13 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Great68
(Post 6974866)
No kidding.
A lot of people think that getting the Military involved will do something.
Sorry, but the Military spends their time developing machines for war, not deep sea well drilling.
True the Military spends their time developing machines for war. It just happens that one of the machines of war could actually stop this.
