10/6/2012 UPDATE NEW 4-Mile Long Oil Slick Near BP’s Gulf Oil Well Is Leaking Again:Louisiana sinkhole

 Published Date: October 5, 2012

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/10/executive-order-gulf-co…

http://bonner.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=…

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2012/10/coast_guard_investi…

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-10-04/new-4-mile-long-oil-slick-nea…

 

NEW 4-Mile Long Oil Slick Near BP’s Gulf Oil Well

mf continentalshelf1 f NEW 4 Mile Long Oil Slick Near BPs Gulf Oil Well

BP’s Macondo Well May Leak for Years

CNN reports:

An oil sheen about four miles long has appeared in the Gulf of Mexico near the site of the worst oil spill in U.S. history, a Coast Guard spokesman said Thursday.

It was not immediately clear where the oil is coming from, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Tippets. [Although previous oil has been matched as a “dead ringer” to the BP well.]

Coast Guardsmen went to the location after seeing the oil on a satellite image, Tippets said.The response team collected samples and sent them to the Coast Guard Marine Safety Lab in Connecticut for testing.

***

The sheen is near the spot where, on April 20, 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded over the Macondo well, killing 11 workers and spewing oil that spread across a huge portion of the Gulf.

(And see this.)

As we’ve noted for years, BP’s Macondo oil well is still leaking … and will leak for years.

For example, we noted in March:

In June of 2010, BP officials admitted to damage beneath the seafloor under BP’s Gulf Macondo well.

Numerous scientists have speculated that the blowout and subsequent clumsy attempts by BP to plug the well could have created new seeps, and made pre-existing natural seeps bigger.

***

Washington’s Blog interviewed one of the world’s leading experts on oil leaks in 2010, Robert Bea. Dr. Bea noted that we may never be able to fully stop BP’s oil leak:

Few people in the world know more about oil drilling disasters than Dr. Robert Bea.

Bea teaches engineering at the University of California Berkeley, and has 55 years of experience in engineering and management of design, construction, maintenance, operation, and decommissioning of engineered systems including offshore platforms, pipelines and floating facilities. Bea has worked for many years in governmental and quasi-governmental roles, and has been a high-level governmental adviser concerning disasters. He worked for 16 years as a top mechanical engineer and manager for Shell Oil, and has worked with Bechtel and the Army Corps of Engineers. One of the world’s top experts in offshore drilling problems, Bea is a member of the Deepwater Horizon Study Group, and has been interviewed by news media around the world concerning the BP oil disaster.

***

WB: Is it possible that this fractured, subsea salt geology will make it difficult to permanently kill the oil leak using relief wells?

Bea: Yes, it could. The Santa Barbara channel seeps are still leaking, decades after the oil well was supposedly capped. This well could keep leaking for years.

Scripps mapped out seafloor seeps in the area of the well prior to the blowout. Some of the natural seeps penetrate 10,000 to 15,000 feet beneath the seafloor. The oil will follow lines of weakness in the geology. The leak can travel several horizontal miles from the location of the leak.

[In other words, the geology beneath the seafloor is so fractured, with soft and unstable salt formations, that we may never be able to fully kill the well even with relief wells. Instead, the loss of containment of the oil reservoir caused by the drilling accident could cause oil to leak out through seeps for years to come. See this and this for further background].

***

WB: I have heard that BP is underestimating the size of the oil reservoir (and see this). Is it possible that the reservoir is bigger than BP is estimating, and so — if not completely killed — the leak could therefore go on for longer than most assume?

Bea: That’s plausible.

WB: The chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon said that the Macondo well was originally drilled in another location, but that “going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools”, and that BP abandoned that well. You’ve spoken to that technician and looked into the incident, and concluded that “they damn near blew up the rig.” [See this and this].

Do you know where that abandoned well location is, and do you know if that well is still leaking?

Bea: The abandoned well is very close to the current well location. BP had to file reports showing the location of the abandoned well and the new well [with the Minerals Management Service], so the location of the abandoned well is known.

We don’t know if the abandoned well is leaking.

WB: Matthew Simmons talked about a second leaking well. There are rumors on the Internet that the original well is still leaking. Do you have any information that can either disprove or confirm that allegation?

Bea: There are two uncorroborated reports. One is that there is a leak 400 feet West of the present well’s surface location. There is another report that there is a leak several miles to the West.

[Bea does not know whether either report is true at this time, because BP is not sharing information with the government, let alone the public.]

