Gulf of Mexico: 10cm layer of dead animals and oil

NO SIGN OF SEALIFE

Deepwater Horizon oil leak “devastated” life on and near the seafloor:  Marine scientist

A research submersible discovered a 10cm thick layer of dead animals and oil in places, said Samantha Joye, a marine scientist  at the University of Georgia.

It’s implausible that the Gulf of Mexico will recover by the end of 2012, she said disputing BP’s assessment, a report said.

“Knocking these animals out of the food chain will, in time, affect species relevant to fisheries.”

Professor Joye told the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington that it may be a decade before the full effects on the Gulf are apparent.

She said they concluded the layers had been deposited between June and September 2010 after it was discovered that no sign of sealife from samples taken in May remained.

Professor Joye and her team, using the Alvin submersible,  examined the bottom-most layer of the water close to the well head, known as the benthos.

“The impact on the benthos was devastating,” she told BBC News.

“Filter-feeding organisms, invertebrate worms, corals, sea fans – all of those were substantially impacted – and by impacted, I mean essentially killed.

“Another critical point is that detrital feeders like sea cucumbers, brittle stars that wander around the bottom, I didn’t see a living (sea cucumber) around on any of the wellhead dives. They’re typically everywhere, and we saw none.” More…

Related Links:

• Oil Disasters

‘Mystery Spill’ off Barataria Bay, GOM

WHAT’S BREWIN’?

Mystery spill-GOMEX off Barataria Bay

Gulf of Mexico 25 miles south of Barataria Bay 2011-Jan-06

On January 6th NESDIS provided NOAA Emergency Response Division with a satelitte analysis showing an anomaly consistent with an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico located at 28deg 54′ 28″N, 89deg 49′ 23″W, or about 25 miles SSE of Barataria Bay, LA. A report from BOEMRE confirms that an oil slick has been reported at that location, so confidence is high. USCG Sector NOLA/Morgan City have been provided this information, weather, and an initial trajectory analysis. The initial trajectory indicates that winds and currents should keep the oil offshore so that it is not expected to be a threat to land at least throught the coming weekend. For additional information, contact Jim Jeasonne at jim.jeansonne@noaa.gov or 206-276-5308.

Incident Details
Spill, potential spill, or other: Oil Spill
Cause of incident: Mystery Spill
Products of concern: Unknown

Latitude (approximate): 28° 54.47′ North
Longitude (approximate): 89° 49.39′ West

Mirrored from IncidentNews

Killing the Fabric of Life on Earth

How Much More Oil, Coal?

Where exactly you said you were going to?

BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico – Satellite Image

Natural-color image captured on July 28, 2010 by MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Source: NASA E/O.  Click image to enlarge. Download large image (818 KB, JPEG).

• GOM Oil Disaster – Satellite Images – Headlines
• Oil Disasters

• Disaster Forecast: The United States
• Collapse Diary
• 2010 Disaster Calendar

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Index of Human Impact on Nature (HIoN) March 2008
• Earth’s Human Induced Antiphase Nears Completion
• Energy Dinosaurs

Oil Disaster Headlines – 19 July 2010

Gulf seabed near ruptured BP well may be leaking

If what’s leaking from the seabed is methane it could mean oil was also leaking: Thad Allen

[And this time he may be telling the truth.]

Rain falls on oil sheen covering the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana Thursday, July 15, 2010.   Credit: AP Photo/Patrick Semansky. Image may be subject to copyright.

In the event the seepage was confirmed, he ordered BP to submit a plan to reopen the capped well to allow oil to be funnelled to the surface.

But BP says it would take three days to start this process.

During this time, the daily leakage of tens of thousands of barrels of oil, which had been capped last Thursday, could resume.

The well began leaking oil into the Gulf after BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on 20 April, killing 11 workers, and capsized two days later.

BP had hoped the cap could stay in place until relief wells stopped the leak for good.

But with pressure readings from within the well lower than expected, scientists had raised concerns that oil could leaking into the surrounding undersea bedrock.

Allen said in a letter to BP chief managing director Bob Dudley: “Given the current observations… including the detected seep a distance from the well and undetermined anomalies at the well head, monitoring of the seabed is of paramount importance…

“I direct you to provide me a written procedure for opening the choke valve as quickly as possible without damaging the well should hydrocarbon seepage near the wellhead be confirmed.” More …

CHINA

Dalian Xingang oil port, China’s largest oil reserve base, have been shut after a crude oil pipeline exploded spilling oil into the sea

A view shows crude oil in the sea near Dalian, Liaoning province July 18, 2010. REUTERS/China Daily. Image may be subject to copyright.

