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BP announced that they began injectivity testing at 1:05 p.m. today. The injectivity test is the last step before they can begin the "Static Kill." The test will ultimately determine if oil can be pushed back into the reservoir. The test is only scheduled to take a few hours, and if everything goes according to plan, BP should begin pumping mud into the well as early as this afternoon.

The "static kill" process is projected to last between 33 and 61 hours.

A hydraulic leak had temporarily delayed the static kill test. The leak was discovered in the capping stack hydraulic control system and started to loose pressure, but has since been fixed.

The static kill method involved pouring mud into the well, ideally pushing oil back into the reservoir. However, the real answer to sealing off the oil is the relief well.

Scientists estimate that 205.8 million gallons of oil have seeped into the Gulf of Mexico. With only a fraction of the oil (800,000 barrels) retrieved by siphoning the oil from the Gulf's surface.

The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill has been declared the worst accidental oil spill in marine history; surpassing the blowout of Bay of Campeche off the coast of Mexico that spilled about 140 million gallons of oil back in the late 1970's.

The worst oil spill in history took place during the Gulf War, when the Iraqi Army purposely spilled 240 million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf.

Continue reading "BP's Begins Final Stages of Testing Before Static Kill " »

After 85 days of straight oil flow and up to 184 million gallons wasted, BP announced yesterday that they had temporarily capped the oil flow in the Gulf of Mexico. Now the next 48 hours become crucial to discover whether the capped well would actually hold the leak.

Ken Wells, vice president of BP, announced that the pressure pushing up against the containment cap is very good sign.

Low pressure would indicate several leaks have developed, conversely high pressure indicates the leak is concentrated in one spot. BP has reported they will watch the cap for the next 36 hours to know for certain the containment cap stopped the leak. Now the waiting period begins for engineers to monitor pressure

However, according to scientists and government official, the only permanent is a relief well.

Continue reading "BP Temporarily Stops The Oil Leak" »

BP CEO Tony Howard and BP America CEO Lamar McKay meet with President Obama today in a highly anticipated meeting following Obama's Oval Office declaration that BP would be required to pay for the damages their oil spill has caused.

Along with President Obama, and BP CEO's Howard and McKay, the meeting also included BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, Vice President Joe Biden, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, presidential economic adviser Larry Summers, White House counsel Bob Bauer, BP Managing Director Bob Dudley, and domestic policy advisers Melody Barnes and Carol Browner.

According to a senior administration official, the meeting was scheduled last around 2 hours. Obama planned to inform BP officials that they would need to set aside a multi-billion dollar escrow account to compensate those affected by the oil spill and pay damage claims in the region. The escrow fund would be controlled by an independent third party and not through BP.

BP announced yesterday they had already approved 337 checks for $16 million dollars to businesses that have filed large claims in excess of $5,000. (Speedy claims was said to be a high priority on today's agenda.)

Almost two months after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon Rig, the oil is still spewing at a rate of almost 60,000 barrels a day. The president also predicted that "in the coming days and weeks," efforts made to contain the spill "should capture up to 90 percent of the oil leaking out of the well."

President Obama said "We will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long as it takes," and vowed on Tuesday to use whatever resources necessary to fight the catastrophic oil spill.

Continue reading "BP Oil Executives Met With President Obama to Outline an Action Plan" »

BP announced today that the cost of their company's response to the oil spill has reached $1.25 billion. In a news release this morning, British Petroleum stated that this figure does not include the $360 million allotted to build sand berms to stop the spread of oil seeping into Louisiana's wetland. That rate of spending is expected to increase for some time.

Millions of gallons of crude oil have already spilled into the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon Rig exploded back in April, killing 11 workers. The news broadcast aired just after the government point man warned that the battle to contain the oil would likely continue into the fall.

According to reports, most of the money is going to clean up and containment efforts; however, a small portion has been applied to what is believed to be the early stages of legal costs. Already some 130 lawsuits have been filed. According to BP, 37,000 claims have been submitted so far and more than 18,000 payments totaling $48 million have been paid to those affected by the oil spill. BP has reportedly also paid $170 million to Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi to help with their responses. These numbers do not included the several billion dollars that could be paid out in settlements to the families of the 11 killed and 17 injured on the Deepwater Horizon Rig.

Analysts predict the long term cost to BP could be in the tens of billions of dollars, and the economic disaster could potentially take years to clean up. Aside from financial obligations that BP is facing, they also face though civil and criminal investigations by the U.S. government.

After the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the U.S. government enacted The Oil and Pollution Act of 1990, imposing strict liability and monetary penalties on each barrel of oil spilled. Similarly, the Clear Water Act carries criminal and civil charges for polluting waterways.

Continue reading "BP's Oil Spill Already Costing $1 Billion" »

Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal, says they will not wait for federal approval to begin building sand barriers to protect Louisiana's coastline. Gov. Jindal and other state and local leaders have become increasingly frustrated with Obama's administration, which has yet to approve sand barriers along the coast. Jindal, who has been extremely critical of the amount of boom his state was issued, said the major complaint lies with the Army Corps of Engineers who has yet to give the "green light" to build sand booms to protect the Louisiana wetlands.

Jindal, who claims hard booms and soft booms do not work, used photographic evidence on Monday to prove his point that sand booms are what will ultimately corral the oil and therefore protect the wetlands.

