Two Wells at Macondo - No Plans For Blowout, H2S, Gas

July 20 - There were Two Drilling Sites At Macondo 252... And two Rigs.

The BP application to the MMS references two sites for exploration in the same tract, one 50 miles offshore, (Site A) and one 49 miles offshore (Site B).  The bottom lease area block information on both well sites is listed in the documents as:

WELL/A - G32306/MC/252 6943 FNL, 1036 FEL
WELL/B - G32306/MC/252 7066 FNL, 1326 FEL

The Transocean Marianas Rig was initially tasked to drill both wells, with Well A to begin 7/15/2009 for a 100 day run, and well site B to be drilled 7/15/2010. Transocean Marianas began late, however. On October 7, 2009 it began drilling on the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico. On November 9, 2009 it was damaged by Hurricane Ida and was replaced by the ill fated Deepwater Horizon which was responsible for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill when that rig exploded on April 20, 2010.

Apparently the first well was abandoned when a drilling tool became stuck in the well bore. BP reimbursed the maker of the tool for the cost and then moved to site B. But was the initial well affected in any way by the blowout?

NO Contingency for Blowout or H2S Hazard in Macondo Well Plans

Application documents for the initial exploration plan (EP) on the Macondo 252 Deepwater Horizon well apparently did not require any contingency plan in the event of a blowout, or for the presence and management of dangerous H2S. Quoting from section 2.7 of these documents: “2.7 Blowout Scenario - A scenario for a potential blowout of the well from which BP would expect to have the highest volume of liquid hydrocarbons is not required for the operations proposed in this EP.” But look at these estimates of the amount of crude that these wells might release! According to the application, the volume of oil that could be released from an uncontrolled blowout in site A was estimated to be 300,000, BPD crude oil at API Gravity of 28 Degrees,  and 162,000 BPD for site B at API gravity of 33 Degrees. (API Gravity determines the lightness or heaviness of the oil, and this is on the border of “Light” or “Medium” crude oil. )

In Like Manner BP asserted that there was no hazard from H2S in the area...The same H2S that frustrated the initial containment cap operation and is now building up on the new equipment there. From the application: “3.2.1 Concentration - It is not expected that H2S will be encountered during the operations proposed in this plan. 3.2.2 Classification - Pursuant to Title 30 CFR 250.490(c), BP requests a determination that Mississippi Canyon Block 252 is located in an area where the absence of H2S has been confirmed. 3.2.3 H2S Contingency Plan - An H2S Contingency Plan prepared according to 30 CFR 250.4990(f) will not be required for the operations proposed in this plan.”

Furthermore, the risk of encountering pockets of gas was deemed to be "moderate to negligible," and BP stated that no post drilling ROV survey of the area surrounding the well for for the purpose of biological and physical observations was required.

Amazingly, section 7.1.5 of the document states: “7.1.5 Oil spill response discussion - a discussion of response to an oil spill resulting from the activities proposed in this plan is not required for this Exploration Plan”

So there it is folks, a classic example of how these applications get rubber stamped - No contingency plans for blowout required, no expectation or plan for H2S or gas pockets, no emergency spill plan required, no post drilling ROV survey of the seabed required. Your government in action at the MMS.

Main Article Here

Sea Floor Leak Confirmed Near Well

July 18, 2010 - UPDATE:
It’s Official: AP Reports Oil and Methane Gas is Seeping From Sea Floor Near Well.  Both Associated Press and The LA Times reported: “An administration official familiar with the spill oversight, however, told The Associated Press that a seep and possible methane were found near the busted oil well. The official spoke on condition of anonymity...The official said BP is not complying with the government's demand for more monitoring.”

The National Incident Commander, Adm Thad Allen, sent the following letter to BP’s Chief of Gulf Coast Restoration, Bob Dudley, and I emphasize some key statements therein: “Dear Mr. Dudley, My letter to you on July 16, 2010 extended the Well Integrity Test period contingent upon the completion of seismic surveys, robust monitoring for indications of leakage, and acoustic testing by the NOAA vessel PISCES in the immediate vicinity of the well head. Given the current observations from the test, including the detected seep a distance from the well and undetermined anomalies at the well head, monitoring of the seabed is of paramount importance during the test period. As a continued condition of the test, you are required to provide as a top priority access and coordination for the monitoring systems, which include seismic and sonar surface ships and subsea ROV and acoustic systems. When seeps are detected, you are directed to marshal resources, quickly investigate, and report findings to the government in no more than four hours. I direct you to provide me a written procedure for opening the choke valve as quickly as possible without damaging the well should hydrocarbon seepage near the well head be confirmed.”

