Oil Spill in the Gulf

Ocean Energy Institute Founder Says New Hurricane Will Require Gulf Evacuation

July 22, 2010

Infowars.com - The U.S. National Hurricane Center has warned that a weather system near Cuba, centered between islands of Acklins and Great Inagua, may move into the Gulf of Mexico this weekend, reports Bloomberg this morning.

“I am still worried about how it will move the oil slick into the coastal areas of Louisiana and Mississippi,” meteorologist Jim Rouiller said.

In response to the approach of the tropical cyclone, BP workers in the Gulf of Mexico have stopped drilling a relief well and are preparing to evacuate, reports the BBC. On Wednesday, National Incident Commander Thad Allen said a tropical storm in the area could push back the timetable 10 to 14 days.

Matthew Simmons, founder of the Ocean Energy Institute, told Bloomberg on Wednesday that a leak near the Deepwater Horizon site may require an evacuation of the Gulf Coast if a hurricane strikes the area.

“Some five to ten miles away is what the NOAA research vessels have proved is a deep oil leak that is growing by the day, and it is very toxic oil and its gases are very lethal; and, basically, if we have a hurricane now we need to evacuate the Gulf coast,” Simmons said.

Simmons also said BP has covered up the severity of the oil gusher, and if they had told the truth “they would all go to jail.”

As Infowars.com reported on June 24, Matthew Simmons is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and subscribes to the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth propaganda. He is also a proponent of Peak Oil, the scarcity theory exploited by globalists to push for depopulation and a systematic dismantling of modern civilization.

In response to the approach of Hurricane Alex in late June, Simmons predicted an evacuation of the Gulf states.

“Can you imagine evacuating 20 million people?… This story is 80 times worse than I thought.”

Hurricane Alex was the first tropical cyclone to form in the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm attained hurricane status on June 30 as it approached northeastern Mexico. It did not significantly impact the oil gusher zone in the Caribbean and struck near Soto la Marina in Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane.

Storm Churns Toward BP Well, Forcing Crews to Evacuate

July 23, 2010

CNN - As Tropical Depression Bonnie churns through the Gulf of Mexico, several response vessels at the site of BP's ruptured well were in the process of being moved out of harm's way Friday, possibly leaving the sealed well cap unattended for about 48 hours, federal officials said.

"The intention right now is to put the vessels in a safe place so they can return as quickly as possible," said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, head of the federal response team.

The rigs drilling the relief wells and the Q4000 recovery vessel were scheduled to be fully disconnected by late Friday afternoon, Allen said in a briefing. Operators manning the vessels will begin to move to a position of the "best survivability," he added.

Even if the vessels monitoring the well have to depart, Allen said Friday, they'll perform aerial and satellite surveillance and leave recording equipment at the base of the well to continue observation.

"If we have to evacuate the scene, we're probably looking at a very limited window, probably 48 hours," he said.

Allen said the cap placed over the damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico will remain sealed and continue to stop oil from escaping even if the more than 2,000 people who have been working at the well site are off the water.

Allen also addressed the "good and bad part" of a tropical storm hitting the Gulf region: While he acknowledged how a storm surge could drive the oil into beach and marsh areas, where it would have not been driven otherwise, Allen says the increased weather activity may "actually help" disperse the oil.

"So we're mindful that those are two consequences and prepared to move out and aggressively attack this once the threat is passed through. But in (the) meantime, preservation of life and preservation of equipment are our highest priority," Allen said.

Later, Allen told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "it's certainly going to be a setback" in the effort to permanently seal the well and clean up the Gulf.

He noted that 800 skimmers that had been collecting oil on the surface across the Gulf Coast will be returning to safety on shore, but said authorities are slowly making progress.

"I'm not ready to declare victory, nor should anybody. But we certainly are starting to gain a bit of an upper hand here," he said. "Of course, we still have beach cleanup and marshland areas that are affected."

