Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

[GRG55]

Re: As expected, BP abandons Top Kill approach

Oil is organic. It breaks down over time [and rather quickly in high biological activity environments]. The post mortem on the Exxon Valdez accident demonstrated that the dispersants and detergents that were used to try to clean up the oil did more long term damage than the oil itself.

Once again I am not trying to underplay or understate the consequences of this disaster, but nobody even remembers the 1979/80 Ixtoc I blowout which spewed large quantities of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for almost 10 months. There's something to be learned from that.

Analysis: Doing nothing might have been best for oil spill

LONDON
Mon Jun 28, 2010 5:21pm EDT

(Reuters) - It might have been better for the environment to have done nothing about the enormous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico except to keep the oil out at sea, British scientists said on Monday.
Marine biology and environmental experts said they feared the aggressive cleanup operation, during which oil has been set alight and oil-dispersing chemicals have been dumped into the sea, might be more damaging than the oil itself.
Previous experience suggests that containing the oil out at sea but otherwise leaving it alone to disperse and evaporate naturally is better in the long run but is regarded as politically unacceptable, they said...

..."Economically, clearly the impact has been very large, but environmentally the jury is still out. One of the tensions between environment and politics is that politicians cannot be seen to be doing nothing, even though doing nothing is sometimes the best option."...

...There have been around 20 major spills of more than 20 million gallons since the 1960s. The largest recent spill was in 1991 in the Gulf as a result of the Gulf War when between 240 and 460 million gallons were spilled.

The largest previous spill resulting from a rig blowout like that of the Deepwater Horizon was the Ixtoc 1 off Mexico's Gulf coast in June 1979, which continued for 9 months during which more than 140 million gallons of oil was spilled.

The Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska in 1989 spilled around 10 million gallons.
Simon Boxall, an expert at Britain's National Oceanography Center who has helped analyze various major oil spill cleanups, said several detailed experiments had been conducted since the Exxon Valdez spill, looking at areas that were left alone, as well as at areas cleaned up chemically or mechanically.

"The chemically cleaned up areas have taken the longest to recover and they are still damaged," Boxall said. "The areas that were left alone actually recovered much quicker."

Some 10,000 people were flown in to deal with the Exxon Valdez spill, and Boxall said scientists now wondered whether the "cleanup town" that grew up around it caused more environmental damage than the oil itself.

Christoph Gertler of Bangor University, who has been studying various potential bacterial remedies for oil spills, said reports by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggested that dispersants were "changing the nature of the oil in a very unfavorable way," making it more difficult for naturally occurring marine bacteria to break it down.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: As expected, BP abandons Top Kill approach

Oil is organic. It breaks down over time [and rather quickly in high biological activity environments]..

I agree. Many years ago I spoke with a post-graduate microbiologist from U. Wisconsin Madison about her work identifying microbes to digest hydrocarbons for remediation. At the time I was considering buying such a bio remediation system for a large chemical mfg. Her job was to find a bug that would eat any tarrget hydrocarbon.

She said she'd always found a suitable bug, no matter what hydrocarbon -toluene, xylene, mineral spirits, whatever. I'll never forget her smiling earnestly and saying she never lost sleep over a drum of petroleum-based stuff buried carelessly, she knew it would be gone in 50 years.

Unfortunately, 50 years is long time to a human, or an oyster bed, or fishing industry. Just 5 years can kill a fleet or a town, commercially.

GRG55, thanks again for your excellent insights into this situation.

[touchring]

Re: As expected, BP abandons Top Kill approach

I agree. Many years ago I spoke with a post-graduate microbiologist from U. Wisconson Madison about her work identifying microbes to digest hydrocarbons for remediation. At the time I was considering buying such a bio remediation system for a large chemical mfg. Her job was to find a bug that would eat any trarget hydrocarbon.