“The port was sealed right after the explosion. We have a one-week contingency plan, but are hoping that the oil spill can be cleaned up as soon as possible,” a PetroChina oil executive told Reuters.

The explosion occurred when an oil tanker was off-loading its crude oil, according to China Daily.

Related Links:

• GOM Oil Disaster – Satellite Images – Headlines
• Oil Disasters

• Disaster Forecast: The United States
• Collapse Diary
• 2010 Disaster Calendar

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Index of Human Impact on Nature (HIoN) March 2008
• Earth’s Human Induced Antiphase Nears Completion
• Energy Dinosaurs

Methane in Gulf Million Times Above Normal

Methane gas is up to 1 million times higher than the normal level near the Gulf of Mexico oil spill:  U.S. Researchers

Such incredibly high levels of methane could deplete oxygen and create a larger than usual dead zone in Gulf of Mexico.

An oceanography professor at Texas A&M University, who spent ten days researching the water quality near the BP Plc oil spill in the gulf, says methane gas levels in some areas close to the spill source are “astonishingly high,” a report said.

“There is an incredible amount of methane in there,” Kessler said, noting that his team of 12 researchers has found concentrations of methane that were 100,000 times higher than normal within an 8 km (5-mile) radius of BP’s ruptured wellhead.

“We saw them approach a million times above background concentrations” in some areas, Kessler said.

“At some locations, we saw depletions of up to 30 percent of oxygen based on its natural concentration in the waters. At other places, we saw no depletion of oxygen in the waters. We need to determine why that is,” he added.

The oxygen depletion are still above a critical level, he said, but the oil still leaking into the Gulf, at about 60,000 barrels per day.

“What is it going to look like two months down the road, six months down the road, two years down the road?”

The researchers believe measuring the methane level could provide a more accurate estimate of the rate of oil spill, and are hoping to have their own estimate soon.

“Give us about a week and we should have some preliminary numbers on that,” he said.

Related Links:

• Earth Enemy: Judge Martin Feldman
• Gulf of Mexico Worth More Dead Than Alive: Oil Industry
• World’s Largest Oil Tailing Pond – Satellite Images
• BP Hayward: Frankly, I Couldn’t Give a Damn!
• Oil Disasters

Human Illusions Turning Deadly

Top Kill, Big Kill, Kill Dead …

How to reduce everything into a man-made singularity

A chief measure of human progress is the amount of oil that gushes out of the wells …

Freeze frame from BP ‘spillcam’  shows oil gushing from the Gulf of Mexico oil well on May 26, 2010. Reuters/Handout

Related Links:

• Oil Disasters
• The Fate of Energy Dinosaurs

BP Leak Already Biggest Oil Disaster in U.S. History

About 1.4 million barrels of crude may have already spewed into the Gulf of Mexico

[NOTE: Fire-Earth estimate for the amount of crude oil already leaked into GOM is about 700,000 barrels as of May 18.]

BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has already exceeded by a factor of 2.5 to 5 the magnitude of Exxon (Exxon Valdez) disaster in Prince William Sound, on the south coast of Alaska in 1989.

In the Exxon Valdez disaster an estimated 11 million gallons (262,000 barrels) of crude oil were released into the Alaskan waters. An estimated 30,000 gallons of crude still remains in the sand and soil.

Even at NOAA’s hugely underestimated calculation of 5,000bpd, the spill total now stands at 140,000 barrels (6 million gallons and counting).

Oil disasters are usually measured in terms of how many barrels of oil are spilled into the waters; however, the plight of so many millions of people whose livelihood depends on what was already an ailing body of water, has added a new socioeconomic dimension.

What BP Says:

BP Plc says its “quick fix” is sort of working. Using undersea remote control devices [‘robots,’]  their technicians have inserted a mile-long tube into the leaking riser, the  massive ruptured pipe, and are  siphoning about a fifth of the oil that is gushing out of the well.

GULF of MEXICO – Gas from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon wellhead is flared by the drillship Discoverer Enterprise May 16, 2010. A fraction of the gas and oil from the wellhead are being brought to the surface via a narrow siphoning tube that was placed inside the much wider damaged riser. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley. [Caption edited by FEWW]

“I do feel that we have, for the first time, turned the corner in this challenge,” BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward said in Florida.

“Over the last 48 hours, we’re beginning to meet with some significant success.”

Clearly the criteria for success in BP minds is different to the rest of us. WE see the leak as still continuing.