BP’s Gulf Oil Well Is Leaking Again: “It’s A Dead Ringer For The [BP] Oil, As Good A Match As I’ve Seen” … “I Think The Primary Source With High Probability Is Associated With [Last Year’s Damaged BP] Well”

Leaking Oil Is a “Dead Ringer” For Oil From BP’s Gulf Well

The Press-Register reports today:

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.

The Press-Register collected samples of the oil about a mile from the well site on Tuesday and provided them to Ed Overton and Scott Miles, chemists with Louisiana State University.

The pair did much of the chemical work used by federal officials to fingerprint the BP oil, known as MC252.

“After examining the data, I think it’s a dead ringer for the MC252 oil, as good a match as I’ve seen,” Overton wrote in an email to the newspaper. “My guess is that it is probably coming from the broken riser pipe or sunken platform. … However, it should be confirmed, just to make sure there is no leak from the plugged well.”

MC252 is short for Macondo block 252, which is the official designation for the location of last year’s BP Gulf oil spill.

Overton is a LSU professor and oil spill expert, who has been a lead NOAA consultant for decades, and who analyzing Macondo oil samples last year for the federal government.

Here is video the Press-Register shot a couple of days ago:

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1

And see this and this.

The Leak Is Associated With BP’s Well

The Press-Register reported yesterday:

Oil is once again fouling the Gulf of Mexico around the Deepwater Horizon well, which was capped a little over a year ago. [Deepwater Horizon is the name of the oil drilling rig drilling at BP’s Macondo well, the one which exploded and sank last year.]

Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of small, circular patches of oily sheen dotted the surface within a mile of the wellhead. With just a bare sheen present over about a quarter-mile, the scene was a far cry from the massive slick that covered the Gulf last summer.

***

Floating in a boat near the well site, Press-Register reporters watched blobs of oil rise to the surface and bloom into iridescent yellow patches. Those patches quickly expanded into rainbow sheens 4 to 5 feet across.

Each expanding bloom released a pronounced and pungent petroleum smell.

***

“I think the primary source with high probability is associated with the Macondo well,” said Robert Bea, an internationally prominent petroleum engineer and professor emeritus at the Berkeley campus of the University of California. Bea responded to Press-Register questions via email after examining photographs taken by the newspaper.

“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, Bea said.

“Looks suspicious. The point of surfacing about 1 mile from the well is about the point that the oil should show up, given the seafloor at 5,000 feet … natural circulation currents would cause the drift,” Bea said.

We May Never Be Able To Fully Stop the BP Leak

Washington’s Blog interviewed Dr. Bea a year ago, and the oil expert noted that we may never be able to fully stop BP’s oil leak:

Few people in the world know more about oil drilling disasters than Dr. Robert Bea.

Bea teaches engineering at the University of California Berkeley, and has 55 years of experience in engineering and management of design, construction, maintenance, operation, and decommissioning of engineered systems including offshore platforms, pipelines and floating facilities. Bea has worked for many years in governmental and quasi-governmental roles, and has been a high-level governmental adviser concerning disasters. He worked for 16 years as a top mechanical engineer and manager for Shell Oil, and has worked with Bechtel and the Army Corps of Engineers. One of the world’s top experts in offshore drilling problems, Bea is a member of the Deepwater Horizon Study Group, and has been interviewed by news media around the world concerning the BP oil disaster.

***

WB: Is it possible that this fractured, subsea salt geology will make it difficult to permanently kill the oil leak using relief wells?

Bea: Yes, it could. The Santa Barbara channel seeps are still leaking, decades after the oil well was supposedly capped. This well could keep leaking for years.

Scripps mapped out seafloor seeps in the area of the well prior to the blowout. Some of the natural seeps penetrate 10,000 to 15,000 feet beneath the seafloor. The oil will follow lines of weakness in the geology. The leak can travel several horizontal miles from the location of the leak.

[In other words, the geology beneath the seafloor is so fractured, with soft and unstable salt formations, that we may never be able to fully kill the well even with relief wells. Instead, the loss of containment of the oil reservoir caused by the drilling accident could cause oil to leak out through seeps for years to come. See this and this for further background].

***

WB: I have heard that BP is underestimating the size of the oil reservoir (and see this). Is it possible that the reservoir is bigger than BP is estimating, and so — if not completely killed — the leak could therefore go on for longer than most assume?

Bea: That’s plausible.

