Gulf coast oil spill

[classicman]

BP: No oil leaking into Gulf from busted well

NEW ORLEANS – A tightly fitted cap was successfully keeping oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time in three months, BP said Thursday. The victory — long awaited by weary residents along the coast — is the most significant milestone yet in BP's effort to control one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.

Kent Wells, a BP PLC vice president, said at a news briefing that oil stopped flowing into the water at 2:25 p.m. CDT after engineers gradually dialed down the amount of crude escaping through the last of three valves in the 75-ton cap.

"I am very pleased that there's no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, I'm really excited there's no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico," Wells said.

The stoppage came 85 days, 16 hours and 25 minutes after the first report April 20 of an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11 workers and triggered the spill.

Now begins a waiting period to see if the cap can hold the oil without blowing a new leak in the well. Engineers will monitor pressure readings incrementally for up to 48 hours before reopening the cap while they decide what to do.

Though not a permanent fix, the solution has been the only one that has worked to stem the flow of oil since April. BP is drilling two relief wells so it can pump mud and cement into the leaking well in hopes of plugging it for good by mid-August.

BP has struggled to contain the spill and had so far been successful only in reducing the flow, not stopping it. The company removed an old, leaky cap and installed the new one Monday.

Between 93.5 million and 184.3 million have already spilled into the Gulf, according to federal estimates.

Link

Yea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its a start <knock on wood>

[glatt]

I'd shout "hip hip hooray!" but I'm not sure I trust them. It's probably true, but I'll give it a week.

[classicman]

HAHAHAAHA

But I watched the video and and and its on the interwebs so it HAS to be true.

[zippyt]

Forward recon report from my Boss , he's at Navarre beach Fla ,
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=nevaro...7,0.13072&z=14

he says All clear , Houses are Empty , and EVERY thing is CHEAP !!!!!

[classicman]

Awesome zip - You reminded me to post that a friend of mine near Sanibel Island FL reports that all is well and the beach is gorgeous. As zip said there is plenty of room there also. Not a lot of tourists.

[classicman]

[SamIam]

I don't quite understand that picture. Is it supposed to show that the oil spill is as harmless as a single beer can? Tell that to all those fishermen who have lost their livelihood, and all those oiled animals and all the destroyed wetlands.

And all those people in the picture! Looks like the beginning of the end to me. If each of those people threw a beer can onto the playing field, there quickly would be nothing left.

[Happy Monkey]

And, while it may not be the healthiest beverage, beer isn't poison. There are poisons in which 24 oz could harm a stadium full of people. Or could greatly harm lots of people in a particular area of the stadium, regardless of the stadium size.

Or, in beer terms, what if an equivalent percentage of the beer in the stadium had been poisoned, and it was impossible to tell ahead of time which beers were tainted? Would you drink it?

And, pedantically, the only standard measurement of a football stadium is the area of the field, not volume.

[classicman]

no sam - not at all. It just gives some perspective as to the size of the gulf compared to the amount of oil spilled and the amount of damage this relatively tiny amount can cause.

[classicman]

China oil spill

BEIJING (AFP) - Authorities in northeastern China have mobilised 1,000 vessels to help clean up an oil spill in the Yellow Sea caused by a weekend pipeline explosion and fire, the government said on Monday.

Dozens of oil-skimming vessels were working to remove the slick off the port city of Dalian following Friday night's accident which spilled an estimated 1,500 tonnes of crude into the sea, press reports said.

Another 1,000 local fishing vessels have been ordered to aid the clean-up operation, the Dalian government said in a statement on its website.

Authorities predicted the clean-up would take 10 days.

The worst of the spill, which initially covered 50 square kilometres (19 square miles), had been reduced to 45 square kilometres as of Monday, the official China Central Television (CCTV) reported on its news website.

But a dark brown oil slick had stretched over at least 183 square kilometres of ocean, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The Dalian government said the last remnants of the fire had finally been put out and it declared a "decisive victory" against the spill, but did not explicitly say whether it had been completely halted.

Two pipelines exploded at an oil storage depot belonging to China National Petroleum Corp near Dalian's Xingang Harbour in Liaoning province, triggering a spectacular blaze that burned throughout the weekend. No deaths or injuries have been reported.

Authorities have since limited ship traffic at Dalian port to allow the clean-up operations to proceed, according to Xinhua.

CNPC is the country's biggest oil company.

Media reports quoted Dalian authorities saying investigators were still trying to determine the cause of the accident, which occurred after a Libyan-flagged tanker discharged its load at the port.

The tanker made it away from the oil storage facility safely, reports said.

Link
ahh the irony that the tanker was from Libya...

[classicman]

A few pics here

[ZenGum]

They'll do cheap knockoffs of anything, with worse labour conditions.

The cap appears to be holding, with some sea floor seepage. Some folks are saying they should uncap it and resume pumping from the hole to prevent the seepage. Seems unwise, this being hurricane season.

[glatt]

I wonder if the seepage can get worse. Like a levee experiencing seepage just before it fails.

[TheMercenary]

They have been really lucky up to this point with the lack of storms.

[Spexxvet]

Thad Allen, the official appointed by Barack Obama to lead the government's response to the disaster, said leaks detected over the weekend did not threaten the well.

He said the seepage of gas from the seabed probably had nothing to do with the well. Oil and gas are known to ooze naturally from fissures in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...l-seepage-well