Hopes ride on giant oil skimmer in Gulf of Mexico

AP – ' A Whale' a newly tooled supertankers is longer then three world cup soccer fields and as high as a …

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By TOM BREEN, Associated Press Writer – 45 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS – The latest hopes are riding on a massive new skimmer to clean oil from near the spewing well in the Gulf of Mexico, while a local Louisiana parish's plan to block the slick has been rejected by federal officials.

A 48-hour test of the Taiwanese vessel dubbed "A Whale" began Saturday and was to continue through Sunday.

TMT Shipping created what is billed as the world's largest oil skimmerby converting an oil tanker after the April 20 explosion sent millions of gallons of crude spilling into the Gulf.

The vessel was expected to cruise a 25-square-mile test site just north of the Macondo Deepwater well site, company officials said.

The U.S. Coast Guard and BP are waiting to see if the vessel, which is 10 stories high and as long as 3 1/2 football fields, can live up to itsmakers' promise of being able to process up to 21 million gallons of oil-fouled water a day.

The ship works by taking in water through 12 vents, separating the oil and pumping the cleaned seawater back into the Gulf.

"In many ways, the ship collects water like an actual whale and pumps internally like a human heart," TMT spokesman Bob Grantham said in an e-mail.

A Whale is being tested close to the wellhead because officials believe it will be most effective where the oil is thickest rather than closer to shore.

The ship arrived in the Gulf on Wednesday, but officials have wanted to test its capability as well as have the federal Environmental Protection Agency sign off on the water it will pump back into the Gulf, which will contain trace amounts of crude.

The wait has frustrated some local officials, who say the mammoth skimmer would be a game-changer in keeping oil from reaching vulnerable coastlines.

During a Thursday tour of the inlet to Barataria Bay, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said it was exasperating to have A Whale anchored offshore instead of being put to immediate use.

"They've used the war rhetoric," Jindal said aboard a boat floating in oil-slicked waters near Grand Isle. "If this is really a war, they need to be using every resource that makes sense to fight this oil before it comes to our coast."

The governor, who has been outspoken in his criticism of the relief effort, also criticized a decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reject a proposal by Jefferson Parish to build a series of rock dikes to protect the ecologically important Barataria Bay.

Parish officials were using a fleet of barges — dubbed the "Cajun Navy" — as temporary barriers to block the oil, but some was still seeping in. The Corps found that the dike plan was incomplete, lacking a designated agency to remove the barriers, a restoration plan for environmental damage and data to measure any such damage.

"The Corps took weeks to review the plan only to reject it today — and this denial is another unfortunate example of the federal government's lack of urgency in this war to protect our coast," said Kyle Plotkin, Jindal's press secretary.

Back at the well site, work continued through the weekend to prepare another vessel, the Helix Producer, to hook up to the containment cap at the seafloor and start collecting up to 25,000 barrels a day. The work was delayed by severe weather from Hurricane Alex.

If workers are able to hook up the Helix Producer this week, it could double the amount of oil being collected at the well head and then burned or transferred to other tankers.

Meanwhile, work is a few days ahead of schedule on two relief wells that BP says are the best chance at stopping the leak, BP America spokesman Daren Beaudo said.

But the company is sticking with its early-to-mid-August timeframe for completing the wells because of the uncertainties of hurricane season and the precision needed as the drills get deeper into the ocean floor.

Elsewhere on the Gulf coast, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson visited Pensacola Beach on Saturday, her first trip to Florida since the explosion and her sixth trip to the Gulf.

Jackson said that despite the level of contamination on the beaches, it should be up to local officials to decide whether they should be closed. Officials in Escambia County have posted oil warnings at beaches but not closed them.

"From a commonsense perspective there is nothing that I am going to be able to tell you in chemical lab that you can't learn about the safety of the water from a bathing purpose by looking at it and smelling it," she said.

Reporters pressed Jackson on whether she would wade into the water Saturday based on what she had seen.

"I would not go into the water today," she said.

