BP told feds it could handle oil spill 60 times larger

BP told feds it could handle oil spill 60 times larger than Deepwater Horizon


Some highlights:

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In its 2009 exploration plan for the Deepwater Horizon well, BP PLC states that the company could handle a spill involving as much as 12.6 million gallons of oil per day, a number 60 times higher than its current estimate of the [URL="https://www.al.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/"]ongoing Gulf disaster[/URL].

In associated documents filed with the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the company says that it would be able to skim 17.6 million gallons of oil a day from the Gulf in the event of a spill.

As of Tuesday, BP reported recovering 6 million gallons of oily water since the ongoing spill began four weeks ago. BP spokesman Tom Mueller said that only about 10 percent of the skimmed liquid was oil, which would amount to about 600,000 gallons of oil collected thus far.

...

An emergency would activate the company's Oil Spill Response Plan, a 582-page document submitted to federal regulators in 2008 and designed to cover all BP operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

According to the document, the response plan is triggered "in the event the spill cannot be controlled." It also calls for the company to "assemble a team of technical experts to respond to the situation."

The document provides no detailed discussions of how a runaway well would be stopped, nor does it reflect any plan for devices such as an insertion tube, which is now recovering an estimated 84,000 gallons of oil daily, or the failed containment dome.

...

It says dispersants will be able to sink 6,080 to 7,600 barrels per day into the Gulf.

A safety data sheet about the principal dispersant that the company has reported using during the ongoing spill says "no toxicity studies have been conducted on this product," and labels "the potential human hazard: High."


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I think it's clear that the only real R&D on these deep water spills is being done right now. Just a little late