Is Offshore Oil Drilling Truly Safe?

[IcedEcliptic]

According to CBS news, a film crew attempting to get footage of a beach in South Pass was told to turn back or face arrest. The boat that blocked them was allegedly manned by BP contractors and two Coast Guard members. What is going on here?

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6496749n&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+CBSNewsVideoUS+(CBSNews.com%C2%A0Video:+US)

Obama's Teflon coating is going to evaporate if stuff like this continues. The Navy has a lot of very competent and well-equipped submersible ROV's and it's high time that they were employed in an attempt to stop these leaks. It is apparent that BP's "readiness" for dealing with deep-sea leaks is non-existent. We should try to do the job that they cannot and bill them for the entire cost, as well as the lost livelihoods related to the spill. If BP doesn't want to pay up and wants to fight, cancel all their leases.

Not Teflon, oil and money, just as other politicians: http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/05/05/bp.lobbying/index.html

 

[mheslep]

Natural oil seepage in the worlds oceans (nothing to do with evil human industrial activity and our will to live) is roughly the equivalent of an exxon valdez every year. [...]

Do you have a source for that? I've never heard of it.

About 3.8 million bbl per year natural seepage, best estimate in 1974, perhaps as high as 38 million bbl/y

"Natural Marine Oil Seepage"
R. D. Wilson, P. H. Monaghan, A. Osanik, L. C. Price, and M. A. Rogers
Science 24 May 1974:
Vol. 184. no. 4139, pp. 857 - 865
DOI: 10.1126/science.184.4139.857
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/184/4139/857

The probable range of seepage into the marine environment is 0.2 x 10^6 to 6.0 x 10^6 metric tons per year. Within this range the best estimate for the present marine seepage worldwide is on the order of 0.6 x 10^6 metric tons per year. This estimate is based on the presumption that only a few other areas around the world are as seepage-prone as southern California. Measurements of seeps and seepage rates are too few to allow an accurate estimation by observation and measurement techniques alone. Seepage potential can, however, be related to geologic criteria, and these provide sound bases for marine seepage assessment.

On the basis of this estimate, areas of high seepage potential contribute about 45 percent of the worldwide seepage, areas of moderate seepage about 55 percent, and areas of low seepage less than 1 percent. The situation varies somewhat from ocean to ocean. In the Pacific Ocean, areas of high seep potential are by far the major contributors. In the Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Southern oceans, areas of moderate seep potential are most significant because areas of high seep potential are relatively rare in these realnis. The circum-Pacific area is the area of greatest seepage; it contributes about 40 percent of the world's total.

 

[mheslep]

LSC and NG.

Do you have a new source? Per https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2721278&postcount=422" it appeared you did not have any reliable information either.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Natural oil seepage in the worlds oceans (nothing to do with evil human industrial activity and our will to live) is roughly the equivalent of an exxon valdez every year. The magnitude of this spill is irrelevant to the global environment in the big picture.

Yes, we are worried about the Gulf of Mexico [and now Florida and the East Coast] and damage to the ecosystems of the Southern coast of the US, hence the economy of that entire sector of the US, not the Sea of China. Your point is not only a non sequitur, it is silly. This is a problem of rate and dilution over time, not a simple volume problem.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

If I pour a can of oil down into my well [yes we actually have a well], the contamination is irrelevant in global terms, but I still don't have any safe drinking water.

 

[DavidSnider]

About 3.8 million bbl per year natural seepage, best estimate in 1974, perhaps as high as 38 million bbl/y

"Natural Marine Oil Seepage"
R. D. Wilson, P. H. Monaghan, A. Osanik, L. C. Price, and M. A. Rogers
Science 24 May 1974:
Vol. 184. no. 4139, pp. 857 - 865
DOI: 10.1126/science.184.4139.857
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/184/4139/857

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V7H-4894M8F-1P/2/757e05108d4fb1032781c68b450b27e0

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Why do you think it's spin, it's the obvious truth.

"Spin" and "truth" are not mutally exclusive. Truth without spin often goes unnoticed.

A good salesperson doesn't lie, they just know how to highlight the facts in an effective manner.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V7H-4894M8F-1P/2/757e05108d4fb1032781c68b450b27e0

So the real question is this: Why does this have any relevance to the discussion? To derail the thread with irrelevant facts serves no purpose. Natural leakage is not what threatens the Gulf Coast.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Russ, I don't really understand your objections, but if you put more faith in BP than you do independent analysis, or if you prefer less, rather than more direct methods of measurements, that is your choice. We don't and probably never will have a definitive statement on any of this, and if we ever do get one, it will take many years and will always be challenged. I personally put much more faith in the velocimetry measurements. Wereley is putting his career on the line. BP has nothing to lose by lying, forever, about all of this, and they have every incentive to do so.

