200,000 Gallons A Day

[Grace]

From the NY Times -

Officials Call Results of Well Test Encouraging
By HENRY FOUNTAIN

A day after BP closed off the flow of oil from its runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico, officials said the signs from a crucial test of the well’s condition were encouraging.

Pressure readings in the well rose significantly in the 24 hours after the valves were closed on a cap at the top of the well, an indication that the well was in good shape. But officials voiced caution, saying that they had expected that the pressure might rise even higher, and that the possibility of damage from the April 20 blowout could not yet be ruled out.

Another possibility, they said, is that the reservoir has been depleted by three months of gushing oil.

“This is generally good news,” Thad W. Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral who is overseeing the spill response, said Friday afternoon, about 24 hours into what was expected to be at least a 48-hour test. “But we want to be careful not to do any harm or create a situation that could not be reversed.”

He said that so far the test results were ambiguous, and that the possibility remained that the well had been breached and that oil and gas were escaping into the surrounding rock and perhaps even into the gulf. But there were no visible signs of a leak.

The test, which ended — at least temporarily — what had been a three-month gusher, is intended to determine whether the well can withstand pressure from the sealing cap.

The procedure will continue in six-hour increments, Admiral Allen said, and new data will be reviewed by scientists and engineers from the government, BP and other companies. He said there would be “enhanced monitoring” of the seabed, including acoustic tests that could detect small amounts of methane bubbling into the water, which would be evidence of damage to the well.

At the White House earlier Friday, President Obama cautioned against concluding that the corner had been turned in the oil disaster, which began with the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drill rig. He said it was still possible for there to be complications that “could be even more catastrophic” than the original leak.

Appearing in the Rose Garden before taking off for a short Maine vacation, Mr. Obama said all decisions about the fate of the well would be based on science, “not based on P.R., not based on politics.”

Kent Wells, a senior vice president of BP, said the company was watching the seafloor with cameras on robotic submersibles and using sonar and other equipment to look for leaks. So far, he said, “there is no evidence that the well doesn’t have integrity.”

When the test began, Admiral Allen said, pressures increased in a way that would be expected if the well was undamaged. But the level reached was lower than scientists had predicted if the well was intact. And pressures are now rising very slowly.

A breach could be one reason for the lower pressure readings, he said. But a more benign explanation would be that so much oil had spewed from the out-of-control well that the reservoir, 13,000 feet below the seabed, had been depleted.

“The pressure buildup we’re seeing is with modeling we did around reservoir depletion,” Mr. Wells said. “The longer we model these trends, the more we’ll convince ourselves that that’s the case.”

At some point — perhaps after 48 hours, as originally planned — a decision will be made about what to do with the well over the near term, until a relief well is finished that will permanently plug it. He said leaving the valves closed beyond the test remained a possibility.

But, Mr. Wells said, if the monitoring detects oil or gas coming up through the sea floor, engineers could reopen the well immediately.

“At least initially that would involve some venting of oil into the gulf,” he said. “We’re hopeful that’s not going to be the case.”

[Grace]

Oh dear, this doesn't sound promising -

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad W. Allen released a letter Sunday night that he had written to BP, noting a "detected seep a distance from the well and undetermined anomalies at the well head."

source

[lizbud]

Oh dear, this doesn't sound promising -




source

Yes & reports late today say the oil & gas are still "seeping". They will
watch for a spike in pressure before removing the cap.

[Grace]

Yes & reports late today say the oil & gas are still "seeping". They will
watch for a spike in pressure before removing the cap.

There was a great explanation of "seeping" by Chad Myers on CNN this afternoon. This seeping goes on all the time. He said some really large amount of oil seeps into the Gulf every year. There are tar balls out there - even when nothing is going on.

The problem now - this current seeping they have found - is it normal seeping or is it due to the well being capped?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We've been talking here in the office all day long about this 40 million gallon normal leakage into the Gulf of Mexico. Is this true? Really, do 40 million gallons of oil naturally leak into the Gulf of Mexico every year without wells even being there, just in cracks in the surface, or is this just something that someone made up? Tell me the truth.