Center for Public Integrity has released a new paper that shows 2 of the BP-owned U.S. refineries were responsible for 97 percent of the worst refining industry safety violations in the past three years, according to federal inspectors.

Let the federal inspectors call it safety violations, what BP has done in the Gulf of Mexico is corporate terrorism.

The suspected terrorist who left a car in New York’s Time Square recently which reportedly contained propane gas cylinders, which may or may not have exploded, and may or may not have killed anyone, would probably spend the rest of his life in a federal prison.

BP executives who have already killed 11 people, devastated at least twice as many families and left a number of orphans behind, on the other hand, are walking freely and discussing their next deepwater drilling project.

How Badly is Louisiana Affected?

Meanwhile, hundreds of shrimpers in Louisiana as well as many others whose income depends on fishing, tourism and related industries, have already lost their jobs, and are barely surviving, making ends meet by doing odd jobs where available.

And Florida?

US Coast Guard  Rear Adm Peter Neffenger is on record as saying that the oil could be swept up into the “loop current” and move around Florida coastline.

“Currently it shows to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50 miles [65km-80km] from the southern edge of the spill,” he said.

“We are watching that carefully and as a result of that we are preparing for potential impact on the southern Florida coast and impacts around the southern Florida coast.”

Related Links:

• Nightmare Plume and ‘Cozy Relationship’
• Gulf Oil Disaster Like Apollo 13 Explosion: BP CEO
• Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster – Oil Leak Estimate
• Fire-Earth Oil Spill forecast

• Gulf of Mexico: A Waiting Disaster
• Oil Disasters [Index Page includes links to other oil spills, news and information]

–

Serial No 1,738. Starting April 2010, each entry on this blog has a unique serial number. If any of the numbers are missing, it may mean that the corresponding entry has been blocked by Google/the authorities in your country. Please drop us a line if you detect any anomaly/missing number(s).

Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster – Oil Leak Estimate

How Much Oil is Leaking?

The short answer: LOTS!

Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster. A freeze frame of the oil leak video supplied by the BP showing only one of at least two separate oil leaks. Image may be subject to copyright.

As to whether the leak is closer to 5,000 barrels per day (bpd) or 25,000 bpd, here’s an estimate we prepared earlier:

• Diameter of the ruptured pipe seen gushing oil on BP video: 53cm (21 inches)
• Cross-sectional area of the pipe: 2,233cm²
• Fire-Earth estimate of oil and gas flow:  50cm/sec [Simplified model of crude leak calculates the flow rate as the height of a cylinder filled every second.]
• Volume of crude oil and natural gases released: 111,672cm³s^-1
  
• Number of seconds in each day: 86, 400 sec
  
• Crude oil escaping from the pipe as a percentage of all materials: 90 percent [Fire-Earth estimate]
• Volume of oil escaping into GOM: 8 million liters per day (rounded down to nearest million)
  • Amount of oil escaped: 2 million U.S. Gallons per day (rounded down to nearest million), or 50,000bpd
  • Escaped oil calculated at a generous margin of error of 50 percent:  25,000bpd

NOTES:

1. According to earlier reports  at least two separate leaks remain on seafloor the second of which is not shown on the BP video.
2. A reader who claimed to be an oil industry insider contacted one of the blog Moderators saying diameter of the drill pipe that enters top of the well is 6 inches (15cm). That means the oil flows nearly 4 times faster in the drill pipe than it does in the 21-inch riser-pipe.  It does NOT affect Fire-Earth estimate significantly.

Next Major Oil Disaster?

Probability of another major disaster occurring in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico between now and December 2011 : >90 percent [Fire-Earth Forecast]

For additional details see Gulf of Mexico: A Waiting Disaster and https://feww.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/fire-earth-forecasts-10-major-oil-spills-to-end-2011/

Related Links:

• Gulf of Mexico: A Waiting Disaster
• Oil Disasters [Index Page includes links to other oil spills, news and information]

.

Serial No 1,730. Starting April 2010, each entry on this blog has a unique serial number. If any of the numbers are missing, it may mean that the corresponding entry has been blocked by Google/the authorities in your country. Please drop us a line if you detect any anomaly/missing number(s).

Gulf of Mexico: A Waiting Disaster

SAVE HUMANITY!
CHANGE YOUR LIFESTYLES!

Gulf of Mexico is a powder keg waiting to explode anytime, engulfing the region in a ball of fire

Gulf of Mexico is a natural asset, a life guarantee, but it’s being stripped of its natural services, turned into an industrial cash cow and bled to oblivion by unscrupulous money men.

