Oil Bubbling Up is 'Dead Ringer Match' for BP’s Macondo Well

Neurotoxic shellfish poisoning (NSP) threatening human health along Texas Gulf Coast prompted Texas Department of Health to warn people to stay away from the Gulf area from Brownsville through Galveston where 4.2 million have been killed in the ongoing great Gulf die-off and to not eat the shellfish from there... Health officials have closed all oyster harvesting from Texas coastal waters due to the algae bloom known as red tide. The Texas Department of State Health Services on Wednesday announced the ban covers commercial and recreational harvesting of oysters, clams and mussels. The agency is also advising people not to harvest and eat oysters, clams, or mussels from Texas coastal waters. The algae contains a toxin that can lead to shellfish poisoning in humans. Spokeswoman Christine Mann says there's no time frame for the harvesting closure as state officials continue to monitor the red tide. The public can normally harvest oysters from November through April. Experts say the red tide, present early September along Texas, has killed at least 3 million fish. - Red tide closes all oyster harvesting in Texas; 4.2 Million Dead Fish; Texas Warns Stay Away from Gulf, The Associated Press, October 26, 2011

NOAA Oil Analyst: Oil Bubbling Up is 'Dead Ringer Match' for BP’s Macondo — NOAA Spokesman Claims It May Not Be Related to Blowout

September 29, 2011

Florida Oil Spill Law - LSU confirms oil from BP well; feds collect samples, Press-Register, September 26, 2011:

While the source of the oil bubbling up around the Deepwater Horizon site remains a mystery, a Louisiana State University scientist says further chemical analysis has confirmed that the oil originated in BP’s well, and not from other nearby sources, as federal officials have suggested. [...]

“Yes, the oil that you took was confirmed as MC252, but it does not necessarily mean it is in any way related to the (Deepwater Horizon) spill. Most of the oil throughout the region can be preliminarily identified as MC252 type,” the [Sept. 15 email from Ben Sherman, a NOAA spokesman] read. Sherman went on to say that NOAA’s Scientific Support Coordinator had consulted with the LSU chemists and determined that the oil might not be from the BP well.

Overton said federal officials were wrong. He said he rechecked the newspaper’s oil samples using the more refined analysis recommended by BP’s scientists and federal officials. [...]

Ed Overton, LSU chemist who did most of NOAA’s oil analysis during the spill:

• “They were suggesting I had jumped the gun when I said it matched (BP’s well).”
• “They are incorrect. I have double-checked, and I am even more convinced after using the suggestions that BP made that this was the Macondo oil. I think it is 99.9 percent confirmed that it came from that reservoir.”
• “It is a dead-ringer match. I was amazed that the ratios matched as good as they did.”

CONFIRMED: Oil Bubbling Up Above Macondo Well is Chemical Match to BP’s Crude, Says NOAA’s Ed Overton

August 26, 2011

Florida Oil Spill Law - Scientific analysis has confirmed that oil bubbling up above BP’s sealed Deepwater Horizon well in recent days is a chemical match for the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that spewed into the Gulf last summer. [...]

“After examining the data, I think it’s a dead ringer for the MC252 oil, as good a match as I’ve seen,” [Ed] Overton* wrote in an email to the newspaper. [...]

In an emailed statement, BP officials wrote that the company had a vessel stationed at the site all day Thursday but never saw any oil. [...]

“There is still no evidence that the oil came from the Macondo well,” BP officials wrote in the emailed statement. [...]

How is the oil escaping?

Bob Bea, a prominent University of California petroleum engineer:

“Looks suspicious. The point of surfacing about one mile from the well is about the point that the oil should show up [...] Perhaps connections that developed between the well annulus (outside the casing), the reservoir sands about 17,000 feet below the seafloor and the natural seep fault features” could provide a pathway for oil to move from deep underground to the seafloor.

*“During the aftermath of the oil spill, Overton’s lab evaluated samples for NOAA, performing chemical analyses to determine toxicity levels and other important qualities of the oil. His lab has been studying the environmental impact of oil spills for NOAA since 1984, analyzing samples [...]” -Louisiana State University Media Relations, March 15, 2011