She said she'd always found a suitable bug, no matter what hydrocarbon -toluene, xylene, mineral spirits, whatever. I'll never forget her smiling earnestly and saying she never lost sleep over a drum of petroleum-based stuff burried carelessly, she knew it would be gone in 50 years.

Unfortunately, 50 years is long time to a human, or an oyster bed, or fishing industry. Just 5 years can kill a fleet or a town, commercially.

GRG55, thanks again for your excellent insights into this situation.

There was a 10k barrel oil spill of the port of Singapore over a month ago. For 3 days, the air had a kerosene smell, I think half the oil evaporated. The other half landed on a couple miles of beach like paint - not goo or balls. Everything was cleared up within a week. Nothing more was mentioned in the media after that. The port of Singapore is a super small area, probably 20 miles by 30 miles.

If BP can capture 90% of the oil spilled, I believe that the other 10% would probably evaporate before reaching coast.

[GRG55]

Re: As expected, BP abandons Top Kill approach

Analysis: Doing nothing might have been best for oil spill

...

Some time back I posted a link to Dr Samantha Joye's blog. Dr. Joye is a Professor at the University of Georgia Department of Marine Sciences and has been leading a team of researchers collecting and analyzing data from the blowout plumes. The effort is funded by NOAA and the National Science Foundation.

A few items of interest from a couple of blog postings from earlier this month:

If you could gather dispersant concentration data from multiple water samples in the gulf, what question(s) would you try to answer with that information.

I can easily envision several ways to use dispersant concentration data. First, it would be useful to know how widespread – and at what concentration – the dispersants are present. Some forms of COREXIT contain dangerous components (e.g. 2-Butoxyethanol) and COREXIT is more toxic to some organisms than crude oil. COREXIT can be long-lived in the environment so we need to know the concentrations present around the Gulf – not just in the areas where it was applied; it will move around with the ocean currents.

Are the conditions good for the microbes that can degrade these types of hydrocarbons?
Right now, conditions seem to be ideal for microbial degradation. But we need to do additional lab experiments to figure out what is regulating microbial activity.

Are the concentrations of the hydrocarbons so great that the microbes are overwhelmed or killed?
We have not yet measured toxicity but we plan to do that when we get back to the lab at UGA.

Some sources speak of a very severe limit on what is reported? Do you have any comment on this aspect?

I can only speak for myself — I have never been told “what to say”. I believe everyone wants to be clear and as certain [as is scientifically possible] before results are presented to the public. Some information/data is required for the “Natural Resource Damage Assessment” (NRDA for short) and because those materials will be used in litigation at a later time, they may not be released to the public. I know everyone is starved for information but the reason things are coming out slowly is that we want to be certain and clear about what we say.

Is a plume map of concentrations being developed? Are single plumes traceable from the well head out 40+ miles?
We were able to trace the Southwest plume out 20+ miles. The Northeast plume is traceable for 30+ miles. So, yes these features can be tracked quite far from the source.

How serious is the oxygen depletion problem?
Potentially, this is a very serious problem. At present, oxygen concentrations exceed 2 mg/L but if concentrations drop below that, it would spell problems for any oxygen requiring organisms. The Southwest Plume is, at a minimum, 15 miles long x 2 miles long and the plume is about 600 feet thick. Temperatures in the plume are about 8-12ºC. We do not know the absolute oil content at this time.
The plume is largely water. This is not thick oil like you see on the surface in some places, it’s diluted oil and it’s most concentrated closest to the leaking riser pipe. Unlike a natural oil seep, which is most intense on the bottom and whose signal decreases with depth above the seafloor, the plume we are studying starts 200m above the seafloor and its intensity decreases horizontally with distance away from the leaking wellhead.
The specific gravity of oil is irrelevant to this discussion. This is not oil like you buy at the auto supply store. Think of it as gas-saturated oil that has been shot out of a deep sea cannon under intense pressure – it’s like putting olive oil in a spray can, pressurizing it and pushing the spray button. What comes out when you push that button? A mist of olive oil. This well is leaking a mist of oil that is settling out in the deep sea.