BP said that pressure in the well continues to "slowly increase." Company officials said they will continue to take pressure readings and monitor the well as long as weather permits.

On Thursday, officials said the departure of the relief well rig could delay work on the operation -- described as the permanent fix to the ruptured well -- for at least 10 days.

The weather could force officials to temporarily scale back efforts to search beneath the surface for leaking oil. But Allen said Thursday that the remote vehicles used to monitor the area will be the last to leave and the first to return.

Sensors and extensive monitoring have allowed observers to "rule out any indications that there might be a leak," Allen said Thursday, noting that his confidence in the integrity of the well had "improved dramatically" after he examined data over the past few days.

Once the weather system passes, a plan is in the works to pump mud into the well to force oil back into the reservoir below. BP has Allen's approval to prepare for the "static kill" process, but would still need the government's final go-ahead before proceeding, BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells said.

As of 8 p.m. ET, the system had emerged in the eastern Gulf after crossing southern Florida.

The depression was moving west-northwest at a very fast clip for such weather systems -- 17 mph. It's expected to cross over the Gulf coast, anywhere from Louisiana to southeastern Texas, late Saturday night, earlier than had been anticipated previously.

If the storm continues on its path, it could slam into the area of the BP oil spill and possibly push more oil to shore.

The tropical weather system could diminish or erase encouraging signs of recovery from the BP oil spill, according to a scientist who spearheaded the first major examination of the Louisiana coast wetlands.

BP's Oil Well to Stay Shut Despite Tropical Storm

July 22, 2010

Associated Press – Engineers have grown so confident in the leaky cap trapping oil inside BP's crippled well that they will leave it closed and unwatched if a tropical storm that formed Thursday forces them to flee, the government's spill chief said.

Barring another setback — and the three-month operation has been filled with them — crude should never again gush from the infamous well.

Tropical Storm Bonnie, which blossomed over the Bahamas and was to enter the Gulf of Mexico by the weekend, could delay by another 12 days the push to plug the broken well for good using mud and cement, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen and BP officials conceded. Even if it's not a direct hit, the rough weather will push back efforts to kill the well by at least a week.

"While this is not a hurricane, it's a storm that will have probably some significant impacts, we're taking appropriate cautions," Allen said in Mobile, Ala.

But a week of steady measurements through cameras and other devices convinced Allen they don't need to open vents to relieve pressure on the cap, which engineers had worried might contribute to leaks underground and an even bigger blowout. The cap was attached a week ago, and only minor leaks have been detected.

Allen said he would decide Thursday evening whether to order the withdrawal of the rig that's drilling the relief tunnel engineers will use to permanently throttle the free-flowing crude near the bottom of the well.

Crews will need up to 12 hours to disconnect the rig from the relief column, and forecasters say the storm could hit the spill site by Saturday morning.

The storm system caused flooding in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti before reaching tropical storm strength later Thursday, and Allen said crews expected sustained wind above 39 mph at the spill site by early Saturday.

Seas already were choppy in the Gulf, with waves up to five feet rocking boats as crews prepared to leave, and more of the smaller boats involved in the coastal cleanup were called into port, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft said.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said he expects local leaders in coastal parishes to call for evacuation of low-lying areas as early as Friday morning.

At the spill site, the water no longer looks thick with gooey tar. But the oil is still there beneath the surface, staining the hull of cutters motoring around in it.

One large vessel — the Helix Q4000 — is burning off oil collected from the water, and bright orange flames flared at the side of the ship.

Scientists say even a severe storm shouldn't affect the well cap, nearly a mile beneath the ocean surface 40 miles from the Louisiana coast.

"Assuming all lines are disconnected from the surface, there should be no effect on the well head by a passing surface storm," said Paul Bommer, professor of petroleum engineering at University of Texas at Austin.

Charles Harwell, a BP contractor monitoring the cap, was also confident.

