“BP OIL SPILL”

A Seminar Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Award of Degree of

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING

(CHEMICAL ENGINEERING)

BY

JHAVERI SNEHA B

ROLL NO: 08CH191

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

V.V.P. ENGINEERING COLLEGE

RAJKOT

ACADEMIC YEAR 2009-10

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CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the seminar entitled “BP OIL SPILL” is a bona fide work carried out by

Miss JHAVERI SNEHA B. Roll No. 08CH 191, under our supervision and guidance for

partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of BACHELOR OF

ENGINEERING in CHEMICAL ENGINEERING during the academic year 2009 – 2010 in the

department of Chemical Engineering, V.V.P. ENGINEERING COLLEGE, RAJKOT.

Date:______________

SACHIN PARIKH

Name of the Guide Name of HOD

(Guide) (Head of Department)

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ABSTRACT

On April 20, BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers

and commencing months of oil leaking unrestrained into the ocean. Efforts to manage the spill

with controlled burning, dispersants and plugging the leak were unsuccessful until BP capped the

well in mid-July, temporarily halting the flow of oil into the Gulf. The well was then successfully

plugged and declared "effectively dead" on September 19.

This oil spill has obtained the dubious distinction of being the worst oil spill in US history,

surpassing the damage done by the Exxon Valdez tanker that spilled 11 million gallons of oil

into the ecologically sensitive Prince William Sound in 1989. It is estimated that over 205

million gallons of oil were released into the Gulf.

No one yet knows what caused the deep horizon rig explosion in to Gulf of Mexico.

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CONTENTS

Chapter

No.Topic

Pg. No.

Certificate

Acknowledgement

1 Introduction to oil platform

1.1 History

1.2 Types

1 –10

2 Introduction to oil rig

2.1 History

2.2 Challenges

11 –20

3 Oil shale reserves

3.1 Congersional legacy

3.2 Unlocking the Future

3.3 Oil shale changing world

3.4 Old and New shale

21 – 25

4 Time line of BP

4.1 Relief well

4.2 Junk shots

27 – 32

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4.3Share fall

5 Issues and concerns of people 34 – 41

6 Investigations by MMS (Mineral Management Service) 42 – 46

7 Methods to clean up spills 47 –

8 A Fact revealed by a survivor on the rig 56 – 58

9 Summary

Lessons to be learned

59 – 62

Reference / Bibliography

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1. Introduction

2. Oil platform

3. An offshore platform, also referred to as an oil platform or oil rig, is a lаrge structure

with facilities to drill wells and extract and process oil and natural gas and export the

products to shore.

4. Depending on the circumstances, the platform may be fixed to the ocean floor, may

consist of an artificial island, or may float.

5. Remote subsea wells may also be connected to a platform by flow lines and by umbilical

connections; these subsea solutions may consist of single wells or of a manifold centre

for multiple wells.

1.1 History

6. Offshore platform Gulf of Mexico

7. Around 1891 the first submerged oil wells were drilled from platforms built on piles in

the fresh waters of the Grand Lake St. Marys (a.k.a. Mercer County Reservoir) in Ohio.

The wide but shallow reservoir was built from 1837 to 1845 to provide water to the

Miami and Erie Canal.

8. Around 1896 the first submerged oil wells in salt water were drilled in the portion of the

Summerland field extending under the Santa Barbara Channel in California. The wells

were drilled from piers extending from land out into the channel.

9. Other notable early submerged drilling activities occurred on the Canadian side of Lake

Erie in the 1900s and Caddo Lake in Louisiana in the 1910s. Shortly thereafter, wells

were drilled in tidal zones along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana. The Goose

Creek field near Baytown, Texas is one such example. In the 1920s drilling was done

from concrete platforms in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela.

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10. The oldest subsea well recorded in Infield's offshore database is the Bibi Eibat well

which came on stream in 1923 in Azerbaijan. Landfill was used to raise shallow portions

of the Caspian Sea.

11. In the early 1930s the Texas Company developed the first mobile steel barges for drilling

in the brackish coastal areas of the gulf.

12. In 1937 Pure Oil Company (now part of Chevron Corporation) and its partner Superior

Oil Company (now part of ExxonMobil Corporation) used a fixed platform to develop a

field in 14 feet of water, one mile offshore of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana.

13. In 1946, Magnolia Petroleum Company (now part of ExxonMobil) erected a drilling

platform in 18 ft of water, 18 miles[vague] off the coast of St. Mary Parish, Louisiana.

14. In early 1947 Superior Oil erected a drilling/production platform in 20 ft of water some

18 miles[vague] off Vermilion Parish, Louisiana. But it was Kerr-McGee Oil Industries

(now Anadarko Petroleum Corporation), as operator for partners Phillips Petroleum

(ConocoPhillips) and Stanolind Oil & Gas (BP), that completed its historic Ship Shoal

Block 32 well in October 1947, months before Superior actually drilled a discovery from

their Vermilion platform farther offshore. In any case, that made Kerr-McGee's well the

first oil discovery drilled out of sight of land.

15. The Thames Sea Forts of World War II are considered the direct predecessors of modern

offshore platforms. Having been pre-constructed in a very short time, they were then

floated to their location and placed on the shallow bottom of the Thames estuary.

16. 1.2Types

17. Larger lake- and sea-based offshore platforms and drilling rigs are some of the largest

moveable man-made structures in the world. There are several types of oil platforms and

rigs

18. 1, 2) conventional fixed platforms; 3) compliant tower; 4, 5) vertically moored tension

leg and mini-tension leg platform; 6) Spar ; 7,8) Semi-submersibles ; 9) Floating

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production, storage, and offloading facility; 10) sub-sea completion and tie-back to host

facility.[6]

19. Fixed platforms

20. A fixed platform base under construction on a Louisiana river

21. These platforms are built on concrete or steel legs, or both, anchored directly onto the

seabed, supporting a deck with space for drilling rigs, production facilities and crew

quarters. Such platforms are, by virtue of their immobility, designed for very long term

use (for instance the Hibernia platform). Various types of structure are used, steel jacket,

concrete caisson, floating steel and even floating concrete. Steel jackets are vertical

sections made of tubular steel members, and are usually piled into the seabed. Concrete

caisson structures, pioneered by the Condeep concept, often have in-built oil storage in

tanks below the sea surface and these tanks were often used as a flotation capability,

allowing them to be built close to shore (Norwegian fjords and Scottish firths are popular

because they are sheltered and deep enough) and then floated to their final position where

they are sunk to the seabed. Fixed platforms are economically feasible for installation in

water depths up to about 1,700 ft (520 m).

22. Compliant towers

23. These platforms consist of slender flexible towers and a pile foundation supporting a

conventional deck for drilling and production operations. Compliant towers are designed

to sustain significant lateral deflections and forces, and are typically used in water depths

ranging from 1,500 to 3,000 feet (460 to 910 m).

24. Semi-submersible platform

25. Platform P-51 off the Brazilian coast is a semi-submersible platform

26. These platforms have hulls (columns and pontoons) of sufficient buoyancy to cause the

structure to float, but of weight sufficient to keep the structure upright. Semi-submersible

platforms can be moved from place to place; can be ballasted up or down by altering the

amount of flooding in buoyancy tanks; they are generally anchored by combinations of

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chain, wire rope or polyester rope, or both, during drilling or production operations, or

both, though they can also be kept in place by the use of dynamic positioning. Semi-

submersibles can be used in water depths from 200 to 10,000 feet (60 to 3,000 m).

27. Jack-up drilling rigs

28. Jack-up Mobile Drilling Units (or jack-ups), as the name suggests, are rigs that can be

jacked up above the sea using legs that can be lowered, much like jacks. These MODU's-

Mobile Offshore Drilling Units are typically used in water depths up to 400 feet (120 m),

although some designs can go to 550 ft (170 m) depth. They are designed to move from

place to place, and then anchor themselves by deploying the legs to the ocean bottom

using a rack and pinion gear system on each leg.

29. Drillships

30. A drillship is a maritime vessel that has been fitted with drilling apparatus. It is most

often used for exploratory drilling of new oil or gas wells in deep water but can also be

used for scientific drilling. Early versions were built on a modified tanker hull, but

purpose-built designs are used today. Most drillships are outfitted with a dynamic

positioning system to maintain position over the well. They can drill in water depths up to

12,000 ft (3,700 m)

31. Floating production systems

32. The main types of floating production systems are FPSO (floating production, storage,

and offloading system). FPSOs consist of large monohull structures, generally (but not

always) shipshaped, equipped with processing facilities. These platforms are moored to a

location for extended periods, and do not actually drill for oil or gas. Some variants of

these applications, called FSO (floating storage and offloading system) or FSU (floating

storage unit), are used exclusively for storage purposes, and host very little process

equipment.

33. Tension-leg platform

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34. TLPs are floating platforms tethered to the seabed in a manner that eliminates most

vertical movement of the structure. TLPs are used in water depths up to about 6,000 feet

(2,000 m). The "conventional" TLP is a 4-column design which looks similar to a

semisubmersible. Proprietary versions include the Seastar and MOSES mini TLPs; they

are relatively low cost, used in water depths between 600 and 4,300 feet (180 and 1,300

m). Mini TLPs can also be used as utility, satellite or early production platforms for

larger deepwater discoveries.

35. Spar platforms

36. Devil's Tower Spar Platform

37. Spars are moored to the seabed like TLPs, but whereas a TLP has vertical tension tethers,

a spar has more conventional mooring lines. Spars have to-date been designed in three

configurations: the "conventional" one-piece cylindrical hull, the "truss spar" where the

midsection is composed of truss elements connecting the upper buoyant hull (called a

hard tank) with the bottom soft tank containing permanent ballast, and the "cell spar"

which is built from multiple vertical cylinders. The spar has more inherent stability than a

TLP since it has a large counterweight at the bottom and does not depend on the mooring

to hold it upright. It also has the ability, by adjusting the mooring line tensions (using

chain-jacks attached to the mooring lines), to move horizontally and to position itself

over wells at some distance from the main platform location. The first production spar

was Kerr-McGee's Neptune, anchored in 1,930 ft (590 m) in the Gulf of Mexico;

however, spars (such as Brent Spar) were previously used as FSOs.

38. Eni 's Devil's Tower located in 5,610 ft (1,710 m) of water, in the Gulf of Mexico, was the

world's deepest spar until 2010. The world's deepest platform is currently the Perdido

spar in the Gulf of Mexico, floating in 2,438 meters of water. It is operated by Royal

Dutch Shell and was built at a cost of $3 billion.[8]

39. The first truss spars were Kerr-McGee's Boomvang and Nansen. The first (and only) cell

spar is Kerr-McGee's Red Hawk

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40. Normally unmanned installations (NUI)

41. These installations (sometimes called toadstools) are small platforms, consisting of little

more than a well bay, helipad and emergency shelter. They are designed to operate

remotely under normal conditions, only to be visited occasionally for routine

maintenance or well work.