I am sure that Wereley will publish the assumptions and estimates for review. And he surely is not working in isolation. If we assume X, we estimate the following... What about this language is news?

 

[mheslep]

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V7H-4894M8F-1P/2/757e05108d4fb1032781c68b450b27e0

Thanks DS! So in bbls 1.6 million per year, best estimate, high end 16 million per year.

 

[mheslep]

But then, he is an expert.

Yes, which makes the contradiction in his statements
all the more surprising.

Wereley has citable expertise of flow velocity measurements under certain conditions. I've seen no reference on any expertise whatsoever by him that would qualify him to ascertain the composition of the Gulf pipe effluent.

 

[turbo]

Wereley has citable expertise of flow velocity measurements under certain conditions. I've seen no reference on any expertise whatsoever by him that would qualify him to ascertain the composition of the Gulf pipe effluent.

Can you cite any expertise, knowledge of fluid dynamics, or other relevant skills on the part of BP's engineers? If not, why do you trust their 5000 barrel/day vs the losses calculated by Wereley and others? BP has not been too forthcoming or honest to date.

 

[IcedEcliptic]

Do you have a new source? Per https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2721278&postcount=422" it appeared you did not have any reliable information either.

So sorry, I left my ROV with its crystal ball in my other fortress of solitude.

You seem to be under the misapprehension that NG and Oil flow in the same manner and that an expert in the field of such measurements hasn't included that in his calculations. You also seem to assume that past studies and decades of modern oil exploration has not yielded effective models of their likely composition and mixture. I am not in a position to speak to that, but as an acknowledged independent expert, who as Ivan has said is risking a great deal with his statements, Wereley is. I will take his and Chiang's estimates over BP, and the information they have released to the USCG.

Wereley's work and record are available, so avail yourself of them. Your argument is a step on the reduction to the absurd, demanding rigor that has not been claimed, and is ever likely to appear.

I would add, seepage over time in all of the world's oceans vs. a gushing pipe in the GULF OF MEXICO is different. There is a lot of posing rhetorical questions by you and Russ, and previously Cyrus, but it would seem your default position is "wait and see" for questions that will likely remain estimates and conjecture for decades, if not longer. You have challenged Wereley's expertise in this, and I would love to know why, and on what grounds. A positive argument if you please, and not simply a personal standard.

In general I find this all amusing, as the majority of what this site is dedicated to is subject to FAR less "proof" and certainty than HD video of a leak. Theories and conclusions in various branches of physics and astronomy, cosmology, and medicine are based on less. If Pfizer released an estimate with no data that pharmaceutical X follows kinetics Y, we would scoff. If based on the only publicly available information was analyzed by independent experts who believe that in fact the pharmacokinetics are rather, P, Q, or R, then one would tend to believe that they are more reliable.

Russ at least admits that his mission is to prevent speculation, here of course, and not elsewhere. Cyrus, from what I have read earlier in this thread, wished to hold the apportioning of blame (which is still a good idea I think), but you simply appear to be contrary. In the American parlance, "what gives?"

 

[mheslep]

Can you cite any expertise, knowledge of fluid dynamics, or other relevant skills on the part of BP's engineers? If not, why do you trust their 5000 barrel/day vs the losses calculated by Wereley and others? BP has not been too forthcoming or honest to date.

Turbo I've not gone about saying 'yea verily 5k bbl/day is the One True Figure' as has been suggested in this thread about other figures. I'm well aware BP has conflicts of interest, as do gad fly academics who have no experience in the marine oil and gas business. Meanwhile: 1) the only rate estimate I've seen coming from people with experience in marine oil and gas is BP's estimate. Show me an estimate from another such source, such as an oil spill guru like Red Adair that say's BP's estimate is low, or even the government, and I'm interested. 2) I have yet to see a description that makes any logical sense as to how particle flow measurements from a passive video can even begin estimate what is coming out of that pipe. 3) As of this Saturday the spill will be one month old, and I think it's odd that the oil has http://www.zwire.com/news/newsstory.cfm?newsid=20430414&title=Oil%20spill%20impacts%20tourism%2C%20industry&BRD=1145&PAG=461&CATNAME=Top%20Stories&CATEGORYID=410" by now which I speculate a spill rate 10X worse than BP's estimate would have done, favorable currents or not.

