| Spectre_Cdn | 06-09-2010 02:48 PM |
They plan to burn some of it: Quote:
Unable to process and store all of the hydrocarbons flooding up from an undersea well, BP PLC will begin using a ship to burn off some of the leaking oil as early as next week.
The company is fitting a mobile drilling vessel known as the Q4000 with an oil-burning device that will allow it to flare both natural gas and up to 10,000 barrels per day of oil.
“What we’re concerned about is making sure that oil doesn’t hit the water,” said Admiral Thad Allen, the U.S. national incident commander for the massive Gulf of Mexico spill.
Just over 15,000 barrels per day of crude is currently being collected on a different vessel, the Discoverer Enterprise, which the U.S. Coast Guard now says is capable of processing up to 18,000 barrel, up from earlier estimates of 15,000. The undersea hydrocarbon leak is being captured using a containment cap, but must be processed by shipboard equipment capable of splitting out the oil from the natural gas.
The Q4000 will use an alternate siphoning method in an attempt to increase the volume of recovered hydrocarbons. Unlike the Discoverer Enterprise, however, it is being equipped with special equipment that will allow it to burn off rather than store the captured crude.
BP, which first stated the oil was leaking at about 1,000 barrels per day and resisted higher estimates, has now declined to estimate how much oil is leaking from the well. That task has now fallen to a technical group convened by the U.S. government, and which has calculated that between 12,000 and 25,000 barrels per day are flowing from the well.
But the lower end of that estimate has proven to be wrong – BP is now capturing 15,000 barrels per day, and oil continues to billow from the sea floor through vents in the containment cap that are designed to relieve pressure on the well. And BP has not had sufficient vessel capacity to process the full stream, whose volume some scientists now believe may be multiple times initial estimates.
The Q4000 ship will boost surface oil-handling capacity to 28,000 barrels per day when it is in place “some time next week,” Adm. Allen said.
If that proves insufficient, it will take at least another week before BP has in place greater capacity. It has ordered two larger ships to sail to the site of the oil leak, one from the North Sea, that will be able to process the full extent of the leak and ferry it to shore. Those ships will provide “a more robust package,” one that “can survive heavier weather,” Adm. Allen said.
They will not, however, be ready to accept oil for seven to 10 days after the Q4000 arrives – or more than two weeks from now.
| http://www.ctv.ca/generic/generated/...le1597646.html Quote:
BP has poured millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Now it wants to fill the skies with oily fumes.
The British oil giant at the heart of the worst oil spill in U.S. history plans to burn oil its containment dome collects from the gushing underwater well.
As the cap nears its capacity, BP has to find a means to dispose of the oil.
The company claims it has a rig armed with a device that can turn oil into vapor and burn without creating visible smoke. BP says the flames would not endanger other vessels.
But what about the air?
The company that makes the oil-burning device, Schlumberger Ltd., calls the process “fallout-free and smokeless combustion.”
One Gulf Coast scientist, however, calls it a bad idea.
"This is one of those decisions that will have negative impacts," Wilma Subra, a chemist, told The Associated Press. "Even though it's crude dispersed in water, the burning of crude will raise some health issues."
More alarming is figuring out how much oil is still spewing into the ocean.
Government estimates state between 600,000 gallons to 1.2 million gallons of oil leak into the Gulf’s waters each day.
However, one team of scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey say the range is closer to between 798,000 gallons and 1.8 million gallons.
BP’s containment cap can collect more than 600,000 gallons before reaching capacity.
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and has, so far, leaked anywhere between 23 million and 48 million gallons of oil.
With News Wire Services
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...#ixzz0qOnP71Ix
| And just a FYI in case you didn't already know; one drop of oil can contaminate one million drops of water - 1:1000000 http://www.onedrop.org/en/foundation...pollution.aspx |