WB: The chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon said that the Macondo well was originally drilled in another location, but that “going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools”, and that BP abandoned that well. You’ve spoken to that technician and looked into the incident, and concluded that “they damn near blew up the rig.” [See this and this].

Do you know where that abandoned well location is, and do you know if that well is still leaking?

Bea: The abandoned well is very close to the current well location. BP had to file reports showing the location of the abandoned well and the new well [with the Minerals Management Service], so the location of the abandoned well is known.

We don’t know if the abandoned well is leaking.

WB: Matthew Simmons talked about a second leaking well. There are rumors on the Internet that the original well is still leaking. Do you have any information that can either disprove or confirm that allegation?

Bea: There are two uncorroborated reports. One is that there is a leak 400 feet West of the present well’s surface location. There is another report that there is a leak several miles to the West.

[Bea does not know whether either report is true at this time, because BP is not sharing information with the government, let alone the public.]

Indeed, in June of 2010, BP officials admitted to damage beneath the seafloor, and numerous scientists have speculated that the blowout and subsequent clumsy attempts by BP to plug the well could have created new seeps, and made pre-existing natural seeps bigger.

BP Official Admits to Damage BENEATH THE SEA FLOOR

As I noted Tuesday, there is growing evidence that BP’s oil well — technically called the “well casing” or “well bore” — has suffered damage beneath the level of the sea floor.

The evidence is growing stronger and stronger that there is substantial damage beneath the sea floor. Indeed, it appears that BP officials themselves have admitted to such damage. This has enormous impacts on both the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf, and the prospects for quickly stopping the leak this summer.

On May 31st, the Washington Post noted:

Sources at two companies involved with the well said that BP also discovered new damage inside the well below the seafloor and that, as a result, some of the drilling mud that was successfully forced into the well was going off to the side into rock formations.

“We discovered things that were broken in the sub-surface,” said a BP official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He said that mud was making it “out to the side, into the formation.”

On June 2nd, Bloomberg pointed out:

Plugging the well is another challenge even after BP successfully intersects it, Robert Bea, a University of California Berkeley engineering professor, said. BP has said it believes the well bore to be damaged, which could hamper efforts to fill it with mud and set a concrete plug, Bea said.

Bea is an expert in offshore drilling and a high-level governmental adviser concerning disasters.

On the same day, the Wall Street Journal noted that there might be a leak in BP’s well casing 1,000 feet beneath the sea floor:

BP PLC has concluded that its “top-kill” attempt last week to seal its broken well in the Gulf of Mexico may have failed due to a malfunctioning disk inside the well about 1,000 feet below the ocean floor.

***

The broken disk may have prevented the heavy drilling mud injected into the well last week from getting far enough down the well to overcome the pressure from the escaping oil and gas, people familiar with BP’s findings said. They said much of the drilling mud may also have escaped from the well into the rock formation outside the wellbore.

On June 3rd, The Canadian Press quoted the top government official in charge of the response to the oil spill — Admiral Thad Allen, the commandant of the Coast Guard — as pointing to the same possibility:

The failure of the so-called top kill procedure — which entailed pumping mud into the well at high velocity — suggested “there actually could be something wrong with the well casing, and there could be open communication in the strata or the rock formations below the sea floor,” Allen said.

On June 7th, Senator Bill Nelson told MSNBC that he’s investigating reports of oil seeping up from additional leak points on the seafloor:

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL): Andrea we’re looking into something new right now, that there’s reports of oil that’s seeping up from the seabed… which would indicate, if that’s true, that the well casing itself is actually pierced… underneath the seabed. So, you know, the problems could be just enormous with what we’re facing.

Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC: Now let me understand better what you’re saying. If that is true that it is coming up form that seabed, even the relief well won’t be the final solution to cap this thing. That means that we’ve got oil gushing up at disparate places along the ocean floor.

Sen. Nelson: That is possible, unless you get the plug down low enough, below where the pipe would be breached.

Indeed, loss of integrity in the well itself may explain why BP is drilling its relief wells more than ten thousand feet beneath the leaking pipes on the seafloor (and see this).

Yesterday, recently-retired Shell Oil President John Hofmeister said that the well casing below the sea floor may have been compromised:

[Question] What are the chances that the well casing below the sea floor has been compromised, and that gas and oil are coming up the outside of the well casing, eroding the surrounding soft rock. Could this lead to a catastrophic geological failure, unstoppable even by the relief wells?