VAN NIEUWENHUISE (Don Van Nieuwenhuise, who is a professor of petroleum geoscience at the University of Houston.): Actually, I don't know what the actual number is, but that sounds about right. All over the Gulf of Mexico, you have formations that actually leak to the surface. And when we look for oil and gas, we're looking for situations. We call them trapping situations, where the oil that's being formed in the earth does not follow up faults or actually break through capping rocks itself and -- and leak to the surface.

A lot of oil that's formed naturally by the earth ends up escaping or leaking to the surface in the form of natural seeps. And yes, there are a lot of these all around the world.

[cassiesmom]

As loop current splits, South Florida catches a break
(source: SPTimes.com)

In the oil spill battle of man vs. nature, nature is pulling off a valiant feat.

The powerful Gulf of Mexico loop current, which seemed primed three months ago to thrust oil to the Florida Keys and beyond, suddenly changed course and helped protect much of Florida's cherished shorelines.

Now, with BP capping the leak, a growing number of scientists think the loop current will help spare South Florida and the east coast from large amounts of BP oil.

It's a bit of serendipity amid calamity.

"Things look excellent," said Frank Muller-Karger, a biological oceanographer at the University of South Florida. "They have not looked better in the last two months."

Pollution from the Deepwater Horizon site has blanketed Pensacola and parts of Louisiana and Alabama. Texas saw tar balls.

So far, most of Florida has caught a break.

Tampa Bay and the west coast have been spared because they are separated from the spill by the shallow, 150-mile-wide West Florida continental shelf. It would probably take days of tropical storm-force winds to push oil to the shoreline.

The Keys, which were supposed to get oil weeks ago, have seen nothing from the BP spill, researchers say. It's the same story along Florida's east coast.

In fact, a Coast Guard lab in Connecticut testing oil samples from the gulf and East Coast says it has found no matches with BP oil south of the Panhandle.

"People had good reason to worry," said Michelle Wood, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oceanographer studying the loop current. "It seems we've kind of dodged a bullet on that so far."

The loop current, part of the Gulf Stream, begins in the narrow passage between Cuba and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, where it speeds north at 5 knots into the north central gulf.

The Earth's rotation and underwater features known as shelves ultimately turn the loop to the south, then east through the Florida Straits, where it joins the Gulf Stream and heads north up the coast.

Every nine months or so that changes because of numerous currents and the topography of the gulf floor.

The top of the horseshoe-shaped current is clipped off, becoming a spinning ring of water known as an eddy. The revised loop current then takes a more easterly course, traveling from the Yucatan through the Florida Straits, well south of the oil spill.

"It's just a natural cycle, and it goes back and forth," said Muller-Karger. "It's a completely cyclical thing."

This time, it happened in May.

The current's top part became a massive eddy spanning hundreds of miles. Scientists named it Franklin. The bottom part reshaped itself.

The threat of BP oil being swept to South Florida and beyond was lost.

"The gulf loop current is a living, breathing thing that takes on a life of its own and shapes things in a very fundamental way," said Doug Rader, chief oceans scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Scientists are watching what comes next.

The loop current will eventually reshape itself. Will it be soon enough to move oil south?

"It's not only hard to predict, it's almost an art to forecast," said Muller-Karger.

For now, many scientists say the likelihood of large amounts of BP oil being carried to South Florida or the East Coast are diminishing with each passing day.

With the leak capped, the oil has time to dissipate, evaporate and break into tar balls. And when the loop current resumes its more northerly course, it doesn't necessarily mean an oil rush to South Florida.

"It's not an immediate rapid freight train that goes from the spill site to the Florida Keys, but rather a more complicated system of handoffs," Rader said.

As hurricane season begins in earnest, keeping oil offshore is up to the wind. And, of course, humans.

"There's no question that the capping of this well is what we all really wanted to see," said Muller-Karger. "From now on, it will all be a dilution process — if they continue to keep the thing capped."

[cassiesmom]

I heard on t he news today that tropical storm Bonnie, which could have been a huge problem for the fragile situation in the Gulf of Mexico, simmered down before it caused any major problems. Phew!