Have you seen any evidence of other sources of oil such as might indicate fractures in the sea floor near to the site of the wellhead explosion?
No, we have not seen any evidence of fractures in the seafloor near the riser pipe.

[GRG55]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Politically dysfunctional doesn't even begin to describe it any more...maybe instead of nuking the well we should be thinking about nuking D.C....

Avertible catastrophe

Some are attuned to the possibility of looming catastrophe and know how to head it off. Others are unprepared for risk and even unable to get their priorities straight when risk turns to reality.

The Dutch fall into the first group. Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. "Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour," Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.


To protect against the possibility that its equipment wouldn't capture all the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch also offered to prepare for the U.S. a contingency plan to protect Louisiana's marshlands with sand barriers. One Dutch research institute specializing in deltas, coastal areas and rivers, in fact, developed a strategy to begin building 60-mile-long sand dikes within three weeks...


...The U.S. government responded with "Thanks but no thanks," remarked Visser, despite BP's desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer --the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge. Even after the U.S. refused, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby, hoping the Americans would come round. By May 5, the U.S. had not come round. To the contrary, the U.S. had also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments, most of them with superior expertise and equipment --unlike the U.S., Europe has robust fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.


Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn't good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million -- if water isn't at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico...

...The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer -- but only partly. Because the U.S. didn't want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained...

[KGW]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Criminal comes to mind. . .Closing off that hole must be the number one priority of the United States; all else pales in significance. U.S. priorities are completely f2345up!

[touchring]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Criminal comes to mind. . .Closing off that hole must be the number one priority of the United States; all else pales in significance. U.S. priorities are completely f2345up!

Don't u you? It's for the sake of the turtles.

[kriden]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Feds taking the weekend off in oil fight?

One local official is voicing his frustration over what he calls a "nine-to-five" attitude by some federal authorities in the face of the oil disaster.

Jefferson Councilman Chris Roberts says the parish has a plan to build rock levees to help keep oil out of inland waterways like Barataria Bay.

Roberts told WWL First News that after they submitted the proposal to the Army Corps of Engineers last week, Corps officials said last Friday that discussion on the plan would have to be put on hold until the following Monday, because the Corps office would be closed for the weekend.

"Whoever reviews permits, and whatever departments and stakeholders and agencies need to give approval for this...should be working around the clock, just like the people are that are trying to get this oil picked up," Roberts said.

According to Roberts, after cooling their heels for the weekend, parish officials are still awaiting an answer. He says, however, he would be very surprised to get a response over the long federal holiday weekend to come.

http://www.wwl.com/Feds-taking-the-w...fight-/7603356

[chedir007]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Fascinating British documentary made in 1990 showing BP's role even in the EXXON Valdez fiasco

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLu-H...layer_embedded

[GRG55]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Seems like a loooong time ago, but a few weeks back [28th and 29th May, respectively] I made these two observations on this thread [highlights mine]:

...Finally, for those who still think that blowing up the well or dropping something big on the wellhead is a good idea, I would suggest you reconsider. No engineer in his right mind would ever do anything to deliberately risk the integrity of the wellhead. If explosives are used to try to collapse the well casing and pinch it off and it destroys the wellhead in the process, then the ability to actually secure the well is seriously, seriously compromised. I would not be willing to depend on a pinched off casing to contain the well forever. If such an attempt failed to pinch off the well then the risk is an absolute open flow blowout...and if you think they have problems now... ;-)

In Kuwait after Gulf War I, many of the wellheads had been sabotaged by Saddam's retreating troops. Before many of those wells could be secured the damaged wellheads had to be cut off, new casing bowls secured to the casing stubs and new wellheads installed...all while the wells were spewing flammable hydrocarbons immediately above the workers. Try that in 5000 feet of water.

