Weekend Update

by Bryan

4 comments

1 Kryten42 { 06.21.10 at 9:16 am }

A couple of current news items:

From CNN:
BP document: Worst-case scenario — 4.2 million gallons daily in Gulf

..
According to an internal BP document released Sunday by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, BP believed that the worst-case scenario could be as high as 100,000 barrels, or 4.2 million gallons of oil per day.

The figure is the highest yet to surface regarding the leaking oil well. At the disaster’s outset, BP claimed the leak was about 1,000 barrels a day, a number it later revised to 5,000 and then much higher. BP told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the worst-case scenario was 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons) a day, lower than what the document states.

The document, submitted in May, maintains the 60,000 barrel estimate, but stipulates that if the “blowout preventer and wellhead are removed and if we have incorrectly modeled the restrictions, the rate could be as high as 100,000 barrels a day.”

Markey said the document “raises very troubling questions about what BP knew and when they knew it.”

“It is clear that, from the beginning, BP has not been straightforward with the government or the American people about the true size of this spill,” said Markey, the chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
…

From NYT:
Lapses Found in Oversight of Failsafe Device on Oil Rig

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An examination by The New York Times highlights the chasm between the oil industry’s assertions about the reliability of its blowout preventers and a more complex reality. It reveals that the federal agency charged with regulating offshore drilling, the Minerals Management Service, repeatedly declined to act on advice from its own experts on how it could minimize the risk of a blind shear ram failure.

It also shows that the Obama administration failed to grapple with either the well-known weaknesses of blowout preventers or the sufficiency of the nation’s drilling regulations even as it made plans this spring to expand offshore oil exploration.

“What happened to all the stakeholders — Congress, environmental groups, industry, the government — all stakeholders involved were lulled into a sense of what has turned out to be false security,” David J. Hayes, the deputy interior secretary, said in an interview.

Even in one significant instance where the Minerals Management Service did act, it appears to have neglected to enforce a rule that required oil companies to submit proof that their blind shear rams would in fact work.

As it turns out, records and interviews show, blind shear rams can be surprisingly vulnerable. There are many ways for them to fail, some unavoidable, some exacerbated by the stunning water depths at which oil companies have begun to explore.

But they also can be rendered powerless by the failure of a single part, a point underscored in a confidential report that scrutinized the reliability of the Deepwater Horizon’s blowout preventer. The report, from 2000, concluded that the greatest vulnerability by far on the entire blowout preventer was one of the small shuttle valves leading to the blind shear ram. If this valve jammed or leaked, the report warned, the ram’s blades would not budge.
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2 Kryten42 { 06.21.10 at 9:26 am }

How’s your blood pressure Bryan? 😉

From TP:
Kristol: ‘It’s not healthy for the country…for the President to bully’ BP

Of course, as the sane amongst us know, this is from “The Moron who is NEVER right about Anything!” Sadly, that are a lot of other morons out there that worship at the feet of this moron. *shrug*

And speaking of other morons, what do we call it when one extreme moron calls another moron a moron (well, idiot actually… same thing but in this case)? 😆

Right Wing Hate Radio Host Mark Levin Attacks ‘Phony Populist Idiot’ Bill O’Reilly

It is nice to see the moronic sharks in a feeding frenzy amongst themselves though! Funnier than Jon Stewart! 😆

3 Steve Bates { 06.21.10 at 10:14 am }

That ERMA map appears to show the spill fairly close to you, Bryan. If I understand it right, the edge of the “light” zone is only a few dozen klicks from you. All we can do is keep our fingers crossed, a procedure I haven’t found very effective over the years. Good luck.

4 Bryan { 06.21.10 at 11:06 am }

Kryten, there is no way with anything approaching a competent group of people that you have a loose hydraulic fitting. It does not happen unless the job was rushed, but there was a loose fitting on that BOP. Who wastes their time installing something a mile under water with a dead battery? These guys.

The first time I heard Admiral “Clueless” talk about “BP’s expertise”, I gave up on the Feds. There were too many rookie mistakes for there to be any “expertise” involved.

Steve, it has already made a couple of runs at us, but it just offshore at the moment because of a wind shift. It is going to be off the shore for a very long time. We are still closing the Pass when the tide turns, because it would bring oil into our bay. The summer season is shot.