Gulf Gusher Could Be Major Black Swan (2 Viewers)

[Bjerknes]

For the big boys like Goldman, that's the way it seems. High frequency quant trading is essentially a milli-second version of insider trading. They front-run the market, then the government bails them out for their losses.

So, now the lower marine riser package is the next plan on the table, currently underway. This will try to direct much of the leaking crude to the surface. Flow will not be halted, but keeping the oil in a more limited space will help cleanup.

 

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[The Curr]

A grim report circulating in the Kremlin today written by Russia’s Northern Fleet is reporting that the United States has ordered a complete media blackout over North Korea’s torpedoing of the giant Deepwater Horizon oil platform

http://www.eutimes.net/2010/05/us-o...-korean-torpedoing-of-gulf-of-mexico-oil-rig/

 

[Bjerknes]

Tin bullshit, obviously.

 

[Bjerknes]

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) where one of my college friends works produced this animation of what could happen if the gusher leaks for months. It's not a forecast at this point, but just a model.


VERY incredible how once the spill works its way around Florida, the Gulf Stream shoots it up the East Coast and into the central Atlantic in under 20 DAYS.

Fuck...

Well hey, at least the bright side is that the Gulf Stream can take the flow back to the Brits where it fucking came from.

 

[Bjerknes]

Looking at the feed from the bottom of the Gulf, this is the worst I've ever seen the flow rate.

If 20,000 barrels a day was the conservative estimate before, this shit looks like at the very least 40,000 barrels a day. But most likely it's above 60,000.

 

[juve2]

There is no way any significant amount of oil is coming to Europe, the ocean is just too big.

And wasn't the latest attempt by BP sucesful, and the flow rate reduced by 90%?

 

[Bjerknes]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-...r-on-how-bad-bp-spill-was-/?cid=hp:mainpromo1

As the president visits the Gulf anew, Richard Wolffe reports that he was first briefed in April on how bad the spill would be. Plus: the real reason the White House is so mad at Carville—and why Obama would rather talk about the economy.

Critics have bashed President Obama for being slow to seize the political initiative in combating the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast, now widely believed to be the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. The White House has battled back, releasing a timeline of events showing that Obama was briefed—and deploying the Coast Guard—within 24 hours of the Deepwater Horizon blowout.

What has not been previously disclosed: The president was not only briefed on the real-time events of the spill, but also on just how bad it would be—and how hard it would be to plug the hole.

Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, told Obama at one of the earliest briefings in late April that the blowout would likely lead to an unprecedented environmental disaster, senior White House aides told The Daily Beast. Browner warned that capping a well at such depths had never been done before, and that they ought to expect an oil spill that would continue until a relief well was drilled in August, the aide said.

That early briefing on the scope of the spill—and enormous technical challenges involved in fixing it—might help explain the sense of fatalism that has infused Obama's team from the start.

...

Carville recently chanced upon Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen eating dinner with BP CEO Tony Hayward at a New Orleans restaurant, the senior White House aide says. Allen had called Carville after his first TV outburst to talk about the administration’s response, but Carville failed to return the call. When Allen asked why, Carville said he had been busy, the aide says (Carville did not reply to requests for comment). That does not sit well with administration officials who suggest that Carville’s readiness to go public with his criticism is not matched by his private willingness to offer concrete suggestions about what they could do differently.

I don't understand the politician psyche. Why on Earth would the Obama administration not admit outright that this disaster would probably go on until the relief wells were set up? Why would they hide behind "hope" instead of coming straight out to say that BP really screwed up, letting all the facts be known? Instead, they hide the facts, creating doubt over their own response to the situation, taking a risk that their lies will be exposed in the future.

Some might claim that the administration did not want to create panic. But my response to that would be... is withholding truth from the public or lying a better prescription? No, of course not, especially if you currently have a large base of people who no longer trust this charade... shown by the recent primaries.

They could have said this is a major disaster and the South needs the help of the entire nation to cleanup the mess of BRITISH PETROLEUM. Right there, he would be protecting his own administration and the rage of the public would be totally centered around BP.

Good job, Obama administration. Your lies will cost you.

 

[JuveJay]

Were the relief wells put into action straight away?

BTW there is no company called British Petroleum anymore, but I note the resentment and I suppose that is to be expected. Much the same way as British people stamped on US flags when Occidental Petroleum's Pipe Alpha rig went down in the North Sea killing 167 men in 1988. Oh no wait, that didn't happen. BP is an international company that looks after itself, the same as any other. As I said, I can understand how people are extremely upset, it's their livelihoods and home after all.

 

[Bjerknes]

Well, BP is basically like 5% of the FTSE 100. If such a corporation were to cease to exist, which is a possibility, Great Britain is fucked.

So sorry, but BP is more British than anything else.

The UK is fucked anyway, but still.

 

[JuveJay]

Apparently everything is fucked right now, if people cry and whinge about it more then it will sort itself out.

 

[Bjerknes]

This is fucking great.

 

[JuveJay]

If Kevin Costner says you're fucked.... YOU'RE FUCKED

True. I won't bother getting up tomorrow.

 

[ßöмßäяðîëя]

Signed up yesterday to be a relief worker making 24 to 48$/hr for oil cleanup in Texas, Florida, and Louisiana.

 

[Delle Alpi]

Just end this thing, send rosie o'donnell to sit on it! Her fat ass would be a perfect solution

 

[Bjerknes]

You are going to hate that.

 

[Delle Alpi]

Man her fat ass is capable of sucking millions of gallons and here presence isn't adding anything to humanity, so send her into the deep see.

 

[ßöмßäяðîëя]

Are you drunk?

 

[Delle Alpi]

No I am on oxy! Which is better

 

[Bjerknes]

Post from the Oil Drum.

What is likely to happen now?

Well...none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact...it's about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don't, they are inviting disaster that much sooner.

Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? ...it won't be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov't must be well aware too, they just are not telling us.

All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn't any "cap dome" or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?....is the only real chance we have left to stop it all.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593#comment-648967

Looking more and more likely that nothing will work as the whole system is compromised.

Pretty soon Obama will just have to declare that the Gulf of Mexico is nothing but a lagoon of oil and that it serves no other purpose than oil drilling.

Very dire.

 

[Bjerknes]

I'm wondering about the concentrations of Benzene and other toxic gases in the atmosphere down there. Even 100 ppb of Benzene is considered hazardous by health officials.