...As for how long it keeps flowing, the relief well is the best shot and will be tried more than once if necessary. Also, the collapsed marine riser is attached to a high pressure fitting on the top of the wellhead/BOP stack, so removing the riser [either cutting it off, or using the remote underwater robot vehicles to unbolt the flange] and positioning a second BOP or new riser manifold connection is still an option. The reason this hasn't yet been attempted is because the current thinking is the riser is acting as a choke and limiting the flow to a large degree, and therefore removing it will likely increase the flow measurably...which means if they are subsequently unable to position the BOP or new marine riser they will have a bigger problem on their hands. As I said...difficult and dangerous...

Well it appears the team has elected to do exactly this. In the early morning hours this morning the team successfully used the ROVs to unbolt the high pressure flange and using a grappling apparatus separated the flange connection and removed the top flange and the stub remains of the marine riser [this is the riser that had been cut off earlier as part of the "top hat" containment operation]. Here is a uTube link for anyone interested...the open flow I mentioned in the post excerpt above is clearly visible at the end of the clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNv4tfyyvxA

The operations underway now involve installing a new flanged transition spool in place of the removed marine riser and bolting it to the high pressure riser flange above the existing BOP stack [that is the flange half that is visible in the video clip just before the camera pans upward to view the flow plume]. The transition spool is the yellow section of pipe in the picture below. Following that another BOP [blowout preventor] stack with three rams will be installed on top of the transition spool. After that they are either going to try to shut off the well by closing the new BOP, or install a new marine riser which should capture all of the flow from well. The issue with closing the BOPs is related to the downhole casing integrity [the Matt Simmons et al stuff]. We should find out if there is any validity to any of those stories in the next few days...provided there are no problems installing the transition piece and new BOP stack. Regardless, even the ability to choke the flow significantly at the top of the well improves the ability to kill the well from the bottom using the relief well.

You can see in the picture the size of the kit they are working with.

Let's all wish the team good luck!



EDIT ADDED: The new BOP will of course be open while it is being positioned over the transistion spool. The one thing this underwater operation has going for it is the the new BOP can be brought into position directly from above. It is still a dangerous and difficult operation, but when we try this sort of thing on a blowout on land we have to swing the BOP across the wellhead flow, which is always fraught with serious risk to the people performing the operation.

[cjppjc]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Good luck to them.

[GRG55]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

At 5:00 pm Central Daylight Time today, BP is reporting the transition spool has been successfully landed and operations to secure the bolts that hold it in position are underway. So far so good...

[Jay]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

At 5:00 pm Central Daylight Time today, BP is reporting the transition spool has been successfully landed and operations to secure the bolts that hold it in position are underway. So far so good...

Is it safe to say that if they can land the transition spool and secure it in such deep difficult conditions, that placing the other pieces, which likely involve similar underwater protocols, should be straightforward? Or are there additional major hurdles with the BOP which come with a larger more awkward device? Because if placing the BOP is largely similar to the transition spool, this could be very good news.

[GRG55]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Is it safe to say that if they can land the transition spool and secure it in such deep difficult conditions, that placing the other pieces, which likely involve similar underwater protocols, should be straightforward? Or are there additional major hurdles with the BOP which come with a larger more awkward device? Because if placing the BOP is largely similar to the transition spool, this could be very good news.

Nothing is "routine" at these depths, but placing a BOP is not something that hasn't been done many times before [on every well drilled]. The difference is that they have to place it over the flowing well effluent stream. But you are correct that landing and securing the transition spool under those conditions is a good sign that the other operations should be able to be accomplished in reasonable time...with a bit of good luck on their side.

[we_are_toast]

Re: Update on BP's top kill efforts, now largest spill in US History

Regardless, even the ability to choke the flow significantly at the top of the well improves the ability to kill the well from the bottom using the relief well.

This seems counterintuitive. I would think that choking the flow would produce more pressure in the well making it more difficult for the relief wells.