According to Jindal, "We don't want oil on one inch of Louisiana's coastline, but we'd much rather fight this oil off of a hard coast, off of an island, off of an island, off of a sandy beach on our coastal islands, rather than having to fight it inside in these wetlands,"

"Every day we're not given approval on this emergency permit to create more of these booms is another day when that choice is made for us, as more and more miles of our shore are hit by oil."

Oil has now reached 12 miles into the Louisiana's Marshes leaving two pelican rookeries covered in crude oil.

Continue reading "Louisiana Will Not Wait For Federal "Ok" To Build Sand Barriers" »

BP just announced that the "top hat" oil containment device has reached the Gulf of Mexico sea floor and should be operational by the end of the week.

BP had previously attempted a larger containment vessel but was unable to stop the oil flow from the gusher some 5,000 feet underwater.

The "top hat" vessel, which is now officially deployed 5,000 feet underwater, is BP's latest attempt to stop the oil spill that is releasing some 210,000 gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico each day. The 4-foot- diameter structure of the "top hat" container weighs less than 2 tons and stands 5-feet-tall. The "top hat," was built after a much larger vessel initially designed to cap the two leaks developed glitches on Saturday. The larger vessel, described as a four-story vessel, began to form ice-like crystals from the combination of gas and water and eventually blocked off the dome making in buoyant.

The "top hat" would designed to keep water out of the vessel during the capping process and allow engineers to pump methanol (a simple alcohol that acts as antifreeze) to keep crystals from forming inside the vessel.

According to Secretary of Interior, Ken Salazar, the success of the "top hat" containment vessel will be known in the next couple of days. In a statement made by Salazar, "On Thursday, we should know whether or not this alternative top hat cofferdam is going to work, and the next key date is Saturday, because by Saturday they will have the diagnostics completed through x-rays and gamma rays and pressure ratings to be able to make decisions about what the next steps are."

If the "top hat" fails, BP will have to plug the leak by shooting debris-- golf balls, shredded tires and similar objects--under extremely high pressure into the well in an attempt to clog it and stop the leak. Thanks to the blowout preventer the rig is partially closed but not completely sealed.

Continue reading "BP "Top Hat" Reaches Gulf of Mexico Floor" »

The latest news in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster describes a new drilling method that could potentially seal the crude oil leak in as little as two weeks. According to BP CEO, Tony Hayward, the new method, known as "top kill," involves reconfiguring the current wellhead equipment to channel heavy liquid into the well. Ideally, by funneling the heavy fluid into the well, a permanent seal would form consequently stopping the oil flow. Ironically, the new method requires the use of the blowout preventer that failed on April 20, 2010 and triggered the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The top kill method has been used previously after blowouts to seal oil wells on land; however, has never been tried at the depths that Deepwater Horizon was drilling, some 5,000 feet under water.

According to BP executives, the oil spill is leaking around 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico. One executive stated the oil rig could potential pour 12 times that amount, or as much as 60,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf. However, Hayward stated that would be "absolute worst case scenario." No one knows exactly how much oil is leaking into the Gulf each day. BP executives guess it remains around 5,000 barrels a day. As luck would have it, the damaged blowout preventer, along with a crimped pipe known as a riser, are both obstructing the well head, and therefore limiting the amount of oil released from the well.

BP also announced today they had sealed off one of the three leaks contributing to the massive oil release; however, officials report it is unlikely to reduce the amount of oil leaking out from the well.

While the "top kill" method remains the best option in the last 48 hours, engineers are continuing with short-term plans to place a containment box over the leak to gather the oil and send it to surface vessels. Trial and error is expected early on, since the containment method has never been used at this depth before.

BP as also continues to pursue the last-resort method of permanently sealing the well, and has a rig drilling a new well to intercept the existing one and plug it.

Continue reading "BP's Latest Oil Spill Containment Efforts" »

Rescue workers searched Louisiana's Gulf Coast all day Wednesday after an offshore drilling platform exploded and left 11 workers missing. The 400 x 250 ft rig known as Deepwater Horizon and owned by Transocean, Ltd had 126 workers on the platform at the time of the explosion. Most of the workers were believed to have safely escaped the blast; however, 11 are still said to be missing and 7 are badly injured.

At the time of the explosion, Deepwater Horizon, currently under contract with oil giant BP, was not in production but doing exploratory drilling. It is not clear how many BPO workers were on the rig, nor what exactly caused the explosion.

According to Ted Bourgoyne, a retired Louisiana State University professor of petroleum engineering, the explosion was probably caused by a mixture of natural gas and oil and seeped through the well combining with an ignition source of some kind. Modern day rigs have numerous defenses to prevent something of this magnitude. Such as weighting the fluids used in drilling with barium sulfite to prevent gas from traveling up the well. There are also alarms built in to alert workers of gas, and machinery is now built to prevent sparking. However, in the case such as this, it probably was not one thing, but a series of things that caused that accident.

The rig was originally designed in 2001 to operate in depths up to 8000ft deep and drill 5.5 miles down. The crew had drilled the well to its final depth (18,000 ft) and was cementing the steel casing at the time of the explosion.

Working on offshore oil rigs is an extremely dangerous job but thanks to improved training and safety systems and maintenance the job has become safer.