Thad Allen refers directly to  the “detected seep a distance from the well.” On Sunday afternoon, Oly ROV 1 was monitoring what appeared to be a substantial eruption of gaseous oil NW of the BOP. I watched the eruption for some time between 3:00pm and 3:30pm PST.The entire screen was filled with a billowing, upward rising cloud that was definitely not disturbances of silt from the ROV thrusters. The ROV cameras zoomed and panned, clearly showing that its thrusters were nowhere near the scene begin filmed. The flow was substantial, it was continuous, (not intermittent), and it was persistent. I cannot imagine that BP would be filming silt kicked up by ROV jets for over 30 minutes.  Please recall that BP was reportedly trying to seal sea floor cracks near the well site as far back as February, before the explosion.

The confirmation of this new leak lends support to the discussion that the geology of the region is unstable. Yet the fact that oil is now migrating up from beneath the sea floor is a strong indicator that the recently capped well is, and has been, leaking oil into the surrounding formations. The capped well may have increased the pressure  on these leaks, making them more evident now. The LA Times report suggested BP was most interested in keeping that cap on, for obvious PR purposes, but government officials are now concerned that capping the well is increasing seepage to other subsurface cracks and fissures.

Main Article Here

Pressure Builds...Will it be Enough?

July 16, 2010 - UPDATE:
Pressure Builds to 6700psi. BP “Cautiously Optimistic.”
All eyes are on the pressure gauges, somewhere in BP HQ, as the readings have steadily increased but have not reached the target hoped for over the last 12 hours. Ken Wells, the new “American” CEO of BP has suggested that the depletion of the reservoir may account for these lower pressure readings, but other experts state this is unlikely given the enormous size of the reservoir.  The well pressure is now officially above the maximum flex joint rating, (See July 15 update), which is why Skandi ROV is constantly monitoring the mudline (sea floor) beneath the BOP stack. Authorities hope to reach a steady pressure of 8,700psi, and they are still 2000psi from that target. Meanwhile, seismic surveys are scanning regions approximately 10-12 miles from the well borehole, though Oil Drum posters continue to eviscerate Matt Simmons for his assertion that the real leak is indeed some 10 miles away. (See sidebar) Another survey is actively looking for the presence of methane gas, which has comprised about 40% of the leak flow, (while 5% is the norm). Scientists have reported the methane levels in the water are extremely high, and this remains a grave concern.

The relief well operation, temporarily halted while the pressure test was being conducted, has now resumed. It appears that BP will have to eventually restart the oil flow, possibly opening the smaller kill and choke lines on the new cap, and then attempt to  capture oil with the Helix Producer and Q4000 ships above while the relief well makes a “bottom kill” attempt. We will have learned what we thought we already knew last May when the mud from the “top kill” procedure failed to stop the flow because they could not maintain required pressures--the oil is leaking somewhere downhole. The question tonight is: where are those last 2000 pounds of pressure per square inch? Where is the oil going into the undersea formations, and what does this bode for the bottom kill plan?

Main Article Link

Crucial Test Now Underway - Oil Flow Stopped

July 15, 2010 - UPDATE: 

Well Integrity Test Resumes. All Cap Valves Closed. Oil flow Halted. They will now continue to monitor well pressure at 6 hour intervals over the next 36 to 48 hours, and hope the pressure builds to at least  8,000 - 9.000psi. The media hailed the closure of the well after 87 days, though this is a temporary situation and is no real indication that the problem has been resolved. If the pressure does not build as hoped, it will mean significant downhole damage is allowing oil and gas to leak below the surface of the sea floor. One concern expressed by oil industry expert Robert Cavner is that a “flex joint” in the lower BOP area is not rated to hold the pressure BP hopes to obtain in this test. In fact, the test would subject this flex joint (rated at a 5,000psi maximum) to pressures well beyond its maximum tolerance.  So the whole situation has now entered that breathless stage much akin to watching a boiling tea kettle. We are in “wait and see” mode, and will not really know the outcome of this procedure for some time. But we are much closer to proving or finally disproving the assertions of Matt Simmons and other analysts who claim the well is fatally damaged, and that the sea floor itself is gushing oil elsewhere. (Main article here)

More Nonsense

Fringe sites on the Internet have taken up a new mantra--this time that BP is up in Canada secretly testing a “Flux Compression EMP generator” device to create a massive pulse to seal the well. The Canadian “troops” that were supposed to be heading to the Gulf last week to control the population have, (according to these rumors), now been sent to northern Canada to test the weapon instead. Authors of these articles now cite USGS earthquake records in Canada to back up the claim that the device was tested...though the USGS shows no earthquakes occurred in Canada in the last 7 days. This is the sort of nonsense that is now reaching a fever pitch on the web.

