BP experts gloomy about prospects
BP executives told US congressional representatives yesterday that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could grow at a rate more than 10 times current estimates in a worst-case scenario — greatly enlarging the potential scope of the disaster. They have estimated that the leak is gushing oil at a rate of 5,000 barrels a day. But if things go badly, representatives for the companies are worried that that figure could turn into 60,000 barrels a day, or 2.5 million gallons. Just four days at that rate would exceed the amount of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez off Alaska, the worst spill in US history.




NASA has released this pair of striking pictures taken from a satellite on May 2, showing the scope of the
Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.

The gloomy acknowledgment came on a day when calm winds allowed more boats to attack the spill and slowed the progress of the plume, which extends in a ragged pattern from the coast of Louisiana to offshore Pensacola in Florida. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry, commanding officer of the guard's District 8 in New Orleans, said the best guess is that the slick remains at least 20 miles off the coast. BP officials said they are forecasting that the oil will not make landfall for three more days. But Lyle Panepinto, a seaplane pilot in Louisiana, said he saw a band of oil about 10 feet wide and several miles long circling the north end of Chandeleur Island about 50 yards from the beach.

Alabama Governor Bob Riley said that if the weather holds, "we are going to be in pretty good shape here.…It's a great thing that we have a few more days now to make sure we get all of the booms and barriers in place.…It's going up very, very rapidly."

Tests on new spill samples indicate that the oil is typical Louisiana sweet crude, a light oil that can be either burned or readily dispersed, aiding cleanup efforts. But like a wild animal eluding capture, the spill is unpredictable, its path and harm to the environment dependent on unknowns, including whether the so-called Loop Current could drag it below the tip of Florida — a nightmare scenario for the Keys and Everglades.

The rest of the Gulf Coast remains tense, making preparations for landfall. "We are facing a hovering menace out there that keeps changing shape and size by the hour," said Dan Turner, a spokesman for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. "But we don't really know what to expect. If it hits, will it be a sheen of microscopic globules, or will it be tar balls washing up on the beaches?"

Meanwhile, Pensacola attorney Mike Papantonio said his legal team has heard a number of allegations about circumstances surrounding the deadly April 20 oil rig explosion 50 miles off the coast, which left 11 people missing and presumed dead. Papantonio has filed a class-action negligence lawsuit that names as defendants Transocean, BP and Halliburton, the company that worked to seal the well with cement, as well as one other company.

Papantonio said employees of the defendants have alleged that the rig was drilling deeper than the approximately 20,000 feet allowed by its federal permit and that BP failed to install a "deep-hole safety valve" that could have cut off the flow of oil after an accident. Workers have said the concrete seal was not properly formed and allowed pressurized natural gas to shoot up into the rig, where it ignited into an inferno. But Papantonio also said that these assertions have not been substantiated by his team. "How much of it is valid? We don't know at this point," he said. "But we'll find out."

BP spokesman Andrew Gowers has said that the rig did not drill beyond the 20,211 feet it was allowed to under its permit. A Halliburton spokeswoman, Cathy Mann, referred to an earlier statement that said the company's cement slurry design was "consistent with that utilized in other similar applications." Guy Cantwell, a Transocean spokesman, noted that an investigation of the explosion is ongoing. "We will await all the facts before drawing conclusions," he said. "We will not speculate."

BP crews are working on several fronts to try to stanch three leaks at the sea floor nearly a mile below the surface: installing a new valve on a ruptured pipe, and preparing to lower a box-like coffer dam over a broken mechanism atop the gushing wellhead.

If the slick remains out in the gulf, natural processes including evaporation and microbial activity will start to disperse it, said geochemist Christopher Reddy, head of the Coastal Ocean Institute at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. "For all practical purposes, oil is butter to microbes," Reddy said. But even in the best-case scenario, "they aren't going to eat every last drop of oil," he said.

Solution to pollution crisis in sight?
Oil company engineers have finally succeeded in keeping some of the oil gushing from a blown well out of the Gulf of Mexico, hooking up a mile-long tube to funnel the crude into a tanker ship after more than three weeks of failures.

Millions of gallons of crude are already in the water, however, and researchers said the black ooze may have entered a major current that could carry it through the Florida Keys and around to the East Coast.

