OIL Spill News and History

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill

The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, hit Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef and spilled an estimated minimum 10.8 million US gallons (40.9 million litres) of crude oil. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters ever to occur in historyAs significant as the Valdez spill was -- the largest ever in US waters -- it ranks well down on the list of the world's largest oil spills in terms of volume released.
However, Prince William Sound's remote location (accessible only by helicopter, plane and boat) made government and industry response efforts difficult and severely taxed existing plans for response. The region is a habitat for salmon, sea otters, seals and seabirds. The vessel spilled 10.8 million U.S. gallons (about 40 million litres, or 250,000 barrels) of Prudhoe Bay crude oil into the sea, and the oil eventually covered 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of coastline and 11,000 square miles (28,000 km2) of ocean.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6424KO20100504

Energy giant BP Plc indicated some progress on Monday toward capping the underwater well that ruptured in the Gulf of Mexico almost two weeks ago, pushing a giant oil slick toward the Gulf Coast.

The swelling slick, now estimated to be at least 130 miles by 70 miles, or about the size of the state of Delaware, threatens shipping, wildlife, beaches and one of the United States' most fertile fishing grounds.
"This spill, it can fundamentally change our way of life here," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said.
BP, the British energy company, has been working to plug a leak nearly a mile under the surface of the ocean, under heavy pressure from the U.S. government to try to limit a looming ecological and economic disaster.
Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, and Lamar McKay, BP America president, met on Monday with top Obama administration officials including the energy, interior and homeland security secretaries and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, to discuss coordinated response efforts.
Separately, BP said crews in Louisiana have finished building the first of three massive steel and concrete containment domes the company plans to lower in place over one of the three leaks on the ocean floor.
"We will load that on a ship tomorrow along with other associated equipment, and transport it to the site," Doug Suttles, chief operating officer of BP's exploration and production unit, told reporters on a conference call.
Drilling also started Sunday night on a relief well that could cap the oil spill on the Gulf floor, the company said. Still, this operation is expected to take two to three months to complete.

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MIAMI, May 4 (Reuters) - Forecasts for the trajectory of the huge oil slick off the U.S. Gulf Coast did not show it hitting the shore for another three days, BP Plc Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said on Tuesday.
"It's still offshore. ... Right now we're not showing landfall for three days," he told a news conference call in Mobile, Alabama, referring to current projections.
Suttles said authorities handling the operation to fight the slick had received a first report of oil coming toward shore this morning at Chandeleur Island in Louisiana.
"We launched 22 vessels ... they've been in the area ever since, trying to locate that oil and make sure it doesn't reach shore. ... They had not actually located any oil coming ashore at that time," he added.
Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry said while it was expected some surface oil "sheen" would eventually reach the shore, the containment operation was tracking "heavy pockets of emulsified oil" to prevent them from hitting the coastline.
Alabama Governor Bob Riley said the more favorable weather conditions and projections meant the response effort would have a few more days to try to reduce the slick, contain it and mitigate its impact on the shore.
"If we can get three or four days, I think we're going to be in pretty good shape," Riley said.

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Nasa Pictures of the Oil spill

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NASA's Aqua satellite flew over the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, May 4, at 18:50 UTC, or 2:50 p.m. EDT. The Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured this visible-light image. The bulk of the spill appears as a dull gray area southeast of the Mississippi Delta. Credit: NASA/Goddard/MODIS Rapid Response Team

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BP is working on Capping the leak

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Here is how they want to do it

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May 08, 2010, 12:49 PM EDT

By Jessica Resnick-Ault and Jim Polson


May 8 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc is lowering and placing on the seafloor a 40-foot-tall steel chamber that represents its best hope of stopping its Macondo well from spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico until the flow can be fully stanched.
BP expects the containment system to begin funneling leaking oil to an overhead drillship by May 10, Tom Keilman, director of government and public affairs, told reporters today on a conference call. The edges of the chamber will sink into mud 5,000 feet (1,524 meters) under the surface of the Gulf.
If it works, the rectangular structure with a pyramid- shaped dome on top will capture as much as 85 percent of the leaking crude, Doug Suttles, London-based BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, said yesterday at a press conference in Robert, Louisiana. The well began spilling oil after an April 20 explosion on Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon rig, which sank in the Gulf two days later.