42. Conductor support systems

43. These installations, also known as satellite platforms, are small unmanned platforms

consisting of little more than a well bay and a small process plant. They are designed to

operate in conjunction with a static production platform which is connected to the

platform by flow lines or by umbilical cable, or both.

44. Particularly large examples

45. A 'Statfjord' Gravity base structure under construction in Norway. Almost all of the

structure will end up submerged.

46. The Petronius Platform is a compliant tower in the Gulf of Mexico, which stands

2,000 feet (610 m) above the ocean floor. It is one of the world's tallest structures.[10]

47.

48. The Hibernia platform is the world's largest (in terms of weight) offshore platform,

located on the Jeanne D'Arc basin, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland.

This gravity base structure (GBS), which sits on the ocean floor, is 364 feet (111 m) high

and has storage capacity for 1.3 million barrels (210,000 m3) of crude oil in its 278.8-foot

(85.0 m) high caisson. The platform acts as a small concrete island with serrated outer

edges designed to withstand the impact of an iceberg. The GBS contains production

storage tanks and the remainder of the void space is filled with ballast with the entire

structure weighing in at 1.2 million tons.

49. Maintenance and supply

50. A typical oil production platform is self-sufficient in energy and water needs, housing

electrical generation, water desalinators and all of the equipment necessary to process oil

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and gas such that it can be either delivered directly onshore by pipeline or to a floating

platform or tanker loading facility, or both. Elements in the oil/gas production process

include wellhead, production manifold, production separator, glycol process to dry gas,

gas compressors, water injection pumps, oil/gas export metering and main oil line pumps.

51. Larger platforms are assisted by smaller ESVs (emergency support vessels) like the

British Iolair that are summoned when something has gone wrong, e.g. when a search and

rescue operation is required. During normal operations, PSVs (platform supply vessels)

keep the platforms provisioned and supplied, and AHTS vessels can also supply them, as

well as tow them to location and serve as standby rescue and firefighting vessels.

52. Crew

53. Essential personnel

54. Not all of the following personnel are present on every platform. On smaller platforms,

one worker can perform a number of different jobs. The following also are not names

officially recognized in the industry:

55. OIM (offshore installation manager) who is the ultimate authority during his/her shift and

makes the essential decisions regarding the operation of the platform;

56. operations team leader (OTL);

57. offshore operations engineer (OOE) who is the senior technical authority on the platform;

58. PSTL or operations coordinator for managing crew changes;

59. dynamic positioning operator, navigation, ship or vessel maneuvering (MODU), station

keeping, fire and gas systems operations in the event of incident;

60. second mate to meet manning requirements of flag state, operates fast rescue craft, cargo

operations, fire team leader;

61. third mate to meet manning requirements of flag state, operate fast rescue craft, cargo

operations, fire team leader;

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62. ballast control operator to operate fire and gas systems;

63. crane operators to operate the cranes for lifting cargo around the platform and between

boats;

64. scaffolders to rig up scaffolding for when it is required for workers to work at height;

65. coxswains to maintain the lifeboats and manning them if necessary;

66. control room operators, especially FPSO or production platforms;

67. catering crew, including people tasked with performing essential functions such as

cooking, laundry and cleaning the accommodation;

68. production techs to run the production plant;

69. helicopter pilot(s) living on some platforms that have a helicopter based offshore and

transporting workers to other platforms or to shore on crew changes;

70. maintenance technicians (instrument, electrical or mechanical).

71. Incidental personnel

72. Drill crew will be on board if the installation is performing drilling operations. A drill

crew will normally comprise:

73. Toolpusher

74. Driller

75. Roughnecks

76. Roustabouts

77. Company man

78. Mud engineer

79. Derrickhand

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80. Geologist

81. Well services crew will be on board for well work. The crew will normally comprise:

82. Well services supervisor

83. Wireline or coiled tubing operators

84. Pump operator

85. Drawbacks

86. Risks

87. The nature of their operation — extraction of volatile substances sometimes under

extreme pressure in a hostile environment — means risk; accidents and tragedies occur

regularly. The U.S. Minerals Management Service reported 69 offshore deaths, 1,349

injuries, and 858 fires and explosions on offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico from 2001 to

2010.[11] In July 1988, 167 people died when Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha offshore

production platform, on the Piper field in the UK sector of the North Sea, exploded after

a gas leak. The resulting investigation conducted by Lord Cullen and publicized in the

first Cullen Report was highly critical of a number of areas, including, but not limited to,

management within the company, the design of the structure, and the Permit to Work

System. The report was commissioned in 1988, and was delivered November 1990. [12]

The accident greatly accelerated the practice of providing living accommodations on

separate platforms, away from those used for extraction.

88. However, this was in itself a hazardous environment. In March 1980, the 'flotel' (floating

hotel) platform Alexander L. Kielland capsized in a storm in the North Sea with the loss

of 123 lives.[13]

89. In 2001, Petrobras 36 in Brazil exploded and sank five days later, killing 11 people.

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90. Given the number of grievances and conspiracy theories that involve the oil business, and

the importance of gas/oil platforms to the economy, platforms in the United States are

believed to be potential terrorist targets. Agencies and military units responsible for

maritime counterterrorism in the US (Coast Guard, Navy SEALs, Marine Recon) often

train for platform raids.

91. On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon platform, 52 miles off-shore of New Orleans,

(property of Transocean and leased to BP) exploded, killing 11 people, and sank two days

later. The resulting undersea gusher, conservatively estimated to exceed 20 million

gallons as of early June, 2010, became the worst oil spill in US history, eclipsing the

Exxon Valdez oil spill.

92. Ecological effects

93. In British waters, the cost of removing all platform rig structures entirely was estimated

in 1995 at £1.5 billion, and the cost of removing all structures including pipelines—called

a "clean sea" approach—at £3 billion.[citation needed]

94. In the United States, Marine Biologist Milton Love has proposed that oil platforms off

the California coast be retained as artificial reefs, instead of being dismantled (at great

cost), because he has found them to be havens for many of the species of fish which are

otherwise declining in the region, in the course of 11 years of research. [14] Love is funded

mainly by government agencies, but also in small part by the California Artificial Reef

Enhancement Program. NOAA has said it is considering this course of action, but wants

money to study the effects of the rigs in detail. Divers have been used to assess the fish

populations surrounding the platforms.[15] In the Gulf of Mexico, more than 200 platforms

have been similarly converted

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95. Introduction to offshore drilling:

96. 2.1 HISTORY

97. Offshore drilling typically refers to the discovery and development of oil and gas

resources which lie underwater. Most commonly, the term is used to describe oil

extraction off the coasts of continents, though the term can also apply to drilling in lakes

and inland seas.

98. Offshore drilling presents environmental challenges, especially in the Arctic or close to

the shore. Controversies include the ongoing US offshore drilling debate.

99. There are many different types of platforms for offshore drilling activities, from shallow-

water steel jackets and jackup barges, to floating Semi-submersibles and drillships able to

operate in very deep waters.

100. Around 1891, the first submerged oil wells were drilled from platforms built on

piles in the fresh waters of the Grand Lake St. Marys (a.k.a. Mercer County Reservoir) in

Ohio. The wells were developed by small local companies such as Bryson, Riley Oil,

German-American, and Banker's Oil.

101. Around 1896, the first submerged oil wells in salt water were drilled in the

portion of the Summerland field extending under the Santa Barbara Channel in

California. The wells were drilled from piers extending from land out into the channel. [1]

[2]

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102. Other notable early submerged drilling activities occurred on the Canadian side of

Lake Erie in the 1900s and Caddo Lake in Louisiana in the 1910s. Shortly thereafter

wells were drilled in tidal zones along the Texas and Louisiana gulf coast. The Goose

Creek Oil Field near Baytown, Texas is one such example. In the 1920’s drilling

activities occurred from concrete platforms in Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo.

103. One of the oldest subsea wells is the Bibi Eibat well, which came on stream in

1923 in Azerbaijan.[3][dubious – discuss] The well was located on an artificial island in a shallow

portion of the Caspian Sea. In the early 1930s, the Texas Co., later Texaco (now

Chevron) developed the first mobile steel barges for drilling in the brackish coastal areas

of the Gulf of Mexico.

104. In 1937, Pure Oil (now Chevron) and its partner Superior Oil (now ExxonMobil)

used a fixed platform to develop a field 1 mile offshore of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana in

14 feet of water.

105. In 1946, Magnolia Petroleum (now ExxonMobil) drilled at a site 18 miles off the

coast, erecting a platform in 18 feet of water off St. Mary Parish, Louisiana.

106. In early 1947, Superior Oil erected a drilling and production platform in 20 feet of

water some 18 miles off Vermilion Parish, La. But it was Kerr-McGee Oil Industries

(now Anadarko Petroleum), as operator for partners Phillips Petroleum (ConocoPhillips)

and Stanolind Oil & Gas (BP) that completed its historic Ship Shoal Block 32 well in

October 1947, months before Superior actually drilled a discovery from their Vermilion

platform farther offshore. In any case, that made Kerr-McGee’s well the first oil

discovery drilled out of sight of land.[4]

107. When offshore drilling moved into deeper waters of up to 100 feet, fixed platform

rigs were built, until demands for drilling equipment was needed in the 100- to 400-foot

depth of the Gulf of Mexico, the first jack-up rigs began appearing from specialized

offshore drilling contractors such as ENSCO International.

108. The first semi-submersible appeared due to an accident in 1961. Blue Water

Drilling Company owned and operated the four column submersible Blue Water Rig

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No.1 in the Gulf of Mexico for Shell Oil Company. As the pontoons were not sufficiently

buoyant to support the weight of the rig and its consumables, it was towed between

locations at a draught mid-way between the top of the pontoons and the underside of the

deck. It was observed that the motions at this draught were very small and Blue Water

Drilling and Shell jointly decided that the rig could be operated in the floating mode. The

first purpose built drilling semi-submersible Ocean Driller was launched in 1963. Since

then, many semi-submersibles have been purpose-designed for the drilling industry

mobile offshore fleet.

109. The first offshore drillship was the CUSS 1 developed for the Mohole project to

drill into the earth's crust.

110. As of June, 2010, there were over 620 mobile offshore drilling rigs (Jackups,

semisubs, drillships, barges) available for service in the competitive rig fleet.

111. The world's deepest platform is currently the Perdido in the Gulf of Mexico,

floating in 2,438 meters of water. It is operated by Royal Dutch Shell and was built at a

cost of $3 billion.

