Oil Rig Explosion Controversy over Whether Vermilion Oil Rig 380 Was in Production
AP reports mile long visible oil sheen near Mariner Vermilion oil rig 380 explosion in Gulf of Mexico
BP’s approach to finding new oil and gas involves big but calibrated gambles. Exploration wells in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, for example, take months to drill and cost up to $200 million to bring onstream. With an overall exploration budget of $600 million to $1 billion per year, BP goes to great lengths to make sure it is taking the right risks.
MSNBC.com, September 3, 2009
BP’s Risky Gamble Ends up as History’s Largest Oil Spill Disaster
One year ago MSNBC reported What BP’s giant oil strike means, Gulf of Mexico discovery signals success of a high-risk, high-reward strategy. One year later, the news BP’s deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, the biggest oil spill disaster in history. Last week, three BP engineers refusing to testify at an Obama commission hearing held last week in Houston, the commission investigating the cause of the spill. BP in the process of removing the temporary cap, slated to occur today or tomorrow. BP using a giant crane to raise a “massive” piece of equipment which government investigators say may or may not clear up what caused the oil rig to explode. BP, the company the government ‘trusts’, installing a permanent cap on the well. BP, who admitted one month after the oil rig explosion, BP had been “underestimating the amount of oil” gushing from the well.
Kudos to Examiner.com for reporting the controversy surrounding the latest oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, Mariner Energy’s Vermilion oil rig 380. Controversy regarding the reports of whether Vermilion oil rig 380 was in production and whether there’s a new oil leak in the Gulf. According to Examiner.com, after the Vermilion oil rig 380 explosion, Mariner issued a press release stating a flyover showed “no oil leaking from the platform”. The AP reporting a “mile long oil sheen”. Mariner stating the oil rig “wasn’t in production”. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal stating the Vermilion 380 “was in production”.
BP Deepwater Horizon Deja Vu?
On April 20, “just after 7 PM, BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling platform, located 41 miles from the Louisiana shore exploded. According to Popular Mechanics who published a report two days after the explosion, BP drilling in an area known as the Mississippi Canyon block 252.
Popular Mechanics:
The Coast Guard received the first call for assistance at 7:23 pm and within the hour dispatched its first of six helicopters, soon followed by six surface cutters. Of the 126 aboard the rig, 11 are still missing, with 17 medevaced to area hospitals.
Officials at BP and Transocean Ltd., the owners of the rig, aren’t saying much, but industry insiders say the evidence points to a blowout—in which uncontrolled natural gas or oil unexpectedly flows up the pipe, almost always causing a catastrophic fire.
The following day, on April 21, the Guardian reported Deepwater Horizon oil rig fire leaves 11 missing:
Helicopters, ships and an aeroplane searched the waters off Louisiana’s coast today for at least 11 workers missing after an explosion and fire that left an offshore drilling platform tilting in the Gulf of Mexico.
Most of the 126 people on the rig, Deepwater Horizon, were believed to have escaped safely after the explosion last night, a coast guard officer, Mike O’Berry, said.
The rig, about 52 miles south-east of Venice on Louisiana’s tip, was still burning this morning. It was listing about 70 degrees and threatening to topple into the water.
And,
Greg Panagos, a spokesman for the rig’s owner, Transocean Ltd, said it was drilling but not in production.
The rig was under contract to BP Plc, whose spokesman, Darren Beaubo, said all BP personnel were safe, though he did not know how many BP workers had been on the rig.
Panagos said it was still too early to tell the cause. “Our focus right now is on taking care of the people.”
O’Berry (Coast Guard Officer Mike O’Berry) said coastguard environmental teams were on standby to assess any environmental damage once the fire was out.
Three days after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded the LA Times reported Flaming oil rig sinks in Gulf of Mexico. Interesting details in the LA Times report:
“It certainly has the potential to be a major spill,” said Dave Rainey, vice president of Gulf of Mexico exploration for the oil company BP, which leased the Deepwater Horizon, the $600-million mobile offshore rig that vanished underwater Thursday morning.”
-”The cause of the explosion remains unclear, although Rose and government officials have speculated that it was the result of a “blowout,” or high-pressure surge of oil or natural gas.”
