Possible Seepage
The pressure on the Well from Hell has not risen to the levels that were predicted, but BP keeps saying there’s no problem, just like they did before the Deepwater Horizon blew up.
Via Lambert at Corrente I find out that CNN is reporting that the government has detected seepage in the area of the well. The government is finally running its own monitoring operations and has detected oil seeping from the floor of the Gulf and the presence of methane.
Admiral Allen wants BP to respond to the report and prepare to take on oil from the well to relieve the pressure.
The article also shows I’m not the only one who suspects that BP doesn’t want the flow from the Well from Hell determined:
Rep. Ed Markey, who has been a vocal critic of BP’s response to the gusher, said Sunday that the company could have another motivation for wanting to keep the well capped.
“If the well remains fully shut in until the relief well is completed, we may never have a fully accurate determination of the flow rate from this well. If so, BP — which has consistently underestimated the flow rate — might evade billions of dollars of fines,” Markey said in a letter to Allen released Sunday.
Using ships on the surface to collect 100 percent of the gushing oil would allow scientists to calculate the flow rate — a figure that the government would use to determine how much to fine BP, Markey said.
The BP legal department is making the decisions again, and that has got to be stopped.
4 comments
It looks like Admiral Allen has been overridden by BP going over his head to the Corporate Hopey Changey Tool in Chief, because they’re still not sucking on those hoses…
– Badtux the “Who elected BP as President?!” Penguin
It is hard to figure out what is going on with most of the information coming from unidentified sources in both camps and the Admiral’s letters the only thing actually put out by an official source.
The seep is supposedly about two miles from the well, which is close enough in sandstone, and there are gas bubbles showing up around the cap itself.
The gas bubbles are being treated just like the initial oil sightings, i.e. they have to be captured and analyzed before anyone will render an opinion as to what they are. In the absence of a clown or the Lawrence Welk orchestra [before your time] I think it would be fair to say that they are methane bubbles from the Well from Hell.
That pressure is too damn low and it would be safer to just suck up the oil until the relief well is ready.
Uhm, Lawrence Welk is *not* before my time. Alas. I still remember asking my mother, I was maybe 5 years old, “What are all those bubbles?!” That was back in the days when the Lawrence Welk Show was broadcast in black and white. Moving to color was somewhat traumatic, because the early NTSC colorbursts were none-too-accurate…
Somehow, like you, I doubt that the Lawrence Welk orchestra is down there blowing and sawing and squeezing away… no tap dancers or polkas, nosiree :).
– Badtux the Ancient Penguin
I think it was a Stan Freberg record that had a bit about the “bubble machine” running amok. Ah, yes, YouTube strikes again.