112. Main offshore fields

113. Notable offshore fields today are found in the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the

Campos and Santos Basins off the coasts of Brazil, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia,

several fields off West Africa most notably west of Nigeria and Angola, as well as

offshore fields in South East Asia and Sakhalin, Russia

114. 2.2 Challenges

115. Offshore oil and gas production is more challenging than land-based installations

due to the remote and harsher environment. Much of the innovation in the offshore

petroleum sector concerns overcoming these challenges, including the need to provide

very large production facilities. Production and drilling facilities may be very large and a

large investment, such as the Troll A platform standing on a depth of 300 meters.

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116. Another type of offshore platform may float with a mooring system to maintain it

on location. While a floating system may be lower cost in deeper waters than a fixed

platform, the dynamic nature of the platforms introduces many challenges for the drilling

and production facilities.

117. In both cases, the ocean adds several hundred meters to the fluid column in the

drill string. The addition increases bottom hole pressure as well as the energy needed to

lift sand and cuttings for oil-sand separation on the platform.

118. The trend today is to conduct more of the production subsea, by separating sand

from oil and re-injecting sand before it is pumped up to the platform, or even pumping it

onshore, with no installations visible above the sea. Subsea installations help to exploit

resources at progressively deeper waters, locations which have been inaccessible, and

overcome challenges posed by sea ice, such as in the Barents Sea.

119. Offshore manned facilities also present logistics and human resources challenges.

An offshore oil platform is a small community in itself with cafeteria, sleeping quarters,

management, and other support functions. In the North Sea, staff members are

transported by helicopter for a two-week shift. They usually receive higher salary than

other industry workers do. Supplies and waste are transported by ship, and the supply

needs to be well planned because floor area on the platform is limited. Today, much

effort goes into moving as much of the personnel as possible onshore, where management

and technical experts are in touch with the platform by video conferencing. An onshore

job is also more attractive for the aging workforce in the petroleum industry, at least in

the western world. These efforts among others are contained in the established term

integrated operations. The increased use of subsea facilities helps achieve the objective of

moving more workers onshore. Subsea facilities are also easier to expand, with new

separators or separate modules for different oil types, and are not limited by the fixed

floor space of an offshore rig.

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120. The world's deepest oil platform is the floating Independence Hub which is a

semi-submersible platform in the Gulf of Mexico in a water depth of 2,414 metres

(7,920 ft).

121. Non-floating compliant towers and fixed platforms, by water depth:

122. Petronius Platform , 531 m (1,742 ft)

123. Baldpate Platform , 502 m (1,647 ft)

124. Bullwinkle Platform , 413 m (1,355 ft)

125. Pompano Platform , 393 m (1,289 ft)

126. Benguela-Belize Lobito-Tomboco Platform , 390 m (1,280 ft)

127. Tombua Landana Platform , 366 m (1,201 ft)

128. Harmony Platform , 366 m (1,201 ft)

129. Troll A Platform , 303 m (994 ft)

130. Gulfaks C Platform , 217 m (712 ft)

131. Oil Shale Reserves : America’s Strategic Future

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132. In the small world of geologists, though, the region is well-known. In fact, you

might even say it’s the single

most important patch of undeveloped, unloved, and desolate looking land in America.

But you’d never guess this particular corner of the Great American Desert may play an

integral role in America’s strategic future just by looking at it. You’d never guess that the

whole stretch of brown, red, and orange land contains enough recoverable oil and gas to

make you forget about the Middle East for the rest of time.

133. There are places in Rio Blanco County like Stinking Water Creek, named after the

smelly mix of oil and water the first white settlers found there, that tell you oil’s always

been around the Rocky Mountains. It’s just not always been easy to find. It’s one thing

to find oil that bubbles out of the ground in liquid form. It’s quite another to drill a

thousand feet down, and encounter oil locked up tight inside a greasy rock.

134. The first seeping pools of oil were discovered in Western Colorado as far back as

1876, the year the state entered the Union. But exploration didn’t get serious until drillers

settled in the town of Rangely in Rio Blanco County.

135. By 1903, thirteen different drillers had come and gone in Rangely. According to

the local museum, the only six wells that actually struck oil were producing just two to

ten barrels of oil a day. Hardly a Spindeltop, the gusher that launched the Texas oil-boom

on January 10th, 1901, and immediately began producing 100,000 barrels per day.

136. The energy reserves of the Piceance Basin, upon which Rio Blanco County sits,

contain massive petroleum reserves of a very unusual nature: Oil shale.

137. 3.1 Oil Shale Reserves : A Congressional Legacy

138. Most of the nation’s oil shale reserves rest under the control of the U.S.

government – a legacy of a 95-year old Congressional Act. In 1910, Congress passed the

Pickett Act, which authorized President Taft to set aside oil- bearing land in California

and Wyoming as potential sources of fuel for the U.S. Navy. Taft did so right away. The

Navy was in the process of switching from coal burning ships to oil burning ships. And

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1.

the U.S. military, conscious of the expanding role of America in the world, needed a

dependable supply of fuel in case of a national emergency.

139. From 1910 to 1925 the Navy developed the Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale

Reserves Program. The program became official in 1927 and President Roosevelt even

expanded the scope of the program in 1942 as the U.S. geared up for war with Japan and

Germany.

140. Several of the oil fields set aside for the nation’s first strategic reserve,

particularly Elk Hills in California,

would go on to produce oil for the U.S. government. Elk Hills was eventually sold off to

Occidental Petroleum for $3.65 billion in 1998 in the largest privatization in U.S. history.

The shale reserves, however, still remain, locked 1,000 feet underground in the Colorado

desert.

141. 3.2 Unlocking The Future

142. The destruction of Hurricane Katrina shows the importance of a strategic

petroleum reserve, or, more accurately, a strategic energy reserve. But the SPR in

Louisiana only holds about 800 million barrels of emergency, enough to get the country

through about 90 days of regular oil usage. That’s barely a band-aid for a country that

faces a potential energy heart attack.

143. In other words, the future of oil shale may have finally arrived. Extracting oil

from shale is no simple task, which is why the reserves remain almost completely

undeveloped. But an emerging new technology promises to unlock the awesome potential

of the oil shale.

144. “The technical groundwork may be in place for a fundamental shift in oil shale

economics,” the Rand Corporation recently declared. “Advances in thermally conductive

in-situ conversion may enable shale-derived oil to be competitive with crude oil at prices

below $40 per barrel. If this becomes the case, oil shale development may soon occupy a

very prominent position in the national energy agenda.”

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145. Estimated U.S. oil shale reserves total an astonishing 1.5 trillion barrels of oil – or

more than five times the

stated reserves of Saudi Arabia. This energy bounty is simply too large to ignore any

longer, assuming that the reserves are economically viable. And yet, oil shale lies far

from the radar screen of most investors.

146. But we here at The Daily Reckoning are on the case. Just yesterday, I caught a

first-hand glimpse of a cutting-edge oil shale project spearheaded by Shell. I trekked out

to a barren moonscape in Colorado to tour the facility with Shell geologists. To

summarize my findings, oil shale holds tremendous promise, but the technologies that

promise to unlock this promise remain somewhat experimental. But sooner or later, the

oil trapped in the shale of Colorado will flow to the surface. And when it does, it will

enrich investors who arrive early to the scene.

147. 3.3 Can Oil Shale Change The World?

148. America’s oil shale reserves are enormous, totaling at least 1.5 trillion barrels of

oil. That’s five times the

reserves of Saudi Arabia! And yet, no one is producing commercial quantities of oil from

these vast deposits. All that oil is still sitting right where God left it, buried under the vast

landscapes of Colorado and Wyoming.

149. Obviously, there are some very real obstacles to oil production from shale. After

all, if it was such a good

thing, we’d be doing it already, right? “Oil shale is the fuel of the future, and always will

be,” goes a popular

saying in Western Colorado.

150. But what if we could safely and economically get our hands on all that oil?

Imagine how the world might change. The U.S. would instantly have the world’s largest

oil reserves. Imagine…having so much oil we’d never have to worry about Saudi Arabia

again, or Hugo Chavez, or the mullahs in Tehran. And instead of ships lined up in L.A.’s

port to unload cheap Chinese goods, we might see oil tankers lined up waiting to export

America’s tremendous oil bounty to the rest of the world. The entire geopolitical and

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economic map of the world would change…and the companies in the vanguard of oil

shale development might make hundreds of billions of dollars as they convert America’s

untapped shale reserves into a brand new energy revolution.

151. Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter may have been entertaining similar

ambitions in the late 1970s when they encouraged and funded the development of the

West’s shale deposits. A shale-boom ensued, although not much oil flowed. The

government spent billions and so did Exxon Mobil. New boomtowns sprung up in Rifle,

Parachute, Rangely, and Meeker here in Colorado.

152. And then came Black Monday. May 2, 1982. The day Exxon shut down its $5

billion Colony Oil Shale project. The refineries closed. The jobs left (the American oil

industry has lost nearly as many jobs in the last ten years as the automobile and steel

industries.) And the energy locked in Colorado’s vast shale deposits sat untouched and

unrefined.

153. 3.4 Oil Shale Technology – Old & New

154. Extracting oil from the shale is no simple task. The earliest attempts to extract the

oil utilized an environmentally unfriendly process known as “retorting.” Stated simply,

retorting required mining the shale, hauling it to a processing facility that crushed the

rock into small chunks, then extracted a petroleum substance called kerogen, then

upgraded the kerogen through a process of hydrogenation (which requires lots of water)

and refined it into gasoline or jet fuel.

155. But the difficulties of retorting do not end there, as my colleague, Byron King

explains:

156. “After you retort the rock to derive the kerogen (not oil), the heating process has

desiccated the shale (OK, that means that it is dried out).  Sad to say, the volume of

desiccated shale that you have to dispose of is now greater than that of the hole from

which you dug and mined it in the first place.  Any takers for trainloads of dried, dusty,

gunky shale residue, rife with low levels of heavy metal residue and other toxic, but now

chemically-activated crap?  (Well, it makes for enough crap that when it rains, the toxic

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stuff will leach out and contaminate all of the water supplies to which gravity can reach,

which is essentially all of ‘em.  Yeah, right.  I sure want that stuff blowin’ in my wind.) 

Add up all of the capital investment to build the retorting mechanisms, cost of energy

required, cost of water, costs of transport, costs of environmental compliance, costs of

refining, and you have some relatively costly end-product.”

157. But a new technology has emerged that may begin to tap the oil shale’s potential.

Royal Dutch Shell, in fact, has recently completed a demonstration project (The

Mahogany Ridge project) in which it produced 1,400 barrels of oil from shale in the

ground, without mining the shale at all.

