BP Permanently Seals Gulf Oil Well

rexjoec writes "BP has finally plugged the Macondo well. This announcement came yesterday after $9.5 billion (through September 17) in expenditures and five months of continuous effort." From the LA Times: "Of the estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil that gushed from the well, 25% was burned, skimmed or piped to tanker ships. A second 25% has evaporated or dissolved, according to government estimates. Another 25%, classified by the government as 'residual oil,' consisted of light sheens on the water, thick goo on the shore and tar balls. The tar balls, though not harmful to humans, are likely to wash up on shore for some time."

Comments

The last 25%

[BostonRob]

The last 25%, left out of the summary, is the most concerning. From the article: The final 25% of the oil — the equivalent of four Exxon Valdez spills —- is of greatest concern to scientists. It is drifting 3,000 to 4,300 feet below the gulf's surface, in vast clouds of atomized droplets that could alter links in the chain of life.

Re:The last 25%

[catmistake]

Is BP paying those fishermen for the next 40 years of lost work?

Not speaking for BP, but for myself... and not speaking to family owned and operated fishing enterprises, but to the commercial fisheries: FUCK THEM. Their greed pretty much destroyed the Gulf and the Atlantic stocks of the best fish. Man, I am really going to miss tuna. FUCK THEM TWICE, damn greedy savages.

Is it paying the hotels for the next 20 years of lost business?

Not speaking for BP, but for myself... and not speaking to family owned and operated hotels, but the large commercial developers and big corporate resorts: FUCK THEM. They somehow skirted federal wetland laws (DO NOT TOUCH) to destroy miles of coastline so rednecks could have a vacation spot closer to home, instead of traveling to already established resort islands along the coast NC, SC, GA, and FL, like civilized people do. FUCK THEM TWICE, greedy fucking savages.

It sure seems like dumping a few gallons of oil can get you arrested, dumping millions though is ok so long as you pretend to do something about it.

Agreed. Trouble is, everyone only cares about their bank accounts, at the expense of the things we need to live, like a habitable environment.

Re:The last 25%

[IndustrialComplex]

Lets say you own a farm, and I accidentally burn your farm down killing all your crops and livestock. Should you not be paid for the lost money you could have made from the grain and livestock? I mean, who knows how much the crops would have actually made you since there is no accurate way to determine the total yield since the weather affects it as does market fluctiations. Furthermore, your livestock could have gotten sick and died or could maybe not have grown very big. I understand its a bit different with fish since its a "caught" item from a "shared" resource but its not too far of a stretch.

Let's see: 400 head of cattle, and 1000 acres of arable planted land. Quantifiable, measurable quantities. You can put together a fairly reliable estimate based on commodity futures and you don't harvest grain 10 years from now. Actually, it is fairly easy to estimate considering I did the exact same thing when an energy company screwed up a well on land I own.

Now, we did argue about the value within several percentage points, but I could easily backup my estimates based on current prices, past prices, and a bodycount. (Though in my case, the bodycount was a log count for trees that they knocked down without permission)

Re:The last 25%

[catmistake]

That's not why. They created the demand. You'd be sicked to learn how much swordfish never gets sold and just rots and must be discarded. And... you can farm tuna??

Re:The last 25%

[Anonymous Coward]

We've discovered new bacteria that operate at those colder depths that seem to be metaolizing the oil at the rapid rate, and being atomized likely makes it easier for them.

Sure, and those bacteria create a hypoxic zone that kills the foodweb in that zone. Coupled with the very slow rate of mixing at that depth in the gulf, and you've got a dead zone that may persist for decades.

Actually the "dead zone" idea may be somewhat in doubt. I believe this story is referring to the bacteria mentioned.

From the above story:

"... the microbe works without significantly depleting oxygen in the water, researchers led by Terry Hazen at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reported Tuesday in the online journal Science Express."

"Scientists also had been concerned that oil-eating activity by microbes would consume large amounts of oxygen in the water, creating a "dead zone" dangerous to other life. But the new study found that oxygen saturation outside the oil plume was 67 percent, while within the plume it was 59 percent."

Sounds to me like the oxygen deletion as a result of the oil being metabolized or biodegraded, however you wish to style it, is less extreme than the severe oxygen deletion that occurs during the annual dead zone in the Gulf (not to mention other locations) due to nitrogen rich agricultural run-off and sewage.

Re:That's only 75 percent

[Anonymous Coward]

The final 25% of the oil — the equivalent of four Exxon Valdez spills —- is of greatest concern to scientists. It is drifting 3,000 to 4,300 feet below the gulf's surface, in vast clouds of atomized droplets that could alter links in the chain of life.

This "dispersed" oil was broken into droplets, about the width of a hair, either when it shot at high speeds from the well's broken pipe or when it came into contact with the 1.8 million gallons of the controversial chemical dispersant Corexit.

I make a point not to buy from BP anymore

[bl8n8r]

You should too.

Re:The well is empty.

[arielCo]

The prospect may have held 50 million barrels (7.9×10^6 m3) producible reserves of oil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macondo_well#Location

Re:Besides a Bad PR Strategy...

[vlm]

is there any GOOD reason why they simply didn't repair the blowout preventer, hook up a new dipstick, set up a new rig, and keep on a-pumpin'?

There's two answers:

1) The legal one is once a well goes out of control, it gets the death penalty. Sounds on the surface as stupid as punishing a gun instead of a shooter... however this "gun" cost BP within an order of magnitude of $100M to drill. Wells are really quite expensive to drill. This lowers the wealth of the world as a whole by $100M but more specifically it lowers the wealth of BP by $100M, thus being very motivating for funding groups like BP to hire drillers (TO) whom don't screw up.

2) The semi-technical answer is rapid, uncontrolled sand flow pretty much destroys the pipes and other down hole stuff. It would be way faster and cheaper to drill a new well than to repair this one. Its sort of the difference between duct taping something together in a movie plot therefore its possible vs actual business operation. What I'm getting at is testing and certifying casings and hangers and parts is really cheap when its on the surface, and really expensive when its buried in the earth.

Re:why not untar the gulf...

[Petaris]

That extracts the tar, we want to bottle it up.

tar -cvf gulf.tar gulf coastline ;)

Plug the leak

[countertrolling]

Look who gets the job.. For sure they didn't charge a dime...

Re:You know what I find hilarious?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oil production of Iraq: ~2.5 million barrels per day .

Oil production of Iran: over 4 million barrels per day.

Therefore: totaloil leaked into Gulf, over a period of two months, was less than two day's production for a mid-ranking oil-producing country. To put it another way: you'd have to take out 15 rigs of that size to have the same effect on world supply as a major war in the Middle East.

Comparing with other big oil spills

[justthinkit]

This is less than was spilled in the Gulf War spill, about two and a half times more than the Amoco Cadiz and 250 times less than was burned by Saddam. Here are the Top 19 according to Wikipedia.