It may be painful to live without too much fossil fuels, and the fattest “energy dinosaurs” would suffer most,  but the price you pay for continuing on a high-energy path is much dearer—you shall all perish.

Which of the Gulf of Mexico’s Deepwater Wells Would Leak Next?

Located 150 miles (241 kilometers) southeast of New Orleans in Mississippi Canyon Block 778 in a water depth of approximately 6,050 feet (1,844 meters), the Thunder Horse platform is the world’s largest semisubmersible facility. British Petroleum received approval from the Minerals Management Service to debottleneck the topside production facilities to 275,000 barrels of oil and 220 million standard cubic feet of natural gas per day. As of March 20, 2009, production was approximately 260,000 barrels of oil and 210.5 million standard cubic feet of natural gas per day from seven wells. The Thunder Horse Field is the largest producer in the Gulf of Mexico. (Image courtesy of BP America Inc.). Source: DOI, MMS Report. Mississippi Canyon Block 778 could turn out to be another “Challenger” of deepwater oil production

Why are the Moderators so concerned about additional oil leaks in GOM , after all it’s not as if offshore drilling is a new trick, right?

Here are some stats from the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS), the body [that should be] responsible for offshore drilling regulations and safety enforcement [sic.] Every time the number of deepwater operations is doubled, the probability of “accidents” increases by about 4 folds.

The MMS says since the early 1990’s, leasing, drilling, and production (pumping oil from the well) has moved increasingly into deeper waters.

• As of 2008/09 approximately 7,310 active leases operated in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico (GOM)
• About 4,240 (58%) were in deep water.  (The actual numbers vary day to day, figure are approx.)
• In contrast, there were only 5,600 active GOM leases in 1992, and only about 27% or 1,510 of those leases were in deep water.
• In 1992 only 3 rigs drilled in deep water, compared to 31 rigs in 2008, and 77 operated in 2010, of which at least 47 are in commercial production.
• Deepwater oil production rose by 786 percent and gas production increased about 1,067 percent from 1992 to 2007.
• Seven deepwater fields became operational in 2008 including Thunder Horse, the largest daily producer in the GOM.

Gulf of Mexico – Oil and Gas Production. Between 1987 and 2007 pumping oil out of the deepwater fields increased by about 20 folds. Source: MMS. Enhanced by Fire-Earth. Click image to enlarge.

A Chilling Forecast

Based on the frequency of recent oil spills, the rate of rise in drilling deepwater wells and a number of other related factors, Fire-Earth Moderators forecast at least 10 more oil spills could occur between now and December 2011.

Five of the forecast leaks/spills could occur  in and around the U.S., with at least one of them in GOM. One or more of the spills could turn out to be cataclysmic. SEE: https://feww.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/fire-earth-forecasts-10-major-oil-spills-to-end-2011/

Recurring Nightmares

Oil spills share two common features with nightmares:

1. They keep on recurring.
2. They become more frightening each time they recur.

“Energy Security,” Doesn’t Mean Life Security

The pink in the picture are pipelines! Does the underwater jungle of pipelines create perception of energy security or life security? Image source: MMS. Click image to enlarge.

Drill Baby, Drill in Deepwater Gulf

The federal inspectors said they completed examining 30 deepwater drilling rigs that are prospecting for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, but reported no safety problems.

“Throughout our inspections, no deepwater facilities have been shut-in due to safety concerns,” said John Romero, spokesman for Minerals Management Service (MMS), the Department of Interior branch responsible [sic] for offshore drilling safety .

Romero said that his department at MMS  will soon begin inspecting 47 deepwater production platforms that are already pumping crude oil commercially.

“These inspections may take up to a month to complete,” he said.

Future is Black, Future is Sticky, Future …

What are the chances that the rigs and oil platforms in GOM continue operating without “safety problems,” for another week, month, or a year?

What happens if an earthquake strikes the region, or an underwater landslide occurs near one or more of the wells?

Do BP, MSS, NOAA or anybody else have any disaster-prevention plans to deal with earthquakes, landslide and other “unexpected” natural hazards?

NO! Of course, not.

Related Links:

— http://edro.wordpress.com/collapsing-cities/
— http://edro.wordpress.com/energy-dinosaurs/

–

Serial No 1,719. Starting April 2010, each entry on this blog has a unique serial number. If any of the numbers are missing, it may mean that the corresponding entry has been blocked by Google/the authorities in your country. Please drop us a line if you detect any anomaly/missing number(s).