There is a segment of the public that slavers for these end of the world saved by Bruce Willis stories. The internet is like a collective mind, and these stories stand as worried thoughts in that matrix. There are now over 800 references to this story on the Internet, as fear seems to breed an alarmingly creative speculation. Though not a single article that I have read on the subject provided any credible evidence that any of this was true. Of course, it's all "secret."

Enough said.

Deep Engineering

A mini-drama was played out in the afterglow of the final World Cup match this weekend, another contest, but this time man vs nature. At stake was the short term fate of the Gulf of Mexico, and with it the economies of four or five Southern states with a combined 3 trillion GDP. A mile beneath the turbulent, oil stained waters of the Gulf, BP engineers began the complex procedure of removing and replacing the containment cap sitting atop the Blowout Preventer stack. The new cap, with 10 inch thick walls of super hardened steel, is believed capable of withstanding pressures of over 40,000psi. But the process, as viewed live from the ROV cameras working the site, proved painfully slow as the the ROVs were used to methodically loosen and unscrew bolts beneath the gushing flange. I watched, mesmerized, for several hours as the ROV used a tool to unscrew the bolts. The engineers nudged at the component they were trying to remove, but it remained stubbornly stuck, like a loose tooth that would not come out of its socket.

Somewhere, a mile overhead on a humid, floating metal platform, the ROV operator was laboring to complete the complex procedure, one bolt at a time. The ROV put down the bolt removing tool and relied on the mechanical claw to try and jiggle the component lose, pulling and nudging without success. They switched back to their bolt remover and repeated the process until finally the component came off. At a little after 3:00pm EST the ROV pulled back away from the BOP, and as it maneuvered high above it, one could see the dark brown stream of oil and gas gushing from the top.  It scudded away, following a yellow cable to find a white metal cage or “basket” sitting on the sea floor, where it used its pincers to remove a pair of large steel hooks, one arm gently handing them to the other as they dangled from convenient grappling ropes. The ROV itself looked like some bizarre undersea creature dreamed up by H.R. Geiger, with two bulbous light-bulb eyes above an exo-skeleton of metal and hydraulic hoses, and two remarkably agile mechanical arms that could be fitted with any number of tools.

As I watched I had the same feeling I experience while watching the Mars rovers scooping up soil millions of miles away on a distant red planet. But here we were working at yet another frontier, for we know less about the deep oceans of our own world than we do about the surface of Mars! The lesson hit home as the machines fumbled in the murky sea, that this was about the limits of human technology and engineering, all of it, the dead sea turtles, dolphins, pelicans, and the lives of those so profoundly affected on the Gulf coast. We were a mile deep in the Gulf because the oil we need to run our machines was no longer cheap and plentiful, or easy to find on land. Oh, we still produce oil and gas in the US each day, but increasingly, we rely on sources that sit on edgy, often inaccessible ground, be it deep beneath the sea or deep behind the borders of foreign nations and cultures where we have sent our young soldiers off to fight.  We have reached our limit, and the whole crud encrusted mechanical mess beneath the Gulf was the result. Welcome to the 21st century, where we will spend more and more time discovering our limitations, and struggling to repair the slowly eroding infrastructure of our lives, finding a way to manage the inevitable contraction that is most certainly underway now, in spite of all the nonsense talk of a "recovery."

At times big events, like the Deepwater catastrophe, will hasten our demise, loosening the locked faults in a single disastrous slide slipping event.  But mostly we will continue down the road we have been walking, like lost souls in a Cormac McCarthy novel by that same name.

While all this incredible engineering was working round the clock to try and stop the oil leak, the Internet continued to buzz with talk of ruptured and expanding sea floor near the well head, and the imminent release of a massive methane gas bubble similar to those that had cause extinction events in prehistorical eras. Some sites claimed the Navy was “evacuating” all its ships from the Gulf under a cover operation by sending them, (46 ships and 7,000 Marines), to Costa Rica on a drug interdiction mission. That's a lot of muscle for drug hunting.  Another site claimed a brigade of Canadian Engineers, skilled in urban control operations from Bosnia, was now standing to in Edmonton on 72 hour notice to deploy to the Gulf Coast. (The implication was that they would somehow not be bound by US law when it came to operations involving US population there.)  A third site exhorted people to get out of the gulf region altogether, before the catastrophe moved into its next evolution of doom. Another urged us all to withdraw ample cash from the bank and store food and water for a few weeks because massive solar flares were about to knock down the power grid. The “gubmint” was, of course, hiding all this from the people.