158. Instead, Shell utilized a process called “in situ” mining, which heats the shale

while it’s still in the ground, to

the point where the oil leaches from the rock. Shell’s Terry O’Connor described the

breakthrough in testimony before Congress earlier this summer (And Congress may have

an acute interest in the topic, since the U.S. government controls 72% of all U.S. oil shale

acreage):

159. “Some 23 years ago, Shell commenced laboratory and field research on a

promising in ground conversion and recovery process. This technology is called the In-

situ Conversion Process, or ICP. In 1996, Shell successfully carried out its first small

field test on its privately owned Mahogany property in Rio Blanco County, Colorado

some 200 miles west of Denver. Since then, Shell has carried out four additional related

field tests at nearby sites. The most recent test was carried out over the past several

months and produced in excess of 1,400 barrels of light oil plus associated gas from a

very small test plot using the ICP technology…

160. “Most of the petroleum products we consume today are derived from

conventional oil fields that produce oil and gas that have been naturally matured in the

subsurface by being subjected to heat and pressure over very long periods of time. In

general terms, the In-situ Conversion Process (ICP) accelerates this natural process of oil

and gas maturation by literally tens of millions of years. This is accomplished by slow

sub-surface heating of petroleum source rock containing kerogen, the precursor to oil and

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gas. This acceleration of natural processes is achieved by drilling holes into the resource,

inserting electric resistance heaters into those heater holes and heating the subsurface to

around 650-700F, over a 3 to 4 year period.

161. “During this time, very dense oil and gas is expelled from the kerogen and

undergoes a series of changes. These changes include the shearing of lighter components

from the dense carbon compounds, concentration of available hydrogen into these lighter

compounds, and changing of phase of those lighter, more hydrogen rich compounds from

liquid to gas. In gaseous phase, these lighter fractions are now far more mobile and can

move in the subsurface through existing or induced fractures to conventional producing

wells from which they are brought to the surface. The process results in the production of

about 65 to 70% of the original “carbon” in place in the subsurface.

162. “The ICP process is clearly energy-intensive, as its driving force is the injection

of heat into the subsurface.

However, for each unit of energy used to generate power to provide heat for the ICP

process, when calculated on a life cycle basis, about 3.5 units of energy are produced and

treated for sales to the consumer market. This energy efficiency compares favorably with

many conventional heavy oil fields that for decades have used steam injection to help

coax more oil out of the reservoir. The produced hydrocarbon mix is very different from

traditional crude oils. It is much lighter and contains almost no heavy ends.

163. “However, because the ICP process occurs below ground, special care must be

taken to keep the products of the process from escaping into groundwater flows. Shell has

adapted a long recognized and established mining and construction ice wall technology to

isolate the active ICP area and thus accomplish these objectives and to safe guard the

environment. For years, freezing of groundwater to form a subsurface ice barrier has been

used to isolate areas being tunneled and to reduce natural water flows into mines. Shell

has successfully tested the freezing technology and determined that the development of a

freeze wall prevents the loss of contaminants from the heated zone.”

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164. It may seem, as O’Conner said, counter-intuitive to freeze the water around a

shale deposit, and then heat up the contents within the deposit. It’s energy-intensive. And

it’s a lot of work. What’s more, there’s no proof yet it can work on a commercial scale.

165. Yet both technologies, the freeze wall and the heating of shale, have been proven

in the field to work. The freeze wall was used most recently in Boston’s Big Dig project.

It was also used to prevent ground water from seeping into the salt caverns at the

Strategic Petroleum reserve in Weeks Island, LA.

166. But still, you may be wondering, does it really make sense to heat the ground up a

thousand feet down for three or four years and wait? Of course it does. In case you

missed O’Conner’s math, Shell could harvest up to a million barrels per acre, or a billion

barrels per square mile, on an area covering over a thousand square miles.

167. It’s still early days in the oil shale fields of Colorado and Wyoming, but it looks

to me like someone’s gonna make a lot of money out there. I’m working hard to discover

how we outside investors can play along.

168. Shell’s Mahogany Ridge

169. Last week, I paid a visit to Royal Dutch Shell’s oil shale project in Colorado. The

visit left me with more questions than answers, but I came away from the place with the

sense that this opportunity is very real…or, at least, it soon will be.

170. After driving across a vast expanse of “Nowhere,” Colorado, my brother and I

met up with a few geologists from Shell. Of course it’s just those large, unpopulated

tracts of high desert that make the area so appealing from a geopolitical point of view.

Tapping into the oil shale 2,000 feet underground isn’t going to bother too many people.

And there are no spotted owls around either. If the technology to turn shale into oil

works, the entire area will become a new American boom patch.

171. Soon after we arrived, the geologists escorted us around the facility, chatting all

the while about the successes and challenges of their venture.

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172. The two trickiest aspects of oil shale development, as the geologists and engineers

explained, are heating the shale to extreme temperatures, while simultaneously

surrounding the heated area with a subterranean ice wall. Shell doesn’t know, or isn’t

saying, which part of the project will be the most challenging. If you were about to

change the world by making it economic to tap into as much as 2 trillion barrels of oil

under the Colorado plateau, you’d be pretty careful about showing your competitors how

you were going to do it.

173. First, anything that heats up rock around it to around 600 or 700 degrees

Fahrenheit has to conduct electrically generated heat well. The most conductive metals

on the Periodic Table of Elements are, in order, silver, copper, and gold. Naturally, the

number of heaters you put in a place affects the amount of time it takes to turn the shale

goo into API 34 crude. The more heaters, the more cost, though.

174. And given the fact that Shell does not know yet if the heaters will be recoverable,

you can see that sticking

silver, copper, or gold heaters 2000 meters underground and then leaving them there once

the kerogen has been pumped has a serious effect on the economics of your operation.

175. At the moment, Shell is not sure what the optimal size of production zones ought

to be. The big issue here is how big can a freeze-wall be to be effective and freezing the

groundwater surrounding a shale deposit? The test projects, as you can see, were quite

small. Shell doesn’t know, or isn’t saying, what the optimum size is for a each “pod” or

“cell”. That’s what they’ll have to figure out at the next stage…and the picture with the

dirt is a football field sized project….where rather than creating the freeze-wall at 50

meters down…they will do it at 1,000 ft. down…. with 2,000 being the desired and

necessary depth for commercial viability. I’m not sure anyone has ever created a freeze-

wall at that depth….neither is shell. But we’ll find out. The oil itself that comes from the

process looks like…oil. No heavy refining needed.

176. Shell thinks the whole thing is economic at a crude price of $30. So barring a

major reversal of geopolitical trends, they’re forging ahead.

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177. Since the Bureau of Land Management owns about 80% of the oil shale acreage

in Colorado, there is no investment play on private companies that might own land with

rich shale deposits. Although, if Shell and the DOE are right that you can recover a

million barrels of oil per acre…it wouldn’t take much land to make a man rich out here.

178. Oil Shale: Testing Public Lands

179. The Bureau of Land Management recently received ten applications (by eight

companies) for a pilot program to develop Colorado’s shale reserves. The program allows

the companies access to public lands for the purpose of testing shale-extraction

technologies. You see below an interesting mix of large, publicly traded oil giants and

small, privately held innovators.

180. Natural Soda, Inc. of Rifle, Colorado.

181. EGL Resources Inc. of Midland, Texas.

182. Salt Lake City-based Kennecott Exploration Company.

183. Independent Energy Partners of Denver, Colorado

184. Denver-based Phoenix Wyoming, Inc.

185. Chevron Shale Oil Company.

186. Exxon Mobil Corporation.

187. Shell Frontier Oil and Gas Inc

188. There is dispute within the industry over how long, if ever, demonstration

extraction technologies can become commercially viable. I’ve spoken with some of the

smaller companies that have applied for leases from the BLM. Some of them will have to

raise money to conduct the project. And some of them have been less than forthcoming

about how exactly their extraction technology is different or better than previous

methods.

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189. How will it all unfold? Well, for starters, it could all utterly fail. To me, Shell’s

in-situ process looks the most

promising. It also makes the most sense economically. There may be a better, less

energy-intensive way to heat up the ground than what Shell has come up with. But Shell,

Chevron, and Exxon Mobil clearly have the resources to scoop up any private or small

firm that makes a breakthrough.And there are a host of smaller firms involved with the

refining and drilling process that figure to play a key

role in the development of the industry, should that development pick up pace.

190. The Energy Policy Act of 2005, otherwise known as a listless piece of legislation

without any strategic vision, does, at least, make provision for encouraging research into

the development of shale. But government works slow, when it works at all. It’s going to

take an external shock to the economy to really ratchet up interest and development of the

nation’s energy reserves…say…something like a nuclear Iran.

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191. TIME LINE

192. In 2008

193. March 2008 – The mineral rights to drill for oil at the Macondo well, located in

Mississippi Canyon Block 252 in the United States sector of the Gulf of Mexico about

41 miles (66 km) off the Louisiana coast, were purchased by BP at the Minerals

Management Service's (MMS) Lease Sale #206, held in New Orleans

194. February – BP files a 52 page exploration and environmental impact plan for the

Macondo well with the MMS. The plan stated that it was "unlikely that an accidental

surface or subsurface oil spill would occur from the proposed activities". In the event an

accident did take place the plan stated that due to the well being 48 miles (77 km) from

shore and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse

impacts would be expected.

195. April 6 – The Department of the Interior exempted BP's Gulf of Mexico drilling

operation from a detailed environmental impact study after concluding that a massive oil

spill was unlikely.

196. June 22 – Mark E. Hafle, a senior drilling engineer at BP, warns that the metal

casing for the blowout preventer might collapse under high pressure.

197. October 7 – The Transocean Marianas semi-submersible rig begins drilling the

Macondo well.

198. November 9 – Hurricane Ida damages Transocean Marianas enough that it has to

be replaced.

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199. 2010

200. February

201. February 15, 2010 – Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, owned by Transocean,

begins drilling on the Macondo Prospect. The planned well was to be drilled to

18,000 feet (5,500 m) below sea level, and was to be plugged and suspended for

subsequent completion as a subsea producer.

202. March

203. March 8 – Target date for the completion of the well which had been budgeted to

cost $96 million.

204. March 17 – BP Chief Tony Hayward sells one third of his BP stock (223,288

shares). Closing BP price on March 17 on the New York Stock Exchange is 58.15.

205. March – An accident damages a gasket on the blowout preventer on the rig.

206. Fighting the fire on April 21

207. April 1 – Halliburton employee Marvin Volek warns that BP's use of cement "was

against our best practices."

208. April 6 – MMS issues permit to BP for the well with the notation, "Exercise

caution while drilling due to indications of shallow gas and possible water flow."

