'Not for public': the oil spill may be getting much worse

[ninakat]

Watching live now: http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_interne ... tream.html

Too bad there isn't accompanying audio to explain what's going on.

BP says the top kill procedure could take up to 2 days. They had better get THIS right.

[Gouda]

Is there an apocalypse plunge protection team out there?

Top U.S. hurricane forecasters see "hell of a year"

Wed May 26, 2010 7:05pm BST

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (Reuters) - The threat of an above-average 2010 Atlantic hurricane season has increased over the last month and it now promises to be "very active," two leading U.S. forecasters said on Wednesday.

William Gray and Phil Klozbach, who head the respected Colorado State University hurricane forecast team, said they would ramp up their prediction for the 2010 season in a report due out on June 2.

"The numbers are going to go up quite high," Gray said. "This looks like a hell of a year."

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE64P5AX20100526

[DoYouEverWonder]

Looks like they've started doing something. Pumping mud?

All I can say is this better f'n work.

[Peregrine]

Arctic leak would be a disaster: scientist


"I do believe that there should be a moratorium, because if you look at the leasing that has been done in the Beaufort Sea, it . . . extends out into the moving pack ice. I believe drilling in that area would be extremely risky," Adams told the committee, which is studying whether offshore-drilling regulations are tough enough to safeguard against a spill on the scale of the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

link

[Jeff]

AP Exclusive: Workers describe failures on oil rig

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, MIKE BAKER and JEFF DONN (AP) – 1 hour ago

NEW ORLEANS — As the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig burned around him, Chris Pleasant hesitated, waiting for approval from his superiors before activating the emergency disconnect system that was supposed to slam the oil well shut at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

The delay may have cost critical seconds. When Pleasant and his co-workers at rig owner Transocean finally got the go-ahead to throw the so-called deadman's switch, they realized there was no hydraulic power to operate the machinery.

Five weeks after the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers, the blown-out well continues to gush oil, pouring at least 7 million gallons of crude into the Gulf.

Dozens of witness statements obtained by The Associated Press show a combination of equipment failure and a deference to the chain of command impeded the system that should have stopped the gusher before it became an environmental disaster.

On Wednesday, BP launched its latest bid to plug the well, force-feeding it heavy drilling mud in a technique known as a top kill. Officials said it could be days before they know if it worked, and President Barack Obama cautioned there are "no guarantees."

At a Coast Guard hearing that started earlier this month and continued in New Orleans on Wednesday, Doug Brown, chief rig mechanic aboard the platform, testified that the trouble began at a meeting hours before the blowout, with a "skirmish" between a BP official and rig workers who did not want to replace heavy drilling fluid in the well with saltwater.

The switch presumably would have allowed the company to remove the fluid and use it for another project, but the seawater would have provided less weight to counteract the surging pressure from the ocean depths.

Brown said the BP official, whom he identified only as the "company man," overruled the drillers, declaring, "This is how it's going to be." Brown said the top Transocean official on the rig grumbled, "Well, I guess that's what we have those pinchers for," which he took to be a reference to devices on the blowout preventer, the five-story piece of equipment that can slam a well shut in an emergency.

In a handwritten statement to the Coast Guard obtained by the AP, Transocean rig worker Truitt Crawford said: "I overheard upper management talking saying that BP was taking shortcuts by displacing the well with saltwater instead of mud without sealing the well with cement plugs, this is why it blew out."

...

At least two explosions turned the rig into an inferno. Crew members were hurled through walls, doors flew through the air and the living quarters blew apart. Workers stumbled across a bloody, dark deck, trying to pull debris off the injured.

Brown said that as he waited beside a lifeboat for the order to abandon ship, he witnessed "complete chaos, mayhem. People were screaming, people were crying." Rig leaders struggled to comprehend the magnitude of what was happening. An emergency generator wouldn't start.

Steve Bertone, the chief engineer for Transocean, wrote in his witness statement that he ran up the bridge and heard the captain screaming at a worker for pressing the distress button. Bertone turned to Pleasant, who was manning the emergency disconnect system, and asked whether it had been engaged.

Pleasant told Bertone that he needed approval first, according to Bertone's sworn statement. Another manager tried to give the go-ahead, but someone else said the order needed to come from the rig's offshore installation manager.

...

"It's hard for me to imagine the situation where there's been a fire and an explosion and someone can't make that decision to hit the disconnect on their own," he said.

...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... wD9FUPMN00

[2012 Countdown]

re: AP Exclusive: Workers describe failures on oil rig

Top to bottom, in and out, all around, and through-and through...the ENTIRE organization, its contract partners, and its supposed 'oversight' parties.
Corrupt and careless orgy of criminality. People should be going to jail for murder and crimes against nature. And if this volcano isn't stopped, an environmental holocaust.

[DoYouEverWonder]

re: AP Exclusive: Workers describe failures on oil rig

Top to bottom, in and out, all around, and through-and through...the ENTIRE organization, its contract partners, and its supposed 'oversight' parties.
Corrupt and careless orgy of criminality. People should be going to jail for murder and crimes against nature. And if this volcano isn't stopped, an environmental holocaust.

This was just one rig. Imagine the kind of crap that happens all the other rigs.

[82_28]

Good god. That leak looks even worse now. I have to go to CNN for it as some online entities don't like linux. But CNN has a stream if anybody wanted to know. Probably more robust than BP's. But I don't know. It just looks much worse now than when I checked it out this morning.

[MacCruiskeen]

Dozens of witness statements obtained by The Associated Press show a combination of equipment failure and a deference to the chain of command impeded the system that should have stopped the gusher before it became an environmental disaster.

The Triumph of Management.

For this we fight.

[Simulist]

Dozens of witness statements obtained by The Associated Press show a combination of equipment failure and a deference to the chain of command impeded the system that should have stopped the gusher before it became an environmental disaster.

The Triumph of Management.

For this we fight.

Fuck authority.

[MacCruiskeen]

[82_28]

[Laodicean]

[82_28]

It appears that the top kill is successful so far. It seems to be only "blowing mud" -- let's not go there. But this is what they are saying. Then then they will cap it with cement.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2623762820100527

Of course, I have no idea.

[Cordelia]

ROBERT, La. – Scientists studying the blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico now say it's leaking at least twice as much oil and possibly five times as much as original estimates.

U.S. Geological Survey Director Dr. Marcia McNutt is the leader of a team put together to try to figure out how much oil is coming from the well.

She says results are preliminary but two teams using different methods determined the well is leaking at least 504,000 gallons a day. One team said it might be leaking as much as 798,000 gallons and another said that number might be closer to a million gallons.

The well blew out when the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20.

BP and the Coast Guard had said since then that about 210,000 gallons a day was flowing.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100527/ap_ ... _oil_spill