I found it odd, if such disaster was imminent and the Navy was on the run, that tens of thousands of people were gathering on Gulf beaches that weekend to watch an air show put on by the military and featuring the Blue Angels! The doomers would explain this away by saying “they” were intentionally luring people to the coast—to get rid of them.

These are the kind of outrageous and wild imaginings that cycle on the bitstream these days, as if the simple reality of the Deepwater Horizon event was not frightening enough. We have seen hundreds of miles of coastline fouled from Texas to Florida and millions of barrels of oil dumped into the Gulf to create a toxic methane-petro-stew of our great fertile fishing grounds there. Lives have been lost, businesses and livelihoods ended, a way of life altered forever for tens of thousands of locals. They have enough to worry about without lumping in mega-methane eruptions and tsunamis. The hope is that this collective national nightmare will be over soon, with a new containment cap that will stop or divert the leaking oil to producing ships above, and a successful deep kill operation from the relief well in the next 30 days.

Let us all hope the engineers at the other end of the wires controlling those ROVs get the job done, and then we can sort all this out and see what we, as a nation, may have learned. As for the Gulf of Mexico?  Perhaps the blow it sustained may not be fatal, but how much more abuse can the Gulf take? And what new mantra will Fox news puppets and Sara Palin come up with now that we have seen the full measure of what we get with “Drill, Baby, Drill?”

Independence Day, 2010

In the second year of the ongoing Depression, July 4th rolled around again to remind us of our heritage and of our mission in the months and years ahead. The stock market had lost 6% or more in the week proceeding the fireworks, largely on the continuing gloomy news regarding unemployment. The BLS “officially” obfuscated the reality again, claiming unemployment “fell” to 9.5%--this at the same time 400,000 jobs were shed and the workforce continued to shrink as 1.7 million American out of work fell off the in unemployment insurance rolls in recent months and became “los desaparacidos.”  They joined the ranks of millions of others who have disappeared, vanished, and are no longer counted by the BLS as being out of a job. This is how the statistical lies continue to spin from the mill in officialdom, but the market was not fooled. At the same time President Obama's executive branch continues to spew the nonsense that we are in a “recovery,” and BP, having shunted their yacht sailing CEO off camera, continues to roll out soapy commercials featuring new “American” faces put into key company positions in charge of the massive ecological and economic catastrophe we call the Gulf oil “spill.”

In my neck of the woods, Monterey, California, I enjoyed a full weekend hiking Big Sur, getting my mandatory burger in a lodge restaurant under the pine trees, shooting the golden light of sunset on the coast at beautiful Sorbanes Point south of Pt. Lobos, and watching the parade of glitzy cars, clowns, military drill troops, and makeshift floats at the parade in nearby Seaside.  I was pleased to see one marching group holding up signs demanding an end to corporate rule of America, part and parcel of the  slowly evolving grass roots insurgency in this country, though I think any real protest beyond holding up placards will still be a long time coming. Here we were, celebrating the overthrow of the former legitimate government on this continent, yet, in spite of the grievances so many feel in their gut about the corprotocracy, no effective challenge is ever really mounted by “we, the people.”  We're all too busy clipping 20% off coupons and flocking to one day sales at the malls to try and stretch our ever diminishing incomes just a tad further.

In spite of all the money on this peninsula, fireworks were canceled for the second year in a row due to city “budget constraints.” Instead the town threw a big outdoor barbecue on the grassy lawns of city hall, which I attended, camera in hand. The event featured an open house in the old adobe museum where California's original constitution was drafted and signed, complete with a painting of one George Washington by an itinerant painter some 200 years ago. I wondered what George was thinking about the barbecue just outside. Later that evening my partner and I eased down the hill to Cannery Row to join the “Evening on the Bay,” at the swank Monterey Plaza Hotel, eating fresh grilled hot dogs and listening to an R&B ensemble as people danced to the tunes and seagulls watched from private perches on nearby buildings, fountains, and seaside rails. A good time was had by all, as people just seemed to want to forget the gloomy job numbers, and the stock market, and the oil spewing into the Gulf,  and celebrate. We settled for watching the fireworks on the local PBS broadcast of “A Capitol Fourth,” and listening to all the old favorite marching tunes, along with a slice of the 1812 Overture as the fireworks reached a crescendo. Indeed, I was “Proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free...”