209. April 9 – BP drills last section with the wellbore 18,360 feet (5,600 m) below sea

level but the last 1,192 feet (363 m) need casing. Halliburton recommends liner/tieback

casing that will provide 4 redundant barriers to flow. BP chooses to do a single liner with

fewer barriers that is faster to install and cheaper ($7 to $10 million).

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210. April 14 – Brian Morel, a BP drilling engineer, emails a colleague "this has been a

nightmare well which has everyone all over the place."

211. April 15 – Morel informs Halliburton executive Jesse Gagliano that they plan to

use 6 centralizers. Gagliano says they should use 21. Morel replies in an email, "it's too

late to get any more product on the rig, our only option is to rearrange placement of these

centralizers." Gagliano also recommends to circulate the drilling mud from the bottom of

the well all the way up to the surface to remove air pockets and debris which can

contaminate the cement, saying in an email, at "least circulate one bottoms up on the well

before doing a cement job." Despite this recommendation, BP cycles only 261 barrels

(41.5 m3) of mud, a fraction of the total mud used in the well.

212. April 15 – MMS approves amended permit for BP to use a single liner with fewer

barriers.

213. April 16 – Brett Cocales, BP's Operations Drilling Engineer, emails Morel

confirming the 6 centralizer approach.

214. April 17 – Deepwater Horizon completes its drilling and the well is being

prepared to be cemented so that another rig will retrieve the oil. The blowout preventer is

tested and found to be "functional." Gagliano now reports that using only 6 centralizers

"would likely produce channeling and a failure of the cement job."

215. April 18 – Gagliano's report says "well is considered to have a severe gas flow

problem." Schlumberger flies a crew to conduct a cement bond log to determine whether

the cement has bonded to the casing and surrounding formations. It is required in rules.

216. April 19 – Halliburton completes cementing of the final production casing string.

217. April 20 –

218. 7 am – BP cancels a recommended cement bond log test. Conducting the test

would have taken 9–12 hours and $128,000. By canceling the cement test BP paid only

$10,000. Crew leaves on 11:15 am flight. BP officials gather on the platform to celebrate

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seven years without an injury on the rig. The planned moving of the Deepwater Horizon

to another location was 43 days past due and the delay had cost BP $21 million.

219. 9:45 p.m. CDT – Gas, oil and concrete from the Deepwater Horizon explode up

the wellbore onto the deck and then catches fire. The explosion kills 11 platform workers

and injures 17 others; another 98 people survive without serious physical injury.

220. April 21 Coast Guard rear admiral Mary Landry named Federal On Scene

Coordinator. Coast Guard log reports “Potential environmental threat is 700,000 gallons

of diesel on board the Deepwater Horizon and estimated potential of 8,000 barrels per

day of crude oil, if the well were to completely blowout. Most of the current pollution has

been mitigated by the fire. There is some surface sheening extending up to 2 miles from

the source.” The log also reports that two attempts to shut the BOP using an ROV have

failed.

221. April 22 10:21 am – Rig sinks. CNN quote Coast Guard Petty Officer Ashley

Butler as saying that "oil was leaking from the rig at the rate of about 8,000 barrels

(340,000 US gallons; 1,300 cubic metres) of crude per day." 100,000 US gallons

(380,000 litres) of dispersants are pre-authorized by the United States Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA) and placed in position even though there is no sign of a leak. [23]

Three Norweigian crews from Ocean Intervention III from Oceaneering International,

Skandi Neptune from DOF ASA, and Boa Sub C (from Boa International) begin using

remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROV) to map the seabed and assess the damage

to the wreck. The crews report "large amounts of oil that flowed out."

222. April 23 – Coast Guard rear adm. Mary Landry tells CBS "At this time, there is

no crude emanating from that wellhead at the ocean surface, er, at the ocean floor...There

is not oil emanating from the riser either."[29][30] Unified Command begins operating out of

the Royal Dutch Shell Training and Conference Center in Robert, Louisiana. Search and

rescue suspended at 5 PM. Eleven of the 126 people on the rig have perished. Coast

Guard log reports, “BP will establish an ICP at Houma, Louisiana today to monitor the

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response and prepare for potential release estimated potential of 64,000- 110,000 bbls

(2 ,688,000- 4,620,000 gal) per day of crude oil if the well were to completely blowout.”

223. April 24 – BP reports a leak 1,000 barrels (42,000 US gallons; 160 cubic metres)

a day DeepWaterHorizonResponse.com domain registered for one year by PIER Systems

in Bellingham, Washington to be used by the United States Coast Guard and other

reporting agencies. Price of a barrel of oil (West Texas Intermediate – Cushing,

Oklahoma) $84.34

224. April 25 – Oil sheen seen covering 580 square miles (1,500 km2) and is 70 miles

(110 km) south of Mississippi and Alabama coastlines and was 31 miles (50 km) from

the ecologically sensitive Chandeleur Islands. BP begins process to establish two relief

wells.

225. April 26 – Oil reported 36 miles (58 km) southeast of Louisiana. Booms set up to

keep oil from washing ashore. A huge containment chamber is moved to Superior Energy

Services subsidiary Wild Well Control in Port Fourchon, Louisiana. BP closing stock

price 57.91 Coast Guard log reports “attempts to actuate the blow preventer (BOP)

middle rams and blind shears were ineffective due to a hydraulic leak on the valve.

Repairs are being worked overnight. The well head continues to discharge approximately

1,000 barrels/day

226. April 27 – Slick grows to 100 miles (160 km) across and 20 miles (32 km) from

Louisiana coast.

227. April 28, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that

the leak was likely 5,000 barrels (210,000 US gallons; 790 cubic metres) a day, five times

larger than initially estimated by BP. BP announces controlled test to burn oil off the

surface was successful. Oil is 20 miles (32 km) east of the mouth of the Mississippi

River. MMS postpones 2010 Offshore Industry Safety Awards scheduled to be May 3.

228. April 29 – Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal declares a state of emergency.

100,000 feet (30 km) of containment booms were deployed along the coast.[41] By the

next day, this nearly doubled to 180,000 feet (55 km) of deployed booms, with an

additional 300,000 feet (91 km) staged or being deployed.[42] Rush Limbaugh noting that

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explosion occurred the day before Earth Day tells his listeners that it's possible the rig

could have been sabotage to encourage favorable votes for the carbon tax bill and cap and

trade bills. "What better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing

up a rig? I'm just noting the timing here."

229. April 30 – Oil washes ashore at Venice, Louisiana. President Barack Obama halts

new offshore drilling unless safeguards are in place. – Coast Guard issues subpoena to

Transocean "to maintain the blowout preventer and to not allow anyone or anything to

tamper with it" without the Guard's permission. EPA establishes its website

epa.gov/bpspill for its response. Sanford Bernstein estimates capping the leaks and

cleaning up the spill may cost $12.5 billion. Innocentive launches a website asking

people to submit their solutions to the crisis by June 30. On April 30, the United States

House Committee on Energy and Commerce asked Halliburton to brief it as well as

provide any documents it might have related to its work on the Macondo well.

230. May

231. May 2 – Obama meets with fishermen and Coast Guard in Venice, Louisiana. Oil

discovered in the South Pass. Transocean's Development Driller III starts drilling a first

relief well.

232. May 3 – Shares of Nalco Holding Company jump 18% in one day after it is

revealed its dispersant products are being use for cleanup.

233. May 5 – BP announces that the smallest of three known leaks had been capped

allowing the repair group to focus their efforts on the remaining leaks.

234. May 6 – Oil sheen discovered in south end of Chandeleur Chain.

235. May 7 – A 125-tonne (280,000 lb) container dome is lowered over the largest of

the well leaks and pipe the oil to a storage vessel on the surface.

236. May 8 – BP reports that methane is freezing at the top of the dome making it

ineffective.

237. May 9 – Tar balls reported on Dauphin Island in Alabama.

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238. May 10 – After failed containment dome BP announces plans to apply five feet in

diameter containment vessel nicknamed "top hat".[ BP announces strategy of trying to

push mud and debris down the tube to clog it. The strategy is nicknamed "junk shot."

239. May 11 – BP, Transocean and Halliburton officials testify before Congress

blaming each other for the incident.] MMS and Coast Guard Joint Investigation Team

chaired by USCG Capt. Hung Nguyen and MMS employee David Dykes begin a Joint

Marine Board of Investigation into the accident holding the first hearings at the Crowne

Plaza Hotel in Kenner, Louisiana where they interview survivors.

240. May 12 – BP releases first public video of leak and others say the leak is

significantly higher than what BP has been saying. One estimate says it could to be

20,000–100,000 barrels (840,000–4,200,000 US gallons; 3,200–16,000 cubic metres) a

day.

241. May 13 – Tony Hayward calls the oil spill "relatively tiny" in comparison with

the size of the "ocean."[58] Transocean files in the U.S. District Court for the Southern

District of Texas to limit its liability under the Limitation of Shipowner's Liability Act to

just its interest in the Deepwater Horizon which it values at $26,764,083.

242. May 14 – BP inserts 4-inch (100 mm) wide riser into the 21-inch-wide burst pipe.

It is initially dislodged when an underwater robot collides with the pipe.

243. May 15 – Coast Guard and EPA authorize use dispersants underwater, at the

source of the Deepwater Horizon leak.

244. May 16 – GSF Development Driller II starts drilling second relief well.

245. May 17 – BP begins burning off gas with the Discoverer Enterprise. BP says it

will release a live feed of the leak hours after receiving a request from Congressman

Edward Markey. Supporting his position is Steve Wereley from Purdue University who

says the leak may be 70,000 barrels (2,900,000 US gallons; 11,000,000 litres) a day.

246. Chris Oynes, offshore drilling director for the MMS, announces a hurried

retirement.

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247. May 19 – Oil washes ashore on mainland Louisiana.

248. May 21 – BP begins live underwater video broadcasts of the leak. Flow Rate

Technical Group established for "scientifically validated information about the amount of

oil flowing from BP s leaking oil well." The average daily oil collection rates is

2,000 barrels (84,000 US gallons; 320,000 litres) a day.

249. May 22 – Obama signs an executive order establishing the bipartisan National

Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling

250. May 23 – BP rebuffs EPA order to change its dispersants. BP says that if oil

reaches the shore, it would do more environmental harm than if it were dispersed off the

coast. It notes that Corexit is the only product that is available in sufficient quantities to

deal with the spill.

251. May 24 – BP says it currently has no plans to use explosives on the well. It also

flatly denies it ever considered using a nuclear bomb on the well as some suggested.

252. May 26 – BP announces plan to force feed heavy drilling mud in a project called

"top kill".[70] Doug Brown, the chief mechanic on the Deepwater Horizon, testifies at the

joint U.S. Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service hearing that a BP

representative overruled Transocean employees and insisted on displacing protective

drilling mud with seawater just hours before the explosion.