___

Associated Press writers Jason Bronis in Barataria Bay, La. and Jessica Gresko in Pensacola Beach, Fla., contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill

Alex moves into Gulf of Mexico, ports close

		Mon, Jun 28, 2010 Reuters
Alex moves into Gulf of Mexico, ports close
By Adrian Virgen CAMPECHE, Mexico, June 27 (Reuters) - Tropical depression Alex moved into the southwestern Gulf of Mexico, prompting the closure of two key Mexican oil ports and was likely to regain storm status on Monday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm was not an imminent threat to oil-siphoning efforts at BP Plc's blown-out Macondo well in the Gulf, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Saturday. But Shell Oil Co shut subsea production at the Auger and Brutus platforms in the Gulf due to the storm threat. On Saturday, it evacuated non-essential workers from production platforms and drilling rigs in US-regulated areas of the Gulf of Mexico oilfields. The Mexican government kept the ports of Dos Bocas and Cayo Arcas, which handle 80 per cent of all its export shipping in the Gulf of Mexico, closed on Sunday afternoon citing bad weather and strong surf in the area. State-run oil giant Pemex said its platforms in the Campeche Sound were working normally and there was no evacuation plan yet ahead of the arrival of Alex. "We are on alert but platforms remain working," a Pemex spokesman told Reuters on Sunday via text message. Pemex's "emergency plan for hurricanes is constantly monitoring" systems in the area, he said. Forecasters expect Alex to return to tropical storm strength on Monday and to make landfall again as a hurricane early on Thursday between Brownsville, Texas, and Tuxpan de Rodriguez Cano in Mexico, sparing BP oil collection efforts. The hurricane center said there is a good chance Alex could become a major hurricane of Category 3 or higher with winds of at least 111-130 mph. Alex, the first named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, had sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph) and was about 55 miles (90 km) south-southwest of Campeche. The system was moving west-northwest at 9 mph (15 kph). El Salvador deaths Two men drowned in El Salvador after they were swept away by a river swollen with increased rain dumped by Alex, civil protection head Jorge Melendez told reporters on Sunday. Alex was expected to bring 10 to 20 cm of rain to the Yucatan Peninsula through Monday. Isolated amounts of up to 38 cm were possible over mountainous areas. In Campeche, skies were partially clouded on Sunday afternoon. Some rivers in the central part of the state had started to swell due to rising precipitation. But the arrival of Alex did not deter die-hard soccer fans from gathering at bars and restaurants in Campeche to watch the Mexico vs Argentina World Cup match. Increased rain and higher gusts were already present in Calakmul, a Mayan ruin site close to the Belize border in the southern part of the Campeche state. The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 and meteorologists predict this year will be a very active one. Hurricanes feed on warm water and the sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic are higher than usual this year. http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/World/Story/A1Story20100628-224137.html

Mile-long tube sucking oil away from Gulf well

BP: Mile-long tube sucking oil away from Gulf well

Play VideoAP – BP hopes latest effort captures gushing oil

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AP – FILE - This image from a video released by BP PLC shows oil and gas spewing from a yellowish, broken …

By JEFFREY COLLINS and JASON DEAREN, Associated Press Writers –1 hr 3 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS – Oil company engineers on Sunday finally succeeded in keeping some of the oil gushing from a blown well out of the Gulf of Mexico, hooking up a mile-long tube to funnel the crude into a tanker ship after more than three weeks of failures.

Millions of gallons of crude are already in the water, however, and researchers said the black ooze may have entered a major current that could carry it through the Florida Keys and around to the East Coast.

BP PLC engineers remotely guiding robot submersibles had worked since Friday to place the tube into a 21-inch pipe nearly a mile below the sea. After several setbacks, the contraption was hooked up successfully and funneling oil to a tanker ship. The oil giant said it will take days to figure out how much oil its contraption is sucking up.

The blown well has been leaking for more than three weeks, threatening sea life, commercial fishing and the coastal tourist industry from Louisiana to Florida. BP failed in several previous attempts to stop the leak, trying in vain to activate emergency valves and lowering a 100-ton container that got clogged with icy crystals.

A researcher told The Associated Press on Sunday that computer models show the oil may have already seeped into a powerful water stream known as the loop current, which could propel it into theAtlantic Ocean. A boat is being sent next week to collect samples and learn more.

William Hogarth, dean of the University of South Florida's College of Marine Science, said one model shows oil has already entered the current, while a second shows the oil is 3 miles from it — still dangerously close. The models are based on weather, ocean current and spill data from the U.S. Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among other sources.

Hogarth said it's still too early to know what specific amounts of oil will make it to Florida, or what damage it might do to the sensitive Keys or beaches on Florida's Atlantic coast. He said claims by BP that the oil would be less damaging to the Keys after traveling over hundreds of miles from the spill site were not mollifying.

"This can't be passed off as 'it's not going to be a problem.'" Hogarth said. "This is a very sensitive area. We are concerned with what happens in the Florida Keys."