We get the Monday after the holiday off to rest up, recuperate, and I suppose determine if we've forgotten to do any shopping. The “Monday kind of Tuesday” will come along in due course, and we can go back to the papered over realities of unsolved problems that still plague us and threaten the greatness we celebrated on the weekend past. Congress will pretend it actually passed a financial reform bill. The Republicans will huddle to figure out how they can defeat any further Democratic attempt at extending unemployment benefits, BP will keep drilling those relief wells and covering up the oil on the beaches. A toxic rain will fall gently on the Gulf coast while the northeast swelters in 100 degree plus temperatures, straining electrical grids all through the region. The markets will get back to their game of puts and calls, the banks, (now out of the glaring light of media coverage due to the oil crisis), will get back to their securities trading casino, and we'll all get back to the ongoing Depression. How many more years this thing has to run is anybody's guess. I'll call the recovery when I see it where it counts, on the streets of any-town America, when real job growth and viable production leads us forward, should that ever happen in the foreseeable future.

There are so many things we could be doing to create jobs now, but having squandered so many trillions to backstop the super wealthy and their banks, we have no money for things like alternatives to our reliance on companies like BP, or alternatives to the way in which we “move about the country.” So we'll just continue to limp along, big business as usual, as more teachers, policemen and firemen get laid off, city and state budgets continue to implode, and the oil we covet so dearly keeps washing up all along the Gulf coast in the long hot summer of our discontent.

Last year I summed up this same sentiment as articulately as I could in an article I called “Rocket's Red Glare.” It asked what the founding fathers would think of the nation if they were alive today, and what they might do about it. But what I was really asking is what are we going to do about it?

I'm still asking.

Republican Senators Defeat Unemployment Bill

The Senate demonstrated yet again that it exists primarily to further the interests of the large financial institutions at the expense of the people...at least the Republican senators, who today managed to defeat a bill that would have extended emergency relief to millions of jobless Americans through extended unemployment benefits. But you can forget that now. Out of work in the greatest recession of our lives? Too bad. The Republican filibuster, and their lock step voting as a block against the bill, means those unemployed will no longer receive support for Uncle Sam, much unlike the large banks, who used those same Republican Senators to fight the financial reform bill and include exceptions and extensions that could suspend key provisions of the bill until the year 2022. They want to continue the casino game as long as possible before the new rules and regulations take effect. Putting things off until 2022 will give them plenty of time to make off with their proverbial ill gotten gain before the gambling houses are shut down. In the  meantime, good luck in the soup kitchen lines.

To be fair, two Republicans (Snowe and Collins) refused to vote against the unemployment bill, and one democrat (Brown of Nebraska) sided with the Republican nay vote.The recent death of Senator Byrd (D) also took away a key democratic vote. But it was clear where the Ds and Rs all line up on such issues when you look at the final vote tally. The unemployment bill was going to ask for $33 billion in Government aid for a million unemployed workers now losing benefits. This was too much for the Republicans, who thought nothing of handing Citigroup, Chase, BofA, Wells Fargo, and so many others nice fat taxpayer funded checks of between $20 and $50 billion each just a few business quarters ago. Big bucks for the banks? No Problemo. Money for the unemployed? No thanks. This is the mainstream Republican line.

Has it ever been more clear what the Republican party is all about? In every case, when it comes to a choice between the people and big business, you can be sure the conservative right will close ranks to protect big corporate coffers. The recent flap over Texas Republican Senator Joe Barton's defense of British Petroleum, claiming that the $20 billion fund for damages to Gulf coast businesses due to the spill was a "shakedown," is ample evidence of positions taken by Republicans at every step. All you have to do is watch it all on CSPAN. Any issue that threatens to restrict big business, hold them accountable, limit the excessive graft, curtail corruption and rampant profit taking at the expense of the public, will be staunchly opposed by Republicans. They can't get their way any longer by passing new business friendly laws as under Bush and Cheney,  or drafting new tax cuts for the wealthy, or figuring out more ways to prevent the little guy from getting a fresh start with his debt problem, but they have enough members to filibuster and prevent Democratic  measures aimed at reforming the disastrous pillaging of the public purse that has been underway since Hank Paulson threatened the Senate with the specter of martial law if the banks didn't get their multi-trillion dollar bailouts.

So when you get your final notice from the unemployment office saying that your benefits will not be extended, just pick any Republican senator and write them a nice thank you letter. And no matter how long Sean Hannity whines about those lose spending Democrats, please remember this the next time you find yourself in a voting booth. The Ds wanted to spend that money on you and your family in time of great need. The Rs said "heaven forbid--we need that cash for Citigroup!"