253. May 27 – Obama announces a six-month moratorium on new deepwater oil

drilling permits in 500 feet of water or more. Based on the oil flow estimates by the Flow

Rate Technical Group, the United States government increased its estimate at 12,000 to

19,000 barrels (500,000 to 800,000 US gallons; 1,900,000 to 3,000,000 litres) per day.

Elizabeth Birnbaum resigns from MMS.

254. May 28 – Obama visits Louisiana again.

255. May 29 – BP declares Top Kill is a failure and moves on to their next contingency

option, the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) Cap Containment System. May 31 –

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BP announces plan to slice the leaking pipe, placing a cap on it and channeling the oil to

surface ships.

256. June

257. June 1 – Oil began washing up on the beaches of Gulf Islands National Seashore.

258. June 4 – Tar balls arrive on beaches in Pensacola, Florida.

259. June 5 – Obama makes third trip to Louisiana since the disaster began visits

Grand Isle, Louisiana for the second time in two weeks.

260. June 6 – BP abandons plans to close three remaining vents on the containment cap

noting that with one vent it is capturing as much oil as it can handle.

261. June 8 – BP releases the requested high resolution images of the leak.

262. June 9 – BP's chief operating officer Doug Suttles says the undewater plume is "in

very minute quantities."

263. June 11 – Flow Rate Technical Group says the leak could be 20,000 to 40,000

barrels (840,000 to 1,700,000 US gallons; 3,200,000 to 6,400,000 litres) of oil a day.

264. June 15 – Obama in the first speech from the Oval Office of his Presidency

focuses on the spill.

265. June 16 – Obama meets with Svanberg, Hayward, McKay. BP agrees to fund a

$20 billion escrow account administered by Kenneth Feinberg.

266. June 17 – Hayward addresses the United States House Energy Subcommittee on

Oversight and Investigations.

267. June 22 – Martin Leach-Cross Feldman of the United States District Court for the

Eastern District of Louisiana issues restraining order in Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC

v. Salazar against the 6-month moratorium on drilling in the Gulf waters of 500 feet or

more.

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268. June 23 – Oil appeared on Pensacola Beach and in Gulf Islands National

Seashore, and officials warned against swimming for 33 miles (53 km) east of the

Alabama line.[95][96]

269. June 25 – Hurricane Alex (2010) causes relief rigs to disconnect and let the oil

spill unchecked into the ocean.

270. July

271. July 1 – The supertanker A Whale, begins skimming tests at Boothville,

Louisiana.

272. July 2 – * National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issues models of the

probability of oil coming ashore based on historical winds and currents noting that oil

may come ashore in the Keys and Miami.

273. July 5 – Oil is reported at Rigolets raising fears it will hit Lake Pontchartrain.

274. July 8 – United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 2–1 vote refuses to

overturn oil drilling moratorium in Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC v. Salazar.

Administration says it will issue a new moratorium.

275. July 10 – Old cap removed from well at 12:37 p.m. CDT in preparation for a new

cap. Oil is expected to flow unabated into the Gulf for 48 hours.

276. July 12

277. Three ram capping stack installed on the Deep Water Horizon LMRP at 7 p.m.

CDT (0000 GMT). The stack completes the installation of the new 40-ton containment

device sealing cap. Tests begin on testing well integrity.

278. Salazar issues a new moratorium until November 30 on deepwater wells that use a

blowout preventer.

279. National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore

Drilling begins two days of hearings at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside

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280. July 15 – BP test cuts off all oil pouring into the Gulf at 2:25 pm. However Thad

Allen cautions that it is likely that containment operations will resume following the test.

281. July 16 – A Whale will not join the containment process after tests show that its

skimming operations were "negligible" in comparison to the much smaller and more

nimble skimmers.

282. July 18 – Allen sends Dudley a letter to provide "written procedure for opening

the choke valve as quickly as possible" noting tests have "detected seep a distance from

the well and undetermined anomalies at the well."

283. July 19

284. Kent Wells says BP is considering a "static kill" of the well using heavy mud

bumped through the new cap in a process known as bullheading.

285. Donald Vidrine, who was the ranking BP representative on Deepwater Horizon,

citing ill health refuses to testify at Coast Guard hearing into the accident.

286. July 22

287. Ships and personnel leave the spill site as Tropical Storm Bonnie approaches.

288. NOAA reopens one-third of closed area of Gulf to fishing.

289. July 24

290. BP says an internal investigation has cleared itself of gross negligence in the spill

and will publish the findings in the next month.

291. Ships return after Bonnie turns out not to have been as strong as anticipated.

292. July 27

293. Towing vessel Pere Ana C pushing the barge Captain Beauford collides with

Louisiana-owned oil and natural gas rig C177 in the northern part of Barataria Bay south

of Lafitte, Louisiana. 6,000 feet of boom are placed around rig while it is evaluated.

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294. BP board formally announces that Bob Dudley will replace Tony Hayward as BP

CEO effective October 1.

295. August.

296. August 2

297. Flow Rate Technical Group reports that the well initially was dumping 62,000

barrels of oil per day initially after the spill and that it dwindled to 53,000 barrels when it

was capped as the well was depleted. This means that 4.9 million barrels were dropped

into the Gulf.

298. Environmental Protection Agency releases a study of eight dispersants which

concludes that Corexit 9500 "is generally no more or less toxic than mixtures with the

other available alternatives" and that "dispersant-oil mixtures are generally no more toxic

to the aquatic test species than oil alone."

299. August 4 – BP reports that the well achieved “static condition” shortly after

midnight after drilling mud is said to now fill the well.

300. August 14 – Obama on a one-night vacation stays at the Back Bay Marriott in

Panama City, Florida. The White House releases a photo of Obama and Sasha Obama

swimming in St. Andrew's Bay (Florida) near Alligator Point. The Press was not present

during the swim.

301. September

302. September 29 – Andy Inglis, who headed deepwater drilling operations in the

Gulf of Mexico at the time of the spill, steps down as head of the upstream business.

303. September 30 – Dudley tells the Houston Chronicle, "We don't believe we have

been grossly negligent in anything we've seen in any of the investigations." Dudley also

announces BP will create a stronger safety division.

304. October

305. October 1 – Allen steps down and on Oct. 4, 2010

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306. Feinberg: Distance Not a Determining Factor in Paying Oil Spill Claims

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307. May 28 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc added rubber golf balls and scraps to the mud it

was pumping into its leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well in an effort to stop the spill, which

Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward called an “environmental catastrophe.”

308. The company restarted its effort to block the well with mud in a procedure known

as “top kill” at 7 p.m. New York time yesterday, said U.S. Coast Guard Chief Bob Laura.

The attempt began May 26 and was suspended the same day at 11 p.m. for adjustments,

including use of rubber material already on hand in case BP tried a separate procedure

called a “junk shot.”

309. BP said in a statement today that it has spent $930 million responding to the spill,

which began after an April 20 rig explosion that killed 11 workers. The well has been

spewing an estimated 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf, a U.S.

government panel said yesterday. The midpoint of that estimate would make it the

nation’s largest oil spill on record and more than twice as big as the Exxon Valdez

disaster in 1989.

310. “This is clearly an environmental catastrophe,” Hayward said today in a CNN

television interview. He also called the situation “a very significant environmental crisis”

and said BP is pumping “loss-control” material into the so-called blowout preventer atop

the well to stanch the flow of oil.

311. Today’s comments came two weeks after Hayward was quoted by The Guardian

newspaper in the U.K. as saying the spill was “relatively tiny” compared with the “very

big ocean.” Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said May 26 that the spill had polluted 100

miles (161 kilometers) of his state’s coastline.

312. 4.1 Junk Shot

313. The giant oil slick in the Gulf threatens the region’s fishing and tourism

industries. The amount of oil being spilled will help determine BP’s liability for the leak,

according to U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen.

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314. BP added the junk-shot materials after pumping mud alone into the well for 11

hours Wednesday. The company previously said it would add the rubber pieces if needed.

315. BP opted to add the material to block leaks in the well, Doug Suttles, chief

operating officer for the London-based company’s exploration and production business,

said at a press conference yesterday in Robert, Louisiana. Some of the junk-shot pieces

are fibrous and small, and others are larger rubber balls, he said.

316. The mud alone may not have been sufficient to hold back the oil, said Pedro

Alvarez, chairman of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Rice

University in Houston.

317. ‘Oil Bubbling Up’

318. “It became fluidized in a way, like quicksand,” Alvarez said today in a telephone

interview. “When you have the oil bubbling up from this gorge, the oil coming up pushed

the mud out.” The rubber materials may allow the mud to set completely enough for BP

to cap the well with concrete, he said.

319. The first phase of the top-kill effort used less than 15,000 barrels of drilling mud,

Suttles said. BP had 50,000 barrels available and has made sure there are additional

supplies on hand for when pumping resumes, he said.

320. The 19-hour pause in injecting material in the well may have allowed BP to

evaluate whether the mud would stop the flow of oil completely enough to allow the

company to add concrete, Alvarez said. “I don’t see it as something really weird,

necessarily,” he said.

321. Don Van Nieuwenhuise, director of Professional Geoscience Programs at the

University of Houston, said he sees BP’s chances of success with top kill at 60 percent to

70 percent.

322. Outlook Dims?

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323. “If they hadn’t had to do the junk shot, I would have thought the things are

working really well, but the fact that they’ve done this junk shot suggests that they

decided that they needed to do something a little bit extra to do it more effective,”

Nieuwenhuise said in a telephone interview.

324. BP spokesman David Nicholas declined to comment this afternoon on progress

with the top-kill effort. Tad Patzek, chairman of the Petroleum and Geosystems

Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Austin, said that based on a live

video feed as of 2 p.m. New York time, “it’s not going well.”

325. “You have more or less the equivalent of six fire hoses blasting oil and gas

upwards and two fire hoses blasting mud down,” said Patzek, who watched the video

feed over much of the past 48 hours. “So you can see that they are at a disadvantage.”

326. If successful, the top-kill procedure would serve as a temporary block on the

damaged well until a relief well can be drilled and used to plug Macondo.

327. 4.2 Relief Well

328. BP leased the rig destroyed in the explosion, the Deepwater Horizon, from

Geneva-based Transocean Ltd., the world’s largest deep-water driller. BP has a 65

percent stake in the well, known as Macondo. Its partners in the project are Anadarko

Petroleum Corp. and Japan’s Mitsui & Co.

329. Because of safety concerns raised by the blast and spill, President Barack Obama

extended a moratorium on deep-water drilling permits by six months. Obama, who

traveled to Louisiana today as he sought to blunt criticism of his administration’s

response to the spill, said Energy Secretary Steven Chu will work with BP to seek

alternatives if the top-kill plan fails.