BP had previously said the tube, if successful, was expected to collect most of the oil gushing from the well. On Sunday, the company said it was too early to measure how much crude was being collected and acknowledged the tube was no panacea.

"It's a positive move, but let's keep in context," said Kent Wells, BP's senior vice president for exploration and production. "We're about shutting down the flow of oil from this well."

Crews will slowly ramp up how much oil the tube collects over the next few days. They need to move slowly because they don't want too much frigid seawater entering the pipe, which could combine with gases to form the same ice-like crystals that doomed the previous containment effort.

Two setbacks over the weekend illustrate how delicate the effort is. Early Sunday, hours before a steady connection was made, engineers were able to suck a small amount of oil to the tanker, but the tube was dislodged. The previous day, equipment used to insert the tube into the gushing pipe at the ocean floor had to be hauled to the surface for readjustment.

The first chance to choke off the flow for good should come in about a week. Engineers plan to shoot heavy mud into the crippled blowout preventer on top of the well, then permanently entomb the leak in concrete. If that doesn't work, crews also can shoot golf balls and knotted rope into the nooks and crannies of the device to plug it, Wells said.

The final choice to end the leak is a relief well, but it is more than two months from completion.

Top officials in President Barack Obama's administration cautioned that the tube "is not a solution" to the spill and said they are closely monitoring the situation.

"We will not rest until BP permanently seals the wellhead, the spill is cleaned up, and the communities and natural resources of the Gulf Coast are restored and made whole," Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said in a joint statement.

Meanwhile, scientists warned of the effects of the oil that has already leaked into the Gulf. Researchers said miles-long underwater plumes of oil discovered in recent days could poison and suffocate sea life across the food chain, with damage that could endure for a decade or more.

Researchers have found more underwater plumes of oil than they can count from the well, said Samantha Joye, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia. She said careful measurements taken of one plume showed it stretching for 10 miles, with a 3-mile width.

The hazardous effects of the plume are twofold. Joye said the oil itself can prove toxic to fish swimming in the sea, while vast amounts of oxygen are also being sucked from the water by microbes that eat oil. Dispersants used to fight the oil are also food for the microbes, speeding up the oxygen depletion.

"So, first you have oily water that may be toxic to certain organisms and also the oxygen issue, so there are two problems here," said Joye, who's working with the scientists who discovered the plumes in a recent boat expedition. "This can interrupt the food chain at the lowest level, and will trickle up and certainly impact organisms higher. Whales, dolphins and tuna all depend on lower depths to survive."

Conservationists in Florida said oil could wreak havoc in the Keys or the environmentally fragile Everglades.

"Obviously this is a fear that we had about where the oil might go next," said John Adornato, regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association.

Oil has been spewing since the rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, killing 11 people and sinking two days later. The government shortly afterward estimated the spill at 210,000 gallons — or 5,000 barrels — a day, a figure that has since been questioned by some scientists who fear it could be far more. BP executives have stood by the estimate while acknowledging there's no way to know for sure.

News of the tube's success was met with tempered enthusiasm by the leader of a coastal parish in Lousiana that includes environmentally sensitive marshes and islands.

"It's definitely good news," Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said after a BP vice president called to brief him.

"It will be better news when they get it stopped," he said, noting the underwater oil plumes. "We have a large mess out there."

___

Collins reported from Hammond. Associated Press Writers Michael Kunzelman in New Orleans, Shelia Byrd in Jackson, Miss., and Christine Armario in Miami contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill

Political patience wanes as Gulf oil spill grows

AP – The Viking Poseidon lowers the top hat device at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf …

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By H. JOSEF HEBERT AND HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press Writer –1 hr 3 mins ago

ON THE GULF OF MEXICO – Political patience is washing away for BP executives who can't stop a broken underwater well from spewing oil into the Gulf, where crews lowered a new containment box to the seafloor in preparation for the latest bid to funnel the gusher to a waiting tanker.

In back-to-back U.S. Senate inquiries on Tuesday, lawmakers chastised officials from BP PLC and its drilling partners over attempts to shift blame to each other. They were asked to explain a "cascade of failures" that led to the catastrophic explosion on board a drilling rigand the blown-out wellhead that has spewed at least 4 million gallons of oil into the Gulf over three weeks.

"If this is like other catastrophic failures of technological systems in modern history, whether it was the sinking of the Titanic, Three Mile Island, or the loss of the Challenger, we will likely discover that there was a cascade of failures and technical and human and regulatory errors," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Energy andNatural Resources Committee.