BP engineers remotely guiding robot submersibles have been working to place the tube into a 21-inch pipe nearly a mile below the sea. After several setbacks, the contraption was hooked up successfully and funneling oil to a tanker ship. The oil giant said it will take days to figure out how much oil its contraption is sucking up.

The blown well has been leaking for more than three weeks, threatening sea life, commercial fishing and the coastal tourist industry from Louisiana to Florida. BP failed in several previous attempts to stop the leak, trying in vain to activate emergency valves and lowering a 100-ton container that got clogged with icy crystals.

A researcher has told the Associated Press that computer models show the oil may have already seeped into a powerful water stream known as the loop current, which could propel it into the Atlantic Ocean. A boat is being sent later this week to collect samples and learn more. William Hogarth, dean of the University of South Florida's College of Marine Science, said one model shows oil has already entered the current, while a second shows the oil is 3 miles from it — still dangerously close. The models are based on weather, ocean current and spill data from the U.S. Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among other sources.

Hogarth said it's still too early to know what specific amounts of oil will make it to Florida, or what damage it might do to the sensitive Keys or beaches on Florida's Atlantic coast. He said claims by BP that the oil would be less damaging to the Keys after traveling over hundreds of miles from the spill site were not mollifying. "This can't be passed off as 'it's not going to be a problem.'" Hogarth said. "This is a very sensitive area. We are concerned with what happens in the Florida Keys."

BP had previously said the tube, if successful, was expected to collect most of the oil gushing from the well. This week, the company said it was too early to measure how much crude was being collected and acknowledged the tube was no panacea. "It's a positive move, but let's keep in context," said Kent Wells, BP's senior vice president for exploration and production. "We're about shutting down the flow of oil from this well."

Crews will slowly ramp up how much oil the tube collects over the next few days. They need to move slowly because they don't want too much frigid seawater entering the pipe, which could combine with gases to form the same ice-like crystals that doomed the previous containment effort.

The first chance to choke off the flow for good should come in about a week. Engineers plan to shoot heavy mud into the crippled blowout preventer on top of the well, then permanently entomb the leak in concrete. If that doesn't work, crews also can shoot golf balls and knotted rope into the nooks and crannies of the device to plug it, Wells said. The final choice to end the leak is a relief well, but it is more than two months from completion.

Meanwhile, scientists warned of the effects of the oil that has already leaked into the Gulf. Researchers said miles-long underwater plumes of oil discovered in recent days could poison and suffocate sea life across the food chain, with damage that could endure for a decade or more. Researchers have found more underwater plumes of oil than they can count from the well, said Samantha Joye, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia. She said careful measurements taken of one plume showed it stretching for 10 miles, with a 3-mile width.

The hazardous effects of the plume are twofold. Joye said the oil itself can prove toxic to fish swimming in the sea, while vast amounts of oxygen are also being sucked from the water by microbes that eat oil. Dispersants used to fight the oil are also food for the microbes, speeding up the oxygen depletion.

\Oil has been spewing since the rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, killing 11 people and sinking two days later. The government shortly afterward estimated the spill at 210,000 gallons — or 5,000 barrels — a day, a figure that has since been questioned by some scientists who fear it could be far more. BP executives have stood by the estimate while acknowledging there's no way to know for sure.

Obama blames oil spill on BP 'breakdown'
US President Barack Obama has blamed the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill on "a breakdown of responsibility" at energy giant BP as he unveiled a commission to investigate the disaster. Obama, in his weekly radio and Internet address last night (May 22, 2010), also said offshore oil drilling can only go forward if there are assurances that such accidents will not happen again.

While ramping up pressure on companies linked to the still uncapped spill -- BP, Halliburton and Transocean Ltd -- he said he would also hold Washington accountable for mending its ways. "First and foremost, what led to this disaster was a breakdown of responsibility on the part of BP and perhaps others, including Transocean and Halliburton," Obama said in his toughest remarks yet on companies linked to the spill. And we will continue to hold the relevant companies accountable not only for being forthcoming and transparent about the facts surrounding the leak, but for shutting it down, repairing the damage it does, and repaying Americans who've suffered a financial loss," he said.

A month after the well blowout and rig explosion that killed 11 workers, sheets of rust-colored heavy oil are clogging fragile marshlands on the fringes of the Mississippi Delta, damaging fishing grounds and wildlife.