"That cap was specially made, it's on tight, we've been looking at the progress and it's all good," he said after his ship returned to Port Fourchon, La.

Before the cap was attached and closed a week ago, the broken well spewed 94 million to 184 million gallons into the Gulf after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.

Work on plugging the well came to a standstill Wednesday, just days before authorities had hoped to complete the relief shaft. Allen said Thursday he has told BP to go ahead preparing for a second measure called a static kill that would pump mud and cement into the well from the top, a move he said would increase the relief well's chances for success. BP will have to get final approval from Allen before starting the procedure.

Vice President Joe Biden visited cleanup workers in southern Alabama, and said he was cheered the cap could remain on.

"After the storm's passage we will be right back out there," Biden said.

BP Defends CEO, Eyes New Option for Plugging Well

July 21, 2010

Reuters - ... In response to the spill, big oil companies including Exxon Mobil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell said they would spend $1 billion to develop a new spill containment system for the Gulf of Mexico.

It will aim for water depths up to 10,000 feet and have an initial capacity to contain 100,000 barrels (4.2 million gallons/15.9 million liters) of oil per day. The failed BP well is a mile below the ocean surface.

The environmental disaster caused by the April 20 oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana has devastated U.S. Gulf Coast tourism and fishing industries and dented President Barack Obama's approval ratings.

BP capped the blown-out well last week, choking off the flow of oil for the first time since the explosion. U.S. officials have given BP permission for more pressure tests on the capped well to be reassured of its integrity.

BP scientists are also preparing another option -- a "static kill" to help smother and plug the leak. That approach would involve pumping heavy drilling mud and possibly cement into the well, much like BP's failed "top kill" effort in May.

The top U.S. spill official, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, said that if he approves the plan, BP could begin that "static kill" operation by this weekend -- if bad weather does not force a delay.

Officials are watching a northern Caribbean weather system that could move into the Gulf and force BP to delay its work by up to 10 to 14 days if all vessels must evacuate.

"Any operations out there would have to be suspended whether it's containment or the relief well," Allen said of the potential storm.

BP is drilling a relief well intended to intersect and plug the ruptured well next month.

Gulf coast residents hard hit by the spill and hurricanes in the past hoped the weather would not turn stormy.

"I hope the hurricane does not happen ... It would be another setback. For every step we take, we take two back," said Claudette Perrin, 70, who runs the local tourism office in the fishing village of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana.

The relief well needs one last set of piping, or casing, cemented in place to hold it open before a drill bit can bore into the Macondo well near its bottom, 2.4 miles beneath the seabed, Allen said.

"Once the casing is in place, the static kill can proceed by this weekend," Allen said.

BP's market value has fallen around 39 percent since the oil began spewing into the Gulf, and the company worked on Tuesday to line up $7 billion in asset sales to help pay for the spill.

BP shares rose on Wednesday, buoyed by its sale of oil and gas properties in the United States, Canada and Egypt to U.S. company Apache Corp as part of a $10 billion asset-disposal plan. BP shares closed up 2.6 percent in New York and 3.2 percent in London.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are leading a $5 billion bridge loan backing Apache Corp's purchases in Texas, New Mexico and Egypt, three banking sources familiar with the deal said.

"Such a material sale, achieved so quickly, should ease if not banish any lingering concerns about BP's liquidity position," JP Morgan said in a note, adding the terms of the deal looked robust and underlined the mismatch between what BP could get for its assets and its battered stock price.

... Analysts have said a takeover by Exxon or any other oil company is unlikely because of U.S. regulatory hurdles.

The company created a $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the disaster. Kenneth Feinberg, appointed by Obama to oversee the fund, told the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee he might be more generous with claims than a court would be.

The states of New York and Ohio asked a federal judge to appoint them lead plaintiffs in spill-related class-action lawsuits against BP. In a court filing, the states said their BP investments had lost $181 million because of the company's alleged misleading of investors over the spill.