Executives from BP, rig owner Transocean Ltd. and contractorHalliburton Co., among others, were expected back on Capitol Hill on Wednesday for an inquiry by a House subcommittee into the spill.

BP's latest bid to stop the oil leak was a new containment box that reached the seafloor overnight after being lowered late Tuesday by a crane from the deck of the Viking Poseidon. The box, dubbed a top hat, was initially set down away from the gusher while engineers work to avoid problems that scuttled an earlier effort, BP spokesman Bill Salvin said.

The first box sent down last week weighed 100 tons and company officials had hoped it could channel 85 percent of the oil. However, it was never tried at such depths — about a mile below the surface — and in 40-degree water. A slushy mixture of gas and water clogged the opening in the top of the peaked box and it was cast aside.

The latest box is much smaller — just 2 tons. It won't be placed over the spewing well right away because engineers want to make sure everything is configured correctly and avoid the same buildup, Salvin said. Crews also planned to pump in heated water and methanol so ice won't amass.

And, in yet another sign the spill is getting worse, Louisiana wildlife officials said Wednesday that tar balls had washed ashore in South Pass in the state's southeastern tip. The marshy area is home to prime waters for shrimp and other seafood.

Lawmakers' focus was on what failures may have led to the disaster. The corporate finger pointing prompted an admonishment from Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of oil-rich Alaska that "we are all in this together" in trying to shut off the oil and find a safer way to exploit vital energy.

"This accident has reminded us of a cold reality, that the production of energy will never be without risk or environmental consequence," she said. Still, she said, "there will be no excuse" if operators are found to have violated the law.

"Let me be really clear," Lamar McKay, chairman of BP America, told the hearing. "Liability, blame, fault — put it over here." He said: "Our obligation is to deal with the spill, clean it up and make sure the impacts of that spill are compensated, and we're going to do that."

By "over here," McKay meant the witness table at which BP, Transocean and Halliburton executives sat shoulder to shoulder. And despite his acknowledgment of responsibility, each company defended its own operations and raised questions about its partners in the project gone awry.

In the crowded hearing room, eight young activists sat in quiet protest, with black T-shirts saying, "Energy Shouldn't Cost Lives." Several wore black painted spots near their eyes to symbolize tear drops made from oil.

The spreading disaster in the Gulf intensified the political impatience all the way to the White House.

"The president is frustrated with everything, the president is frustrated with everybody, in the sense that we still have an oil leak," spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Uncertainty over what was happening a mile underwater seemed to confuse Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who was touring the Alabama coast. While admitting it had not been verified, she said there was cause for hope that the spill was slowing down because tests indicated less oil and more natural gas was coming out.

But BP spokesman Mark Proegler said there has always been a mixture of gas and oil coming up and that scientists haven't noticed any significant change in the leak.

Senators sought assurances that BP PLC will pay what could amount to billions of dollars in economic and environmental damages. McKay repeatedly said his company would pay for cleanup costs and all "legitimate" claims for damages, and not try to limit itself to an existing federal cap of $75 million on such damages.

BP was the exploratory well's owner and overall operator, Transocean, the rig's owner and Halliburton, a subcontractor that was encasing the well pipe in cement before plugging it in anticipation of future production.

The April 20 explosion is thought to have begun with a surge of methane gas from deep within the well, and while the cause is still under early investigation, testimony provided some insight into what might have been involved.

Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama grew frustrated grilling the executives on why engineers replaced a heavy "mud" compound in the well with much lighter sea water when they were temporarily capping the site for future exploitation.

"I'm not familiar with the individual procedure on that well," McKay said.

Steven Newman, Transocean's president and CEO, and Halliburton executive Tim Probert repeatedly told Sessions they did not know how often sea water instead of the compound was used to seal Gulf wells.

"Well, you do this business, do you not?" the senator demanded. "You're under oath. I'm just asking you a simple question."

New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg remarked in the day's other hearing: "The conclusion that I draw is that nobody assumes the responsibility."

McKay said that a key piece of safety equipment, the aptly named blowout preventer, had failed to work and made it clear it was owned by Transocean. "That was the fail safe in case of an accident," said McKay.

But Transocean's Newman said offshore production projects "begin and end with the operator, in this case BP" and that his company's drilling job was completed three days before the explosion and there's "no reason to believe" the blowout protector mechanics failed.

Halliburton's Probert said his company followed BP's drilling plan, federal regulations and industry practices.

___

Hebert reported from Washington, Weber from the site of the oil leak on the Gulf of Mexico. Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Frederic J. Frommer in Washington contributed to this report.

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