John Hofmeister: This is what some people fear has occurred. It is also why the “top kill” process was halted. If the casing is compromised the well is that much more difficult to shut down, including the risk that the relief wells may not be enough. If the relief wells do not result in stopping the flow, the next and drastic step is to implode the well on top of itself, which carries other risks as well.

As noted yesterday in The Engineer magazine, an official from Cameron International — the manufacturer of the blowout preventer for BP’s leaking oil drilling operation — noted that one cause of the failure of the BOP could have been damage to the well bore:

Steel casing or casing hanger could have been ejected from the well and blocked the operation of the rams.

Oil industry expert Rob Cavnar believes that the casing might be damaged beneath the sea floor, noting:

The real doomsday scenario here… is if that casing gives up, and it does come through the other strings of pipe. Remember, it is concentric pipe that holds this well together. If it comes into the formation, basically, you‘ve got uncontrolled [oil] flow to the sea floor. And that is the doomsday scenario.

Cavnar also said BP must “keep the well flowing to minimize oil and gas going out into the formation on the side”:

We have a right to know what’s really going on.

Given the impact on America’s people, natural resources and economy, BP and the government must fully disclose the amount of damage underneath the sea floor, and what that means for the efforts to cap the well.

Update: Don Van Nieuwenhuise — director of geosciences programs at the University of Houston — told CNN:

We don’t know if there are significant leaks deep in the well.

There’s a couple of weak points at 9,000 feet, and one at 17,000 feet, that they might be particularly interested in looking and watching in the seismic.

##################################################

Officials upset by lack of salt dome info
http://theadvocate.com/home/3589330-125/officials-upset-about-lack-of

Dome issues kept quiet
http://theadvocate.com/home/3580029-125/dome-issues-kept-quiet

Drilling rig parts arrive at sinkhole site
http://theadvocate.com/home/3642925-125/drilling-rig-parts-arrive-at

Texas Brine offers residents checks, Cleanup of sinkhole halted; workers rescued
http://theadvocate.com/home/3651200-125/texas-brine-offers-residents-checks

SONRIS Well Data:
http://sonris-www.dnr.state.la.us/gis/agsweb/IE/JSViewer/index.html?TemplateI…

Projects/Sinkhole_2012 (ArcGIS MapServer)
http://mimir.lsu.edu/maps/rest/services/Projects/Sinkhole_2012/MapServer

1985 Napoleonville Field well map:
http://ucmwww.dnr.state.la.us/ucmsearch/UCMRedir.aspx?url=http%3a%2f%2fdnrucm…

http://enenews.com/confirmed-salt-cavern-below-sinkhole-has-failed

http://enenews.com/confirmed-salt-cavern-below-sinkhole-has-failed

http://enenews.com/officials-tremors-have-damaged-salt-cavern-1300-feet-shall…

Title: Officials: Salt dome cavern failed, disagree with seismic claim
Source: WAFB
Author: Joshua Auzenne
Date: Sept 25, 2012

“Scientists with Texas Brine have discovered large amounts of what they’re calling an unidentified material in the bottom of that [salt cavern]“

[…]

They said the company’s statement about, “some type of dense material has fallen to the bottom of the cavern,” confirms the failure, which is what officials said they suspected had happened.

[…]

A public meeting to give residents additional information is being coordinated. Once a meeting is set up, people will be notified.

Scientists with Texas Brine announced late Monday night they discovered large amounts of an unidentified material in the bottom of the abandoned salt dome in Assumption Parish.

While measuring the depth of the cavern, the tool bottomed out at around 4,000 feet, which is about 1,300 feet shallower than they believe the cavern should be.

According to a spokesman for Texas Brine, the dense material doesn’t appear to be consistent with material normally found inside brine caverns. Samples have been taken to be analyzed.

[…]

 

Louisiana sinkhole area residents, that say that the scientific data officials are providing is not answering their questions, have been advised by Unified Command that the two-hour meeting community members plan to hold Thursday to gain information about the growing disaster, would be “inappropriate.”

Texas Brine and the Assumption Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness have been providing daily updates and photos online, but those are not answering questions of Bayou Corne residents, some 150 evacuees, and other impacted locals in the vicinity.

Government, industry human right to security issue

“There are so many different possibilities. Is it worse than we think?” asked Warren Coupel, a public meeting organizer.

Monday, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) ordered that each company with active industry in the Napoleonville Salt Dome, part of which is beneath the sinkhole, investigate the presence of natural gas and vent or burn any gas found.