 

[IcedEcliptic]

Turbo I've not gone about saying 'yea verily 5k bbl/day is the One True Figure' as has been suggested in this thread about other figures. I'm well aware BP has conflicts of interest, as do gad fly academics who have no experience in the marine oil and gas business. Meanwhile: 1) the only rate estimate I've seen coming from people with experience in marine oil and gas is BP's estimate. Show me an estimate from another such source, such as an oil spill guru like Red Adair that say's BP's estimate is low, or even the government, and I'm interested. 2) I have yet to see a description that makes any logical sense as to how particle flow measurements from a passive video can even begin estimate what is coming out of that pipe. 3) As of this Saturday the spill will be one month old, and I think it's odd that the oil has http://www.zwire.com/news/newsstory.cfm?newsid=20430414&title=Oil%20spill%20impacts%20tourism%2C%20industry&BRD=1145&PAG=461&CATNAME=Top%20Stories&CATEGORYID=410" by now which I speculate a spill rate 10X worse than BP's estimate would have done, favorable currents or not.

Gadfly academics? Care to cite your insult?

In addition, here is a paper co-authored by Wereley, and I must say he seems to have the necessary grasp of fluid dynamics, and certainly the resources to make an estimate of the type and range he offered. I would dearly love to hear why you believe that specific industry expertise is needed when analyzing a particular fluid mixture.

Further he seems qualified in the technique used: https://engineering.purdue.edu/~wereley/cv.pdf

---

In general, some more news. You have to admire the balls BP has, even of they are getting in their way.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/19/gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T2 Note that Suttles now claims the 20% reduction from the tube insertion now reduces the flow to 3000 barrels per day. Stick to that figure like LSC to a bird.
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/19/bp-told-feds-it-could-handle-massive-spills/?hpt=T2 An example of quality predictions by BP executives, who we can only pray were not led to believe this by their engineers.

 

[mheslep]

So sorry, I left my ROV with its crystal ball in my other fortress of solitude.
[...]
You also seem to assume that past studies and decades of modern oil exploration has not yielded effective models of their likely composition and mixture.

Perhaps there are. That's in part why I asked.

I am not in a position to speak to that,[...]

This and the first sentence then is an admission that you intentionally fabricated your response in https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2723056&postcount=429".

 

[IcedEcliptic]

Perhaps there are. That's in part why I asked.
This and the first sentence then is an admission that you intentionally fabricated your response in https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2723056&postcount=429".

Oh my, a logic trap.

Of course, I could have based that on information that is widely available, and you will note that I did not attempt to specify ratios. Given the formation of methane hydrates, and the published fact that this is Light Sweet Crude, hardly. Instead of playing "gotcha" try answering with some substance, my prior few posts.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Woohoo! They are going to be trying to kill the well this weekend; apparently by backfilling the it with pressurized cement, or something along those lines. I only caught a blurp about the method, but the Coast Guard sounded hopeful. This is the most hopeful news that I've heard since the top hat failed.

As expected, the tar balls found in Florida were not from the bp spill.

Did anyone see the video of the pipe that was allegedly capturing 1k barrels per day, from the primary leak? It looked like a straw trying to intercept the discharge from a fire hose.

 

[IcedEcliptic]

Woohoo! They are going to be trying to kill the well this weekend; apparently by backfilling the it with pressurized cement, or something along those lines. I only caught a blurp about the method, but the Coast Guard sounded hopeful. This is the most hopeful news that I've heard since the top hat failed.

As expected, the tar balls found in Florida were not from the bp spill.

Did anyone see the video of the pipe that was allegedly capturing 1k barrels per day, from the primary leak? It looked like a straw trying to intercept the discharge from a fire hose.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN0314262220100516

That has been an option for a while, and while it may work, I wonder what flow rate and pressure figures they'll run to calculate the fill? I doubt that this will work in the absence of a relief well.

 

[turbo]

Woohoo! They are going to be trying to kill the well this weekend; apparently by backfilling the it with pressurized cement, or something along those lines.

I am so hopeful! BP failed over and over in an attempt to thread a 4" pipe into the largest rupture. Now they claim to be able to do the same, penetrate the pipe and pressurize it with with a sealant. Does anybody believe them? We can hope and pray, but tooth-fairy belief is thin, here.

 

[IcedEcliptic]

I am so hopeful! BP failed over and over in an attempt to thread a 4" pipe into the largest rupture. Now they claim to be able to do the same, penetrate the pipe and pressurize it with with a sealant. Does anybody believe them? We can hope and pray, but tooth-fairy belief is thin, here.

