re: Oil Spill and Offshore Fishing (Latest Developments)

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BP should be on the offensive. Transocean seems to be totally forgotten.

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Every south LA court and jury will be willing to bring that Swiss and British money to the US.

I think in the end we are gonna find human error and complacency caused the problem, and then came along a failure of the back up systems in place to cover their arse.

Secretary Salazar just said the worst case scenario is 100k barrels a day. Someone please reassure me that this is not the case.

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Secretary Salazar just said the worst case scenario is 100k barrels a day. Someone please reassure me that this is not the case.

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Love all these politicians lining up to get on camera. Nothing like free political ads.

The spill is mostly from the river and to the east. So, with most of the winds and jet streams and such, wouldn't this keep this oil in the future to the east? River to the west should be OK right? This is if the normal weather paterns keep it blowing to the east.

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Friday, industry experts said based on satellite images and standard measuring indexes, they estimate the spill rate at 20,000 barrels a day to 25,000 barrels a day. If those rates are accurate, the spill could already rival the 11-million gallon Valdez slick that economically and environmentally devastated part of Alaska.

Allen said three leaks have now been found at the well.

Asked if the 25,000 barrel a day figures were accurate, head of BP America, Lamar McKay, said on ABC that their own estimates were "very, very uncertain."

Salazar said that he believed BP could stop the leak, but he fears that it may take 90 days to do that. BP is placing a new rig over the leak and will soon attempt to use drilling tools to close the leak.

If the 25,000 barrel-a-day estimate is accurate and the leak lasts for 90 days, that's 2.25 million barrels, or 94.5 million gallons.

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Wall Street Journal

If it is really that much and BP has had knowledge of this, I think they made a grave mistake by not put the information out.

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Yes highly unlikely I agree. I have heard of a few exceptional wells that produced over 100k but those were fracced or had an ESP or some sort of stimulation ie not a naturally flowing well. In other words there is no friggin way this well is producing at that rate.

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I'm surprised that we haven't seen this thing bridge over yet. Anyone know what reservoir this is? Miocene or Pliocene maybe?

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The spill is mostly from the river and to the east. So, with most of the winds and jet streams and such, wouldn't this keep this oil in the future to the east? River to the west should be OK right? This is if the normal weather paterns keep it blowing to the east.

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hopefully, so the wind is the #1 factor in how it moves followed by currents. with that said here is the wind forecast for the next few days. NOBODY is close to being out of the woods when it comes to seeing the effect of this

wind forecast

the currents forecast is on here as well, but it seems to be negligible as of now

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Good question. One thing that strikes me as odd is the guy interviewed mentioned pressures in the 30k to 40k psi range. That is insane and would be extremely abnormal for even the deepest reservoirs in the gulf.Hell i know alot of equipment isnt even rated to operate in those types of pressures.

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That's water pressure, right?

surface currents

interesting link showing the predicted surface currents and the effects of the opening of the MS river diversions

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after listening to the interview, he said that it came up the riser so fast that no-one noticed it. so, if that's the case, i doubt that they engaged the shear rams or the annulars. but, you never know, i have heard many different things. i do know that there is a secondary panel on that rig somewhere. most of the time it's in the control room. not sure why the rams were not activated from the secondary panel.

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I do not want to discuss too many details I am aware of but by the time the attempted to close in the well the BOP did not function. This was attempted on the rig floor as well as on the bridge where the 2nd BOP panel is located. Both attempts failed to close the rams. I have only heard estimates but the kick they took was MASSIVE. Off the charts.

There was only a window of 30 or so seconds from mud spewing through the top of the derrick and attempts are being made to close the well to the explosion wiping out everything on the rig.