According to WAFB, those companies have been identified as:

  • Texas Brine
  • Chevron
  • CrossTex
  • Dow
  • Pro Mix
  • Acadian
  • PB Energy

  • The meeting was long, and when it started getting repetative, I stopped videoing. This is part one of four.

    BY DAVID J. MITCHELL

    River Parishes bureau

    September 21, 2012

    PIERRE PART – Residents and evacuees along with environmental groups and others worried about a large sinkhole, tremors and natural gas releases in the Bayou Corne area detailed on Thursday their concerns about the emergency dating four months with the appearance of mysterious bubbles in waterways.

    Invited state and parish agencies were not present for the meeting, but an LSU disaster ecology undergraduate and others took down questions raised during two hours of discussion at St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church hall.

    John Achee Jr., a community activist who manages Facebook pages and websites dedicated to the sinkhole, organized the meeting, telling about 50 to 70 people present it was time for the agencies involved to provide an update.

    Achee said they refused to attend the meeting Thursday but he said the questions will be submitted by the meeting organizers and the community will expect them to be answered.

    “We are going to expect … that these questions get answered in a timely fashion, and we’re no longer just going to let it be pushed away and these questions not be answered,” Achee said.

    Representatives from the following environmental groups were present for the meeting, expressing their interest and offering their help: the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Gulf Coast Environmental and Health Coalition, and Bridge the Gulf Project.

    Among the questions submitted by the public Thursday were the following:

    • Who is going to pay for the damage to the region’s ecology?
    • What are the results of tests promised a few months ago intended to fingerprint natural gas releases from area bayous?
    • What does Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development survey data show about the elevation of La. 70 South before and after the sinkhole appeared and other incidents began?
    • When will transparency of the operations surrounding the sinkhole, gas releases and tremors improve?

    The sinkhole was found Aug. 3 in swamps between the Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou communities in Assumption Parish. The sinkhole, also known as a slurry hole or slurry area, is south of La. 70 South on property owned by Texas Brine Co. LLC of Houston.

    The sinkhole discovery prompted a mandatory evacuation of 150 homes that remains in effect.

    An abandoned Texas Brine salt cavern, which is inside the Napoleonville Dome, is suspected of failing and causing the sinkhole and possibly natural gas releases in area bayous that predated the sinkhole by two months.

    As the meeting unfolded Thursday, Texas Brine’s exploratory well being drilled was drawing closer to piercing the top of the cavern to begin a testing program to determine underground conditions.

    The 1- by 3-mile salt dome is a solid salt deposit that was pushed up from an ancient sea bed. It has been used for decades for brine production, oil and gas exploration, and hydrocarbon storage.

    The Texas Brine cavern was hollowed out of the dome during nearly three decades of solution mining to make brine for various industries.

    Some residents waited Thursday until after the meeting to write down questions on sheets of paper that had been posted to the walls of the parish hall.

    Others speaking during the meeting mixed their questions with skepticism and frustration over the long wait for answers and a return to normalcy.

    Allen Hill, 66, a retired petrochemical industry worker, questioned the length of time for tests to fingerprint or provide a blueprint of the chemical makeup of the natural gas releases, for example.

    “Natural gas is coming out of the ground everywhere. We have yet to identify the source of this natural gas. It’s a massive amount of gas that is coming out of here. I don’t think there is enough that’s sitting in that cavern to go as far and as long as this has,” Hill said.

    “Why have we not been able to get a blueprint of this gas and go back to this cavern and all these sources around here?” Hill wanted to know.

    Hill asserted in a later interview that such testing can be done in hours by industry experts.

    Parish and state officials have said a more complex type of testing was being performed that would take some time.

    Later in the meeting, Police Juror Henry Dupre said officials were waiting on some of the findings to translate the data from those tests.

    Debra Charlet, 54, of Bayou Corne, questioned the wisdom of holding the meeting and submitting questions to state agencies, saying federal government intervention was needed and state agencies would throw the questions in the trash.

    Another man called for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to be involved.

    State Rep. Karen St. German, D-Pierre Part, and Texas Brine Co. spokesman Sonny Cranch also attended the meeting. St. Germain answered several questions.

    In an interview Thursday before the meeting, John Boudreaux, parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness director, said his office was not attending the meeting because of impending entry into the cavern by Texas Brine’s well and time needed to prepare for such a community meeting.

    He said other state agencies were focused on this process as well, which has been under way for several weeks.






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