While they are at this untested miracle of deep water engineering (on the fly), perhaps they could inject a few dye or other markers to allow for a more precise PIV result.

 

[WhoWee]

Can you cite any expertise, knowledge of fluid dynamics, or other relevant skills on the part of BP's engineers? If not, why do you trust their 5000 barrel/day vs the losses calculated by Wereley and others? BP has not been too forthcoming or honest to date.

Why don't you think BP engineers are qualified to estimate flow rates of a given pipe size at a given line pressure and fluid composition?

 

[Antiphon]

Do you have a source for that? I've never heard of it.

http://www.mms.gov/omm/pacific/enviro/seeps-coal-oil-pt.pdf

100 barrels a day of natural seepage just from off the coast of Santa barbara 24x7x365. Yhe global values are much higher. This blows the gulf spill out of the water if you will.

 

[IcedEcliptic]

Why don't you think BP engineers are qualified to estimate flow rates of a given pipe size at a given line pressure and fluid composition?

Qualified or not, the results are filtered through BP, and their estimate is ridiculous and based on surface observation, not an engineer's measurement at the pipe. There is also the utter lack of preperation for this event, and its aftermath. A better question might be, engineers aside, BP is giving out the information, not the engineers. BP must do their best for shareholders, not the public, or their own engineers.


Antiphon, as has been noted, 100 per day with different weather and surf, different water temp and depth, and I question ANYTHING coming from MMS at this point. This is a massive leak at a great depth, including dispersants, and in a GULF at the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season. Commercial fishing is not the same issue between the two, and finally, what is the magnitude of the gulf leak? No one here seems to believe the 5000 barrels/day, even mheslep and russ, although other figures are questioned as well.

Finally, 100 per day in a given volume, versus this leak is a matter of concentration over time. To use a crude analogy, one is pissing in the ocean, the other is taking months or years worth of piss and dropping it in the ocean, each per day. This is not rocket science, nor does the size of the coastline act as some absolute measure of ecological damage.

 

[Astronuc]

I heard some discussion yesterday concerning Wereley's estimate. He is apparently an expert in the technique. He is co-author of Particle Image Velocimetry: A Practical Guide
https://engineering.purdue.edu/~wereley/


Scientist: BP's Oil Spill Estimates Improbable (May 20)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126975907

Wereley's flow rate includes both gas and oil, so he says his figures may come down once he sees enough video to be able to quantify the amount of gas.

"But from what I see in the videos, I don't see the numbers coming down that significantly," he says.
. . . .
Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) called Wereley to talk to his House Energy subcommittee after noting the huge discrepancy between Wereley's numbers and BP's oft-quoted estimate, which is based on a survey of oil on the ocean surface.
. . . .
BP has started to provide more video to a Senate committee. But the oil company rejected a plan that would have produced an independent measure of the oil flow.

Sizing Up The Oil Spill Hearings
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126985080

HARRIS (NPR): Wereley went on to say that his own figures could ultimately come down from where they are right now because remember, as we've been saying, this flow is both oil and gas, and BP gave us a figure that suggests the mixture is something like three parts of gas to one part of oil down at the ocean sea floor.

 

[mheslep]

[...] Yhe global values are much higher. This blows the gulf spill out of the water if you will.

Not in the Gulf, in this single year it doesn't.

 

[Astronuc]

Scientists Fault U.S. Response in Assessing Gulf Oil Spill
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/science/earth/20noaa.html

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/05/20/science/earth/20noaa_graphic.html?ref=earth

Tensions between the Obama administration and the scientific community over the gulf oil spill are escalating, with prominent oceanographers accusing the government of failing to conduct an adequate scientific analysis of the damage and of allowing BP to obscure the spill’s true scope.

. . . .

Bear in mind that this is a newspaper/media article, and not a scientific article, so the language is not as clean and crisp as one might wish. The scientific community is certainly not monolithic, so it concerns me to read sentences that seem to offer sweeping generalizations or inclusions. But then this is a frequent issue in journalism, and in some PF discussions.

Nevertheless there is criticism of the government and BP with respect to minimizing the severity of the spill, it's consequences, and the methods to resolve this matter.

We need to realize that many statements are based on estimates, and the further one is from the scene, the greater the uncertainty.