330. “There are going to be a lot of judgment calls involved here,” Obama told

reporters in Grand Isle, Louisiana. “There are not going to be silver bullets for the

problems we face.”

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331. BP fell 5 percent to 494.8 pence in London and has lost 25 percent of its market

value since the blast. It rose 5.9 percent yesterday, its biggest gain in more than a year,

after reports of progress on the top kill.

332. Shares Fall

333. Anadarko, based near Houston, dropped 5.8 percent to $52.33 as of the 4 p.m.

close of New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Transocean fell 4.9 percent to

$56.77. Mitsui rose 1.4 percent to 1,321 yen in Tokyo.

334. Congress has scheduled at least 20 hearings on the Deepwater Horizon and

offshore drilling since the rig exploded, and the Minerals Management Service and Coast

Guard are holding hearings in Louisiana on the reasons for the incident.

335. The spill has cost BP about $24 million a day. BP’s profit last year averaged $45

million a day. The response has involved more than 1,300 tugs, barges and other vessels.

More than 3.15 million feet of containment boom is in place to protect the shoreline and

fish nurseries.

336. About 26,000 damage claims have been filed and 11,650 have already been paid,

BP said today.

337. On July 16

338. After 85 days and 184 million of gallons of continuous oil leak and after

implementing several oil spill solutions, finally the BP oil spill for the first time has

stopped flowing. This was clearly seen in the BP oil spill live feed shot shown above

which was taken July 15 . According to BP, the oil spill stopped flowing at around

3:25pm Eastern Time when the last valve in their latest oil spill cap was shut off.

339. However, this was not permanent as BP needs to monitor if the oil spill cap can

hold the pressure of the oil leak. As BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said: “It’s

far from the finish line. … It’s not the time to celebrate.”

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340. Possible problems might still arise from the sealed oil leak. There were a lot of

“Ifs” and these should be addressed by BP immediately so that they could move on with

their next steps. What if the oil spill cap suddenly broke? What if there would be a broken

pipe? And worst, what if the oil would be forced down into the ocean bed rock which

could rupture the sea floor?

341. Since this was just a temporary oil spill solution, BP said that the next 48 hours

would be crucial. Their scientists and engineers were on stand by monitoring the pressure

changes. High pressure would mean that the oil spill cap was effective in containing the

oil spill  while low pressure could mean that there were still unnoticed broken oil pipes.

BP is set to have another press release at around 9:30am CDT on July 16, 2010 regarding

the results of their monitoring.

342. 5 Issues pulled out by people at USA

343. Thats not oil. BP lied to the general public and the government is helping. Last

time I checked oil wasn't orange? they hit a volcanic chamber and are saying its an oil

spill to make the public think they're losing money and purposely spilling oil onto the

surface of the gulf to make people believe it. Also, oil isn't water soluble, so it's obvious

that the oil isn't mixing with a different element. Black plus any colour = black. Oil is

crude black and this is orange. Discuss

344. Actually, that is oil, and BP didn't actually lie about it. A volcanic chamber would

not have a plug like this on it, and have orange gas spewing from it. Although sulfur

would be orangish in colour, the immense heat would evaporate the surrounding water,

making immense amounts of bubbles. The crude oil itself has many different forms,

making it possible to have orange coloured oil. The crude oil can be thick and black, or

close to gasoline like materials.

345. There are many cool ideas out there but BP, Gov't and Coast Guard dont want

them. There is a super size tanker waiting on stand by from Taiwan which can do

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500,000 gallons a day sucking up the oil, separating it etc but they are not acting on it due

to the jones act. Look at Kevin Costnar. I think everyone should just go do this and take it

into there own hands. Are they going to arrest everyone for trying to help out?

346. BP's deep earth drilling was very risky and they already drilled deeper than they

had permission to drill.

347. After the accident, massive damage and public disapproval, its perfectly

reasonable to expect that BP would not be allowed to drill there again.

348. Thats why they didn't cap the pipe.

349. If they allow it to keep leaking dangerously, they can drill more without any

public/government resistance.

350. Once they're pumping oil adjacently, they will cap leaking pipe

351. The real problem continuing to gush oil into the Gulf was not the 6-inch "riser"

that apparently has been capped amid much TV hoopla, but that an open hole or cauldron

perhaps up to 10 miles distant from where British Petroleum's cameras are focused which

continues to spew 120,000 BARRELS per day, and that BP's much publicized effort to

drill relief wells in what the company says is an effort to stop the flow of oil is nothing

but a cynical publicity stunt.

352. Using blow out preventers ...as crack pipes 101 there is a flex joint rated at 5000

psi on the stack of horizion oil well government says they want to maintain 8000 psi in

the well to check integrity of well casing THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE ... THOSE

PREASURES WOULD BLOW OUT THIS 5000 PSI FLEX JOINT this idiots are just

shoveling pelican poop for the brain dead to believe to tell such a huge lie ..there must be

some thing very ugly to cover up more pelican poop less bull shat

353. the Oil States FlexJoint actually in place on horizon well is a Model 5, and

therefore has a MWP (maximum working pressure) of 5000 psi. So now, the pressures

Our Government has signed off on applying, are at least 2,000 psi differential pressure

over the rating of the component!

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354. The rapid depressurization which now occurs kilometers below the ocean bed due

to the Gulf Oil Spill could destabilize the terrestrial crust within that area, which already

has anomalies caused by the 60M years ago asteroid impact, leading to unpredictable

consequences, like earthquakes or the sudden creation of mega sinkholes, craters or

petroleum volcanoes. Population should be advised on these possible scenario in order to

get a chance of preparation (in any) and surviving.

355. That's freaking ridiculous, you can't quantify the amount of oil in the world they

find new reserves every day. There's more than 800 billion barrels in the green river

formation alone, all the middle east countries combined has less than 200 billion. They

don't even know if it is finite, seeing as how they don't actually know what the source of

oil is. No offense but this just proves the American public HAS ABSOLUTELY NO

FREAKING IDEA WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON

356. Oil is EVERYWHERE friend, there are more than 1 trillion barrels in Canada

alone, 1 trillion in the Green River formation in Colorado, 5 billion barrels in Montana

etc... etc.. etc.. That's more than 1.75 trillion more barrels than all the middle eastern

countries combined. ...and don't even get me started on the natural gas, that's not even

quantifiable. The problem THE ENVIROTURDS WON'T LET THEM DRILL FOR IT!

So they drill where they don't have the technology to drill, at 5000 ft

357. BP when they were making the oil rig they decided not to put a shut off valve on

the pipe which cut the flow but it costs $500,000... well that sounds a bit better then 7

billion to try and clean up the shit when it coulda been prevented, stupid money hungry

CEOs!

358. Tony Hayward testified yesterday, today BP stock went up 4%.The economical

impact is estimated at $60 billion. BP will pay up to $20 billion, the rest will be picked up

by Americans, in the form of going bankrupt and losing their businesses. It’s astonishing

to learn that the USA Goverment has no intention to press for a criminal investigation

against BP.

359. 4 months ago

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360. i cannot believe that they pinched the pipe into a poor shape.

361. they need to cut it with an underwater grinder so it is smooth and circular again.

362. then the need to place an open gate valve over it. this way it will not blow off.

363. it will slip on very easily if it is open.

364. this would have a tapered section. then once on, it gets bolted onto the pipe.

365. then they need to wind up the gate valve

366. Probably due to the immense pressure. To restrict this kind of flow at 35,000 feet,

you would have to plug the well with cement, or some other hard substance. But pinching

it shut will only cause that medal to burst in another section of the pipe. Might slow it

down though. Before it popped again.

367. Biggest catastrophe USA ever seen in recent history. Millions of gallons of oil

destroying our ocean. You think govt should do nothing not get involved because it's not

their responsibility - in their own country- + international waters?

368. Goldman Sachs sells 44% of its BP stocks 3 weeks before disaster. Tony

Hayward sells £1.4 million of his shares also before disaster. Halliburton buys oil cleanup

company Boots and Coots 2 weeks before disaster. And this is supposed to be

Coincidence!?!

369. 1) plugged it - wrong, a leaking cap is not a plug

370. 2) stopped leaking - Sherlock try watch the live feed

371. 3) gonna start cleaning - wrong, desperate efforts on the way since weeks

372. 4) salvage and fix the burnt, sunken frickin rig 1 mile down - be my guest name a

credible source

373. 5) noone needs to worry - now wait a second technically that's not a fact, it's more

an opinion.

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374.

375. 6. Investigations by MMS

376. Based on the initial investigation conducted by the United States Coast Guard and

the Minerals Management services the following had been the initial findings of what

may have caused the incident:

377. First, it was found out that there was a leak in the hydraulic system that provides

power to the shear rams;

378. Second, there are unexpected modifications in the BOP which includes the

connection of the underwater control pannel to a test ram rather than the bore ram, the

huge discrepancy of the structural plan to the actual structure constructed;

379. Third, the BOP shear rams lack the power to cut through joints in the well pipe

and the success rate of the BOP is expected to be at only 90% of the drill pipe; and

380. Fourth, the emergency control mechanism of the platform had severely failed and

the system may not be as effective as it should have been. One of the proof to this is that

one of the so called “dead man’s” switch has a busted battery.

381. Besides these initial observations it had been revealed as well that there had

already been about 39 eplosions prior to this incident during the period from first five

months of 2009. The coast guard had also acknowledge at east 18 smalkl scale BP Oil

leak from 2009 to 2010.

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382. In order to speed up investigation and to determine the root causes of the disaster

so that disasters like this will be prevented in the future, President Barack Obama has

ordered an independent investigation last May 11. The investigation will be headed by

the National Academy of Engineering and will conduct an independent technical

investigation on the BP Oil Lek disaster.

383. As for the current situation of the BP Oil Leak, BP Plc had decided to have a new

approach to the catastrophic and life threatening oil leak. BP had deployed a mile-long

siphon tube through undersea robots. The siphoning-tube will be brought down to the

leaking well and BP is hoping to capture about a fifth of the oil leaking from it.

384. BP officials says that the tube will help contain the flow but it will not stop the

flow of oil out of the well.

385. BP Chief Executive Tony Howard says they feel that they have turned the tide in

their favor and the BP Oil leak will be contained in the coming days. He also added that

in the last 48 hours they have achieved some good progress.

386. A study released by the Center for Public Integrity showed two BP-owned U.S.

refineries accounted for 97 percent of all flagrant safety violations found in the refining

industry by government inspectors over the past three years.

387. The BP Oil leak had placed the London-based company into full scrutiny as

various environmental, safety and state regulations had been violated by the company.