“They have to lower it quite precisely,” Suttles said. “The tolerances are very tight.” Operators of a ship-mounted crane about a mile above the leak lowered the containment box toward the well yesterday.
To stop the rest of the leaking, BP has 20 experts studying the possibility of injecting pieces of rubber into the well, Suttles said. The containment box is a stopgap measure until BP can complete a well started May 2 aimed at relieving pressure so the leak can be plugged with cement.
Hoping for Success


“We hope it is going to work, but you can’t just risk everything and hope it works,” BP spokesman Mark Salt said in a telephone interview. “You have to explore other options.”


The April 20 explosion and fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon, which BP leased from Geneva-based Transocean, killed 11 workers and led to a spill estimated at 5,000 barrels a day.


A bubble of methane gas that shot up the drill column and burst through several seals and barriers caused the blast, the Associated Press reported late yesterday, citing interviews with rig workers obtained by a California engineering professor.


BP’s Salt declined to comment on the AP report. The U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Minerals Management Service will begin an investigation May 11 to identify the factors leading to the incident, according to a government statement issued today.


The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service yesterday stopped public access to Louisiana’s Chandeleur and Freemason islands, where BP and federal officials Thursday said oil from the spill first reached shore.
Wildlife Refuge Closed


The islands comprise the Breton National Wildlife Refuge. Barring the public will protect nesting birds and speed cleanup work, the Fish and Wildlife Service said yesterday.


The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration yesterday widened a fisheries closure in the Gulf of Mexico, calling it necessary to reassure consumers that fish and shrimp caught in the region are safe to eat.
Calm seas have enabled BP to burn as much as 9,000 barrels of oil from the surface, Suttles said. The Coast Guard and BP have been skimming oil from the Gulf. Oil accounts for about 10 percent of the 45,000 barrels of oil and water skimming boats have recovered so far, Suttles said.
Controlled burns won’t be done today because of high winds, Coast Guard Petty Officer Connie Terrell said in a telephone interview. BP plans to do more skimming today and to drop additional dispersant on the oil slick, company spokesman Mark Proegler said.


Containment Efforts


The Minerals Management Service, overseer of offshore drilling, completed inspections of all deepwater drilling rigs operating in the Gulf without identifying hazards, regional director Lars Herbst said at the press conference in Robert.
Inspectors checked test records of blowout preventers, an assembly of valves atop wells on the seafloor. The blowout preventer on the BP well failed to stop a mixture of oil and gas from ejecting unexpectedly and igniting the rig, according to Suttles. Houston-based Cameron International Corp. supplied the blowout preventer for the Deepwater Horizon.
Besides possibly injecting rubber cuttings into the well, engineers are considering installing a second blowout preventer atop the first, Suttles said.


Some of the methods being studied to stop the leak could instead increase it if they don’t work, Suttles said. Before the containment box can be installed, robots must make sure the area is clear, Suttles said.
Robot Clearing


Water temperatures of about 42 degrees Fahrenheit (6 Celsius) and pressures of 2,300 pounds per square inch may cause natural gas in the oil, estimated at 3,000 cubic feet per barrel, to freeze as it rises.
BP plans to circulate warm surface water and antifreeze around the pipe to prevent clogging, Dave Clarkson, the company’s project manager for the underwater containment plan, said on a May 5 conference call.
Similar containment boxes have been used to funnel crude from leaking wells in shallow water. This is the deepest deployment of the system, according to a fact sheet provided by BP.


BP fell 13.1 pence, or 2.3 percent, to 553.9 pence yesterday in London. The shares have dropped 15 percent since the rig explode