In his executive order announcing former Democratic Senator Bob Graham and former Environmental Protection Agency chief William Reilly would co-chair the commission, Obama made his first reference to the possibility of a criminal probe. "The commission shall ensure that it does not interfere with or disrupt any ongoing or anticipated civil or criminal investigation or law enforcement activities or any effort to recover response costs or damages arising out of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, fire and oil spill," the order stated.

The administration is keeping the pressure on BP on many fronts as it strives to show it is being resolute in the face of what many believe is already the worst U.S. oil spill, eclipsing the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska.

The US Environmental Protection Agency expressed frustration on Saturday when it released BP's response to its directive on dispersants instructing the company to evaluate pre-approved dispersants for toxicity and effectiveness. It accused BP and some of the manufacturers involved of withholding information by invoking business confidentiality. "EPA continues to strongly urge these companies to voluntarily make this information public so Americans can get a full picture of the potential environmental impact of these alternative dispersants," it said. It did not name the companies. Some environmentalists worry the chemicals in dispersants may have a lasting harmful impact.

Who will be hurt most

By Steve Hargreaves, CNN
The numbers being batted around when it comes to how much the oil spill will ultimately cost BP and the local Gulf of Mexico economies are huge... US$3 billion... $14 billion. One politician put it at over $100 billion. The range is so big because two important questions remain unanswered: When will the leak be sealed, and will most of the oil wash ashore? Until those are answered no one will know the pricetag of the damages for sure. But there have been studies done looking at what's broadly at stake, and the number is quite large indeed.

The four biggest industries in the Gulf of Mexico are oil, tourism, fishing and shipping, and they account for some $234 billion in economic activity each year, according to a 2007 study done by regional scholars and published by Texas A&M University Press. Two thirds of that amount is in the United States, with the other third in Mexico. If the Gulf of Mexico were a country, it would be the 29th largest economy in the world.

Oil and gas
Ironically, the largest chunk of that money is generated by the oil and gas industry, and they may ultimately be the ones that lose the most. Oil and gas interests generate $124 billion or 53% of the total money, according to Jim Cato, a former economics professor at the University of Florida and one of the authors on the study.

After the BP oil well disaster, all new offshore drilling in US waters in the Gulf has been shut down following the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig last month, which claimed 11 lives and left an uncapped oil well leaking thousands of gallons a day into the water.

Oil production from existing wells has been largely unaffected and drillers have been busying themselves with wells begun before the explosion. But the longer the ban remains intact, the harder the economic bite. "If the moratorium is continued through June, lost revenue from shallow water drilling is estimated at $135 million," said last week from ten US senators urging a lifting of the ban. The ban may eventually be lifted, but how much more the oil industry will have to pay for royalties or spill prevention, plus restricted access to new drilling sites, remains to be seen.

Tourism
Tourism is the second largest industry in the Gulf, and it ranks right behind oil. About 46% of the Gulf economy, or over $100 billion a year, is from tourism dollars, according to the A&M report.

With tourism, it's not necessarily the oil that washes up on the beach that hurts the industry, but how much oil people think will wash up on the beach. And people seem to think it will be bad. In Florida, state tourism officials recently told CNN they're getting cancellations as far as three months out.

In Mississippi it's even worse. Ken Montana, President of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Tourism Commission, said cancellation rates are running at nearly 50%. "The perception is that everybody has oil on the beach and we are all closed up," Montana told CNN. "No beaches are closed, period."

Fishing and shipping
Fishermen are perhaps the most directly impacted by the spill. The government has already closed over 20% of federal waters for fishing activities and many of them are out of work. But commercial fishing and shipping together only account for 1% of the Gulf's total economic activity.

While the number is small in terms of Gulf cost dollars, it does not factor in the impact a shut down in shipping could have, which could halt grain and other cargo from traveling up and down the Mississippi River.

According to the Port of New Orleans, no disruption in shipping is foreseen. The Coast Guard has set up five washing stations for ships to get scrubbed if they come into contact with the oil, but so far none have been used, said a port spokesman.

What's at stake
Obviously, the oil spill isn't going to shut down the Gulf's entire economic output. When the spill first happened, researchers at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, who also contributed to the A&M report, estimated the economic damages might be $1.6 billion. That number included $400 million in direct economic costs, and another $1.2 million in services provided by wetlands that might be compromised - things like water filtration and such.