“In a Thursday afternoon news conference, Coast Guard and oil company officials said it was not clear whether the 18,000-foot-deep well was still leaking.
Earlier in the day, Coast Guard firefighter Katherine McNamara said the rig had been spurting crude oil at a rate of 336,000 gallons per day, though nearly all of it was burning off in the incessant fire.
In the afternoon, after the rig sank, Landry said that it was not yet possible to know how much oil and gas, if any, was seeping from the well head.”
On April 25, NASA posted images of the oil leak from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster.
NASA:
An estimated 42,000 gallons of oil per day were leaking from an oil well in the Gulf of Mexico in late April, following an explosion at an offshore drilling rig on April 20, 2010. The rig eventually capsized and sank.
These images of the affected area were captured on April 25 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite (top, wider view) and the Advanced Land Imager on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite (bottom, close up).
On April 29, 2010, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported Health officials order air quality testing after fuel smell blankets metro area:
The state departments of Health and Hospitals and Environmental Quality said the strong odor blanketing much of coastal Louisiana and the metro New Orleans area is “possibly” the result of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Exactly one month after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig disaster federal government officials and BP couldn’t give an exact estimate of how many barrels of oil were “gushing” from the well. The Federal government announcing Federal task force assembled to measure volume of Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP admitting their figure, “5,000 barrels a day” was “too low”.
Times-Picayune:
BP admitted Thursday that a figure it has been citing for weeks as its best estimate of the total amount of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico — 5,000 barrels a day — is too low. A tube inserted into a hole in a broken riser pipe is now capturing 5,000 barrels of oil per day, but oil is still gushing from that hole as well as from another leak nearby, BP spokesman Mark Proegler said.
BP is measuring the oil as it is siphoned onto a drill ship on the water’s surface, Proegler said.
“Five thousand was always understood to be a very rough estimate. That number was useful and sort of the best estimate at the time,” said Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that came up with the 5,000-barrel, or 210,000-gallon, per day estimate.
And,
Steve Wereley, a researcher at Purdue University, told the House Energy committee Wednesday that he believed about 70,000 barrels of oil are leaking each day from the larger leak, based on an analysis of video of the spill.
A live video stream of the leak released by BP Thursday shows oil and natural gas continuing to pour from the pipe despite the insertion tube, which is surrounded by a rubber flap to prevent oil from escaping.
With today’s oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, an oil rig owned Mariner Energy, Governor Bobby Jindal is disputing Mariner’s statement the Vermilion oil rig 380 wasn’t in production. The AP reports a “mile long oil sheen” in the area. The Obama administration plans to convene new hearings in October to further investigate the cause of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, an operation run by BP. BP engineers refusing to testify at an Obama commission hearings held last week in Houston. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is allowing BP to put a permanent cap on the well, the source of the largest oil spill disaster in history.
Go figure.
Oil Rig Explodes in Gulf: Why Did Second Oil Rig Blow Up?
[...] Oil Rig Explosion Controversy over Whether Vermilion Oil Rig 380 Was in Production [...]
[...] For more details read Oil Rig Explosion Controversy over Whether Vermilion Oil Rig 380 Was in Production. [...]
[...] For some-more sum review Oil Rig Explosion Controversy over Whether Vermilion Oil Rig 380 Was in Production. [...]
[...] DBKP – Death By 1000 Papercuts [...]
[...] Vermilion Oil Rig 380 Written by Dr. K. Josh News Sep 3, 2010 Oil Rig Explosion Controversy over Whether Vermilion Oil Rig 380 Was in ProductionHours after the Mariner Energy Vermilion oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico there's already controversy over whether the oil rig was in production, whether there's oil leaking after the oil rig explosion. We took a look at the controversy which occurred after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in April, whether it's a case of BP Deepwater Horizon controversy deja vu.. [...]
[...] the article here: Oil Rig Explosion Controversy over Whether Vermilion Oil Rig 380 … [...]
[...] For some-more sum review Oil Rig Explosion Controversy over Whether Vermilion Oil Rig 380 Was in Production. [...]