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Posts Tagged ‘oil spill’

The BP oil spill disaster will continue to affect local economies around the Gulf of Mexico for many years, and also the environment will require decades of recovery. Now the Associated Press reports that New Orleans is back within the thick of an oil slick thanks to an errant tow boat called the Pere Ana C. The boat is said to have struck a wellhead in Louisiana marshland. Now the Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told MSNBC that there is oil shooting into the air about 20 feet. Resource for this article – Tow boat smacks into New Orleans oil well, causes new spill by Personal Money Store.

Find this well south of New Orleans

The gushing oil well is located in an inland waterway along the border between Plaquemines Parish and Jefferson Parish, approximately 65 miles south of New Orleans. You can’t get to this place on roads. Workers for the recovery were stationed in Barataria Bay already moving oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster within the Gulf of Mexico. Nobody knows who the owner is right now. However, according to Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts, the amount of oil gushing out from the Pere Ana C. collision is considerable. A specific estimate has yet to be made, and also the specific method of recovery that will be used is also unknown at this time, as the area is only accessible by boat. Since there have been gas clouds reported within the area, officials worry about natural oil leaking as well.

Pere Ana C. was close to Mud Lake

Mud Lake was the approximate location of the Pere Ana C. collision early Tuesday morning. After the collision occurred, the Coast Guard ship had to move right away to the LaRose area. Right now, we have heard of no injuries. Media sources say that authorities are trying to find who the well belongs to so they can discover somebody to clean it up. Nobody knows if this spill is as costly as the BP spill with Deepwater Horizon.

More on this topic

Associated Press

miamiherald.com/2010/07/27/1748599/oil-spews-from-la-oil-well-struck.html

MSNBC

msnbc.msn.com/id/38429966/ns/us_news-environment/

Remember when BP blocked media access to cleanup workers?

youtube.com/watch?v=dZHnStD690U

Government officials say that the ruptured well is spewing five times more crude than originally was estimates while the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to expand. Since strategies to stop the leak failed, the Coast Guard ended up having a news conference on Wednesday night. Reporters were told by Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revised its last estimate of the leak from 1,000 barrels a day to 5,000. Cleanup crews working on the oil spill are experimenting with burning the oil slick. It is reported that the oil spill might reach the gulf coast of Louisiana by Friday night. Landry said the US military might be called for assistance as the crisis escalates, which would cost a lot of cash today.

Accelerating oil spill of the Gulf coast

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been spreading ever since April 20 when a drilling rig leased by BP exploded and then sank about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, leaving 11 workers missing and probably dead. It was originally thought the oil was issuing from two leaks in the riser, a 5,000-foot-long pipe leading from the rig to the wellhead on the ocean floor. Chief operating officer for exploration and production for BP, Doug Suttles, said, according to the The New York Times, that a new leak had been discovered. A leading edge of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which had been stretching about 100 miles across has now advanced to 16 miles offshore Wednesday, closing in on the Mississippi River Delta.

Estimates in the Gulf coast oil spill

Scientists are eyeballing video feeds from remote submersibles to estimate output of the leaks in the riser. “That takes a practiced eye,” said Doug Helton in an e-mail to the New York Times Wednesday night. “Like being able to look at a garden hose and judge how many gallons a minute are being discharged. The surface approach is to measure the area of the slick, the percent cover, and then estimate the thickness based on some rough color codes.” CNN reports that most of the slick is a thin sheen on the water’s surface. About 3 percent of it is a heavy, pudding like crude oil.

Oil slick fire

An oil slick fire is being tested to help stop too much damage from hitting the shoreline in the Gulf of Mexico. It is reported by the Associated Press that BP and Coast Guard crew started an oil slick fire test late Wednesday afternoon about 30 miles east of the Mississippi delta on the Mississippi river. Several thousand gallons of the thickest oil on the surface was corralled by a 500 foot fireproof boom. Ignited with hand held flares was the oil that was taken away from the main body of the spill. The Coast Guard expected the flames to vaporize between 50 percent to 90 percent of the oil in the boom. The toxic black cloud of smoke and soot was expected to be blown out to sea by prevailing winds.

Military to assist oil slick cleanup

As the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico continued to spread, CNN reports that cleanup planners briefed Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Thursday morning. Plans are being worked on by military to provide aircraft tot better map the spill and putting a ship in the Gulf to support and resupply cleanup vessels. Also, there might be a supply base established on the coast for equipment and supplies for the cleanup of the oil, which seems to be a long term operation.

For months the oil slick could spread

To eventually halt the oil slick in the gulf from spreading, CNN reports the NOAA said a rig will start drilling the first relief well about a half mile from the disaster site on Friday. The well will take several months to complete even though it is there to stop up the gushing leak with concrete. Another solution being looked at is a dome that would be lowered over the leak at the sea floor which routs leaking oil to a surface collection point but would still take 2 to 4 weeks to complete. It is uncertain whether the dome technique would be effective. It hasn’t ever been tried so deep in the water.

The oil spill price tag for cleanup

The oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico is costing a heavy toll. Officials in the oil industry say replacing the rig that exploded would cost up to $ 700 million. BP said containing the oil spill will cost $ 6 million. The disasters cost is expected to exceed $ 1 billion.

Article Sources

The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/us/29spill.html?pagewanted=2&ref=us

Oil from the BP oil spill has been pouring into the ocean for more than a month now. At the request of Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, BP released the oil spill live feed just a few days ago. Co-hosting the oil spill live feed is the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

Article Source: Oil Spill Live Feed | Keeping 24-7 watch on the oil spill

Oil spill live feed experience heavy traffic

Websites posting the oil spill live feed experienced incredibly heavy traffic almost immediately after the live feeds were put on the web. For both the BP website and the committee website, the oil spill live feed went down several times. Since then, though, the feed appears to be fairly reliable. There to maintain an all-day-every-day feed of the oil spill is the Spillcam website.

Why is the oil spill live feed needed?

Following repeated requests to British Petroleum, the oil spill live feed was made public. Definite answers about how much oil is spilling into the ocean have not been consistent with BP. Credit repair will most likely be needed for this beleaguered company for years to come – and for a very good reason. The oil spill live feed has been made public not only in the name of public information, but in the name of possible solutions.

The range of the oil spill

The BP oil spill live feed shows the hundreds of thousands of raw crude oil spilling into the ocean every day. On top of analyzing the live feed, scientists are also studying the oil that is starting to appear on the coast of the United States. The Loop Current of the Gulf Stream is already starting to pick up the oil, and it could most likely travel as far as Cuba, the Bahamas, and the Eastern Seaboard or farther. Transocean, Haliburton and others have refused to take part of the responsibility for the spill, leaving only BP claiming partial responsibility for the spill.

In spite of whose responsibility it is, a view into the impact of the BP oil spill is clearly shown in the oil spill live feed. The cleanup of this environmental disaster is sure to take years, if not decades.