But that number was arrived at when the oil spill was estimated to be 1,000 barrels a day, said David Yoskowitz, chair of socio-economics at Harte. BP estimates for the oil leak are now 5,000 barrels a day, and some say it could be 10 times that.

Moreover, both the Harte study and the A&M report only look at the Gulf of Mexico. Yet there are reports that the oil is getting caught up in the so-called loop current, which could bring it up the eastern seaboard. "If that happens, all bets are off," said Yoskowitz.

The biggest oil spill in US history

American Federal officials now calculate that far more oil than they originally estimated is probably pouring into the Gulf of Mexico on a daily basis since the collapse of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The new estimate — 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day — is two to five times higher than the 5,000 barrels a day figure given by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on April 28, and establishes the oil spill as the largest in American history.

The range of 12,000 to 19,000 was described as the "overall best initial estimate" settled upon by the technical flow rate group, based on a variety of estimates coming from three smaller teams within the group measuring the flow-rate in different ways. Those estimates ranged from 11,000 barrels per day on the low end to as much as 25,000 barrels a day on the high end. In their latest report, the researchers describe the difficulties they face — sometimes in wresting information from BP — and suggest
that the flow rate may be even higher than any of their current estimates.

The government has been harshly criticized by scientists for underestimating the rate of the flow and for what appears to be its reluctance to force BP, the oil giant that owned the lease on the well, to more precisely measure the rate at which oil was gushing from the pipe into the gulf. The company’s liability is in part determined by the extent of the spill.

If the new estimate is accurate, as much as 30 million gallons of oil may already have poured into the gulf over 37 days — nearly triple the amount spilled when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska in 1989. But that amount is still smaller than the nearly 140 million gallons of oil spilled into the gulf over nine months by the Mexican rig Ixtoc I in 1979, the world’s largest accidental release of oil. That fact, however, will do little to allay fears that a massive cloud of oil swirling below the surface of the gulf will continue to wreak environmental and economic damage for months, if not years to come.

A team of scientists from the University of South Florida, which has been studying the underwater plume, say they have identified dissolved oil throughout a wide area of the deepwater of the gulf and suggested that a “limb” of an undersea plume was spreading northeast toward the continental shelf. In the worst case, scientists say, the cloud could threaten precious coral reefs along the Florida Keys, contaminate the food web and affect a variety of species forced to migrate through it.

Criticism of the official estimates began within a week of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20. For several days, government and BP officials claimed that the leak from the well was about 1,000 barrels a day. On April 27, the group SkyTruth, which uses satellite images to monitor environmental problems, estimated the flow rate to be at least 5,000 barrels a day — and probably much higher.

Over objections from BP, the government quickly raised its own estimate to 5,000 barrels a day — but based the measurement on techniques that other scientists said were not suitable for measuring large undersea spills. Both the government and BP have since said that the early figures were just estimates.

Experts hope the crisis may be over
USA Today

The worst oil spill in US history remains capped for a second day today (July 17, 2010) as BP continues its well integrity test in the Gulf of Mexico. Experts are working to analyze the data on the new cap while oil has stopped flowing from the new 75-ton cap atop the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Signs are that the new cap should be able to capture all the oil although the experts still have to determine the best way to kill the damaged well completely.

A BP executive said the energy company is encouraged by early results from the new cap on the well and there is no sign of an underground leak. The well's pressure level is up to 6,700 pounds per square inch inside the well's capping stack, said BP senior vice president Kent Wells. "It has been a very steady build as would be predicted," Wells said in his regular technical update. If the level does not reach above 6,000 psi, that would mean there is no integrity. Around 8,000 psi would mean full integrity and no oil was being forced out through a leak, Wells said.

BP is also taking steps to resume the drilling of a relief well, which is seen as the best hope for a final solution to plugging the well. BP now will watch pressure readings to look for signs that any new leaks may develop. "Depending on what the test shows us, we may need to open this well back up," Wells warned.

The best hope for permanently ending the leak comes from two relief wells that will plug it with mud and cement, as early as the end of July.

Since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers, the U.S. government estimates that between 90.4 and 178.6 million gallons of oil have spewed into the Gulf of Mexico.