This report is already a month
old and the lack of interest is a little deafening. However it brings home something that needs
to be addressed. The best possible way
to prevent further breakouts and uncontrolled flows is to punch several production
wells into the formation as fast as possible and drain the reservoir as quickly
as feasible until the reservoir reaches some form of hydrostatic
equilibrium. From there the field can
then be drained safely and slowly to extract as much as possible.
Allowing a weakened structure to
make its own rules is obviously dangerous.
As recent reports have established, BP and others chose to make one
shortcut too many and that led to the original disaster. Biting the bullet and drilling out the reservoir
as fast as possible will put it all back to bed. Of course, this is where regulators will
screw it up.
Needless to say, everyone is lying
about the current leak, although in fairness, no one knows until the oil is
tested by someone other than BP. I
presume the press took samples?
The present leak may be small but
also nearly impossible to end. Again
that needs a rush program to drain the field itself.
New leak near Deepwater Horizon site quickly becoming a massive oil
slick
, Tallahassee
August 31, 2011
-Over the past two weeks, I have been closely
followingreports of renewed leaking in the Macondo oil field, the site of
last year's Deepwater Horizon disaster (Map).
First, New Orleans Mobile Press-Register to
hire a boat out to the site, where they found massive "globules" of
oil rising to the surface, creating a growing sheen on the water (you can read
about that here).
Today, pilot Bonny Schumaker of On Wings of Care once again took
to the air over the Gulf of Mexico, finding evidence of what appears to be a
massive leak near the site of last year's oil drilling disaster.
According to Schumaker, the oil "stretched for miles" with
one continuous sheen stretching for nearly 10 miles. This contradicts BPs
official story, which is that "none
of this is true."
It's interesting then that Schumaker reports radio communication with a
ship known as the Sarah
Bordelonearlier this afternoon, who claimed they were gathering oil samples
for BP (Marinetraffic.com confirms
the location of the Sarah Bordelon within the vicinity of the Macondo).
"How can BP say it's not there when they have a ship out there
sampling it?" asked Shumaker.
Schumaker also reports calling the slick in to the National Response
Center , though the U.S.
The kind of surface sheen photographed in today's flyover has not been
seen since the height of last year's oil spill, when nearly 210 million gallons
of crude gushed into the Gulf of Mexico before
the well was capped. Communities along the Gulf coast have still not fully
recovered from the extensive damage to their coastal environment, which has
also caused major losses in the fishing and tourism industries.
So just what is going on near BP's damaged well?
According to BP spokesman Justin Saia, "neither BP nor the Coast
Guard has seen any scientific evidence that oil is leaking from the Macondo
well, which was permanently sealed almost a year ago."
Perhaps Schumaker's new photographic and video evidence will prompt a
"scientific" inquiry into the source of the quickly growing oil slick
located very near the former Deepwater Horizon site in the Gulf of Mexico.
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