Deepwater Horizon Still Burning – UPDATE
Posted by feww on April 22, 2010
Image of the Day:
BP-Operated Oil Rig Still Ablaze 2 Days after Exploding
The explosion occurred on Deepwater Horizon, a BP-operated offshore oil-drilling platform 66km (41 miles) southeast of Venice, Louisiana, at about 10 p.m. (ET) Tuesday.
Fire boat response crews fight the massive blaze that destroyed the huge offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon, Wednesday April 21, 2010. The platform was still burning early Thursday. Photo Credit: US Coast Guard.
Seventeen people were injured, 4 of them critically, as a result of the explosion that set the oil rig ablaze, sources said. Eleven others are missing, the worst may be presumed.
The ‘state-of-the-art’ oil platform owned by Transocean was built in South Korea in 2001. Measuring about 121 x 78 meters (41m deep), it was designed to operate in water to the depth of about 2,440 meters ( 8,000 feet), drilling 9,144 meters deep. The rig was a semisubmersible platform which accommodated a crew of 130.
Some 858 fires and explosions have occurred in the Gulf of Mexico since 2001, resulting in 69 offshore deaths and 1,349 injuries, the federal Minerals Management Service said.
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- Chevron-BP Pipeline leaks Oil into Louisiana Wildlife Refuge
- Oil Refinery Explodes in Washington State
- Obama: A Serious Self-Hater
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Fire Earth 
John Smith said
Honestly, does that look like a fire that is only burning 5,000 barrels a day?
Looking at the size of the fire – flame height, width, heat produced, etc. , one would think that it would take a lot more than 5000 barrels per day flow rate to do that. Follow the math:
Given that there are 42 US gallons per barrel of crude oil X the estimate of 5000 barrels per day = 210,000 gallons per day.
210,000 gallons per day = 8,750 gallons per hour = 145.83 gallons per minute = 2.43 gallons per second
Though I am not sure of the pipe diameter coming to surface, but lets assume 6” ID, pushing 2.43 gallons per second through a 6” opening will not geyser that high up in the air.
I believe they are looking at a flow rate many times their estimate of 5000 barrels / day. Someone with an engineering background in this area should do a review and post it.
feww said
The best estimate for the gushing oil leak currently stands at about
https://feww.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/breaking-news-oil-leak-25000-bpd/
Oil wells release also methane and other flammable gasses.
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