 

[IcedEcliptic]

When I hear of methods to measure this spill and its impact directly, in our lifetimes, I will remove the "estimate" caveat. Trust will remain an issue, and as there is so much to be lost in so many arenas (financial, political, environmental) one must use the best estimates extant. To do otherwise is intellectually dishonest, and needlessly apologist for companies and a government that failed to plan, failed to act properly to avoid this foreseeable disaster (see previous pages for references), and is economically entangled. There is the oil, and there are the detergents, surfactants, and solvent being dumped and well.

Does anyone doubt that the US government will act to cover its ***, or that BP will act to preserve itself and shareholders? Environmentalists will spin this, making their assessments questionable, and in the ensuing dust-up fishermen will be hung to dry; lawsuits take TIME, as we've seen with Exxon.

Obama's administration is a major recipient of BP'a money, whereas the scientific community simply has less to gain or lose in terms of power and money. In short, it should not shock that given the restriction of information released, and the lack of access given, that we are left wondering. Science is slower than propaganda, but that does not mean we should ignore immediate estimates in favor of years of study that will take place while other interests spin and massage this event.

In a better and just world, MMS, BP, Administration officials involved, and more, would be mulched and used as oil sponges.

 

[IcedEcliptic]

Bad, bad, BAAAD news. Just released by BP, their siphon is taking 5000 bbl/day, and they know admit that the leak is much much larger than their estimate. What. A. Shock. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10133413.stm
compare to yesterday, when they believed they were only capturing 3000 bbl/day or a few days before when it was 1000 bbl/day.

I suppose we now have answers about relative honesty and/or competence.Also in the news, the EPA giveth a few hundred thousand gallons already used, and now it taketh away dispersant: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/20/gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T2

Fantastic, I'm sure that the mass already in the water column will have no ill effects.

It'a in the loop current now: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127012041

Here is BP 8 hours ago: http://www.onenewspage.com/news/World/20100520/11196917/BP-bows-to-demands-from-Congress-and-scientists.htm

Some more by Wereley, the "gadfly academic" who apparently was a hell of a lot closer to being right than anyone else. http://www.onenewspage.com/news/Business/20100520/11204809/Kevin-Grandia-Experts-Say-BP-Withholding-Valuable-Data.htm

 

[IcedEcliptic]

Answer to the OP: No.

http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream2&hpt=T1

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/20/gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T1

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/19/gulf.oil.spill.main/index.html

 

[mheslep]

As of May 18:

NOAA and BP have stuck with the 5,000-barrel estimate, although Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday the government is preparing new estimates.

Some scientists:

estimate the volume of oil spilling from the well as 25,000 to 80,000 barrels a day.

about which

More than half a dozen industry professionals who test wells flow and study oil formations were skeptical in interviews about estimates as high as 80,000 barrels a day, given the production rates of nearby deep water wells that yield 15,000 to 30,000 barrels a day.
“We work hard to maximize flow rates in deep-water wells and I don't know any well in the Gulf of Mexico that made that kind of rate,” said Stuart Filler, president of the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/7011584.html

 

[pallidin]

It seems that things are only getting worse. Is there ANY way to stop this leakage?

And where is there an incentive for BP to care? They will just raise prices to cover costs, having a net financial effect on them as zero.

 

[IcedEcliptic]

As of May 18:



Some scientists:



about which



http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/7011584.html

Yes, but what I've posted is as of May 20th. You're behind, and posting the same thing in two threads.

 

[Astronuc]

BP's Own Numbers Prove Spill Greater Than Estimate
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127018709

May 20, 2010 For several weeks, BP clung to the federal government's estimate that 5,000 barrels a day were leaking in the Gulf, even though independent scientists sharply disputed that figure. Now, the company is capturing that amount of oil each day -- and there is plenty more still spilling into the Gulf. The Obama administration has given BP 48 hours to hand over all its data.

The 5000 bbl/day was based on estimates of what was reaching the surface. We have known for some time that more was dispersing under the surface.

According to BP, they are retrieving about 5000 bbl/day, but there is much more leaking out into the water.

. . . On Thursday afternoon, the video highlighted one leak, and there are two other breaks in the pipe spewing oil and gas. A scientist told Markey's committee Wednesday that one of those appears to be spewing out 25,000 barrels a day.

And yet, BP spokesman Mark Proegler still says the company has no idea how much oil and gas is coming out of the leaking pipe, which is known as a riser. . . .

 

[IcedEcliptic]

Information now released, shows that over 600,000 gallons of toxic dispersant have been deployed before the EPA reconsidered and now banned its use.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/20/gulf-oil-spill-chemical-dispersant

---

Astronuc, yes, this is what I was saying yesterday, while others were looking at "data" from 3 days ago.