Jordan Barab the deputy assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health

says the BP has a serious, systematic safety problem.

388. Meanwhile in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid has rejected a proposed cap

of $10 billion for oil companies to cover damage from oil spills. Reid says this is

inadequate considering its possible long term effect on the environment.

389. The current BP Oil leak is closing in damage and danger to the 1989 Exxon

Valdez accident in Alaska which so far has been the worst U.S. ecological disaster.

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390. The incident will also certainly hold the proposal to increase offshore mining

permits in the United States and will put a strict review on the ecological viability of it.

Before this incident there were lobbying to allow increased offshore drilling in the United

State and they are indeed making progress, however the BP Oil leak puts them on the

retreat.

391. A Survivor Recalls His Harrowing Escape; Plus, A Former BP Insider

Warns Of Another Potential Disaster

392. He says the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon had been building for weeks in

a series of mishaps. The night of the disaster, he was in his workshop when he heard the

rig's engines suddenly run wild. That was the moment that explosive gas was shooting

across the decks, being sucked into the engines that powered the rig's generators.

"I hear the engines revving. The lights are glowing. I'm hearing the alarms. I mean,

they're at a constant state now. It's just, 'Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.' It doesn't stop. But

even that's starting to get drowned out by the sound of the engine increasing in speed.

And my lights get so incredibly bright that they physically explode. I'm pushing my way

back from the desk when my computer monitor exploded," Williams told Pelley.

The rig was destroyed on the night of April 20. Ironically, the end was coming only

months after the rig's greatest achievement.

Mike Williams was the chief electronics technician in charge of the rig's computers and

electrical systems. And seven months before, he had helped the crew drill the deepest oil

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well in history, 35,000 feet.

"It was special. There's no way around it. Everyone was talking about it. The

congratulations that were flowing around, it made you feel proud to work there," he

remembered.

Williams worked for the owner, Transocean, the largest offshore drilling company. Like

its sister rigs, the Deepwater Horizon cost $350 million, rose 378 feet from bottom to top.

Both advanced and safe, none of her 126 crew had been seriously injured in seven years.

The safety record was remarkable, because offshore drilling today pushes technology

with challenges matched only by the space program.

Deepwater Horizon was in 5,000 feet of water and would drill another 13,000 feet, a total

of three miles. The oil and gas down there are under enormous pressure. And the key to

keeping that pressure under control is this fluid that drillers call "mud."

"Mud" is a manmade drilling fluid that's pumped down the well and back up the sides in

continuous circulation. The sheer weight of this fluid keeps the oil and gas down and the

well under control.

The tension in every drilling operation is between doing things safely and doing them

fast; time is money and this job was costing BP a million dollars a day. But Williams says

there was trouble from the start - getting to the oil was taking too long.

Williams said they were told it would take 21 days; according to him, it actually took six

weeks.

With the schedule slipping, Williams says a BP manager ordered a faster pace.

"And he requested to the driller, 'Hey, let's bump it up. Let's bump it up.' And what he

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was talking about there is he's bumping up the rate of penetration. How fast the drill bit is

going down," Williams said.

Williams says going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools

and that drilling fluid called "mud."

"We actually got stuck. And we got stuck so bad we had to send tools down into the drill

pipe and sever the pipe," Williams explained.

That well was abandoned and Deepwater Horizon had to drill a new route to the oil. It

cost BP more than two weeks and millions of dollars.

"We were informed of this during one of the safety meetings, that somewhere in the

neighborhood of $25 million was lost in bottom hole assembly and 'mud.' And you

always kind of knew that in the back of your mind when they start throwing these big

numbers around that there was gonna be a push coming, you know? A push to pick up

production and pick up the pace," Williams said.

Asked if there was pressure on the crew after this happened, Williams told Pelley,

"There's always pressure, but yes, the pressure was increased."

But the trouble was just beginning: when drilling resumed, Williams says there was an

accident on the rig that has not been reported before. He says, four weeks before the

explosion, the rig's most vital piece of safety equipment was damaged.

393. By 300+ feet you mean 1000 feet? I have photographs and the scale of the tower

is known. I measured it to 900, and the flame kept burning and rising after my last

exposure was over. So I'd say 1000 is about right. The flames from JUST the wooden

tower itself burning AFTER the explosion were over 300 feet tall!

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394.395. Cleaning up oil spills

396. FOAM FILLED CONTAINMENT BOOM

397. Standard booms always in stock ready for immediate shipment. Foam

buoyancy oil spill booms are typically used in ports, harbors and inland

environments.

398. INFLATABLE CONTAINMENT BOOM

399. With compact storage dimensions, this type of boom is ideal for vessel

deployment. Available in Urethane and Rubber materials

400.401. BOOM REELS

402. Boom reels available in standard sizes or

custom

403. built to client requirements.

404.

Boom reel power units - diesel

or electrically operated, fitted

with controls for the safe

operation of the reel.

405. 406.

407. Skimmer

408. capacity 225 to 4 gpm

417.

419.

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409. 13500 to 24000 gph

410. 306 to 554 ?BPH

411. Units have adjustable height control to maximize skim volume

412. The foam is pulled out in a tankin 30 mins

413. Dispersant

414. Separates the oil into smaller droplets

415. Dispersed throughout the water column

416. Prevent surface slick – affects beaches, marshes, animals – immediate

damage

421. Lessons to be learned from CATOSTHROPE

1. Aggressive corporate cultures discount risk- that is dangerous.

422. *Don’t play down problems

2. Preparing for a world where things only go right is dangerous.

423. *No worst case scenario planning is done by many companies

3. Looking at prior record and prior ability to marshal an emergency response to

424. satisfy safety analysis concerns is not correct.

425. *This is because as industry goes into deeper waters earlierlessons learned may

426. not be sufficient

4. There should be clear communication between all parties to a contract.

427. *Here three companies were involved -BP, Transocean which owned the rig and

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428. Halliburton , the drilling ops contractor

429. *constant and open communication was lacking between the parties to see how

430. one party's actions affected others; for instance a cap designed for a particular

431. depth may not work when drilling goes deeper.

5. Do not ignore initial red flags

432. *Deep water Horizon was possibly equipped with a system called

433. E-drill which continuously beams data from rig operations to a

434. monitoring centre in Houston. So they should have had

435. preliminary danger signals. Were they ignored?

6. Psychological factors should be clearly understood.

436. Michael Roberto professor of management at Bryant University

437. says:

438. "When red flags appear , there is a powerful human tendency

439. to discount the risk , particularly if we are not sure we have a

440. solution. People don't want to grapple with the horror of not

441. having a solution. Instead they convince themselves the

442. problems are smaller than they are.”

443. In every risk committee meeting this quote should be prominently displayed.

7. CFO's should play a more critical role in risk management- they should have a

444. ‘second set of eyes’ to see such risks and caution the management.

8. Never underestimate intelligence of others

9. You are only as strong as your weakest link

10. BP has clearly said the responsibility for safety existed with Transocean

445. Transocean's list of customers includes Exxon, Anadarko and Chevron- so this

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446. can happen to others also?

11. There should always be a ‘Plan B’ which should be tested

447. and be battle ready.

448. Two relief wells won't be finished till Aug - Temporary fix being tried to cap

449. the spill. No one is sure this will work. Thus no one was prepared for this at all.

12. US Government acts differently when it comes to USA.

450. In Bhopal they have taken a stand that Union Carbide/Dow is not responsible.

451. In BP President Obama says he will make BP pay every penny for the oil spill!

452. What should the US Govt do?

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1. Set up a daily command center in Washington where apresidentially appointed

453. leader runs the show, calls the shots,coordinates the overall effort, briefs the

454. president and briefs the country.

2. Have two deputies, one to direct the leak-stoppage and the other to direct the

455. clean-up. Ex-CEOs and generals would be excellent candidates.

3. Summon all the major oil and drilling companies to the White House for

456. emergency efforts to get the hole plugged.

4. Get BP out of the picture for clean-up; just send it the bill. If it is still needed for

457. hole-plugging, okay, but ensure that it answers every day to directions from the

458. government. If BP needs new internal leadership, figure out how to get that

459. done.

5. Employ the U.S. military for organizational coordination and where needed, for

460. anything else such as clean-up.

6. Make more aggressive efforts to tap the best minds in the worldfor help.

7. Provide the country with the kind of daily briefings that the military has mastered for

wartime — bring in people who are smart, straight and tough.

8. Ensure that economic assistance is provided to families, small businesses and

communities that need it with dispatch and generosity.

9. Call off the finger pointing until we get out of this mess.

10. And finally, very importantly, exercise the powers ofleadership every day from the Oval

Office.

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461. REFRENCES

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-rJH9xB7fk

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLiqvZOP8TY&feature=fvw

3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-4RtdBxPzY&feature=related pple at rig workin

4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAi7AeFZv8U&feature=channel nice graphics of

"dwhr"

5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhgvAxshlDw&feature=related how to fix oil rig

6. HTTP://WWW.PBS.ORG/NEWSHOUR/RUNDOWN/2010/07/WATCH-THE-OIL-

LEAK-STOP-IN-HIGH-SPEED-VIDEO.HTML#MORE

462. http://www.cbsnews.com/8601-18560_162-6490197-

463. 3.html?

assetTypeId=30&blogId=&tag=contentBody;commentWrapper#ixzz131qu8Qf5

464. http://www.cbsnews.com/8601-18560_162-6490197-

465. 2.html?

assetTypeId=30&blogId=&tag=contentBody;commentWrapper#ixzz131moJrsb

9. http://www.cbsnews.com/8601-18560_162-6490197- 1.html?

assetTypeId=30&tag=contentBody;commentWrapper#ixzz131lvxZVe

11. http://www.inspiredm.com/2010/07/07/40-ways-of-visualizing-bps-dark-mess/

12. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490197.shtml

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13. Clauss, Günther; E. Lehmann and C. Österfaard (1992). Offshore Structures Volume I:

Conceptual Design and Hydromechanics. pringer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York.

ISBN 978-3-540-19709-6.

466. Clauss, Günther; E. Lehmann and C. Österfaard (1993). Offshore Structures

Volume II: Strength and Safety for Structural Design. Springer Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

New York. ISBN 978-3-540-19770-6.

467. 13.DrillingAhead.com

14. Olsen, T. O. (2001). "Recycling of offshore concrete structures". Structural Concrete 2

(3): 169–173. ISSN 

15. CCAR web page: http://argo.colorado.edu/~realtime/welcome/ Leben, R. R., G. H. Born,

B.

468. R. Engebreth, 2002, Operational altimeter data processing for mesoscale

monitoring.

469. Marine Geodesy, 25, 3-18;

16. G. Zangari patent SIAE-OLAF n. 9903198/1999

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