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Post by moabiter on Jul 14, 2010 10:42:15 GMT -8
An important 48-minute video: Shell experts at Aspen Ideas Festival last Friday, July 9, compared their deep offshore drilling methods with those of BP (presentation starts about 4:00; good material at about 13:00; contrast with BP at about 18:00; discussion of BOP at 22:00; Q&A at 25:00 – ownership, risk management, safety assessment, etc). If your time is limited, go directly to well design and operations comparison in the Q&A, starting about 29:00. www.aifestival.org/audio-video-library.php?menu=3&title=639&action=full_infoDrilling for Oil: A Visual Presentation of How We Drill for Oil and the Precautions Taken Along the Way Marvin E. Odum Joe Leimkuhler Also: An outraged reaction (“reckless rope-a-dope”) to latest developments this morning from Houston oilman-blogger Bob Cavnar: dailyhurricane.com/2010/07/well-integrity-test---where-did-that-come-from.htmlRemember all those claims that it was impossible to measure the amount of oil and gas flowing out of the well? Well, two years ago, BP claimed in its magazine that it had developed new technology to do just that: www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/frontiers/STAGING/local_assets/pdf/bpf22_34-38_sonarflow.pdfAnd there is some new stuff, especially about Thunder Horse, in this NY Times review yesterday of BP’s hubris: www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/business/energy-environment/13bprisk.html?ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=all
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Post by clone on Nov 12, 2010 16:30:40 GMT -8
NOVEMBER 11, 2010 Dust-Up Clouds Spill Test
A tiny federal agency that investigates deadly chemical accidents said it was being thwarted in its probe of the Deepwater Horizon disaster by other federal agencies.
The bureaucratic dust-up between the Chemical Safety Board and the federal Joint Investigation Team probing the accident could complicate the team's final report and any federal prosecutions related to the accident.online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703848204575608840149762562.html
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Post by clone on Mar 7, 2011 19:31:18 GMT -8
Exclusive: Flow Rate Scientist : How Much Oil Is Really Out There? Feb 23, 2011 www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsHl3kn63ZADr. Ira Leifer, a marine scientist from the University of California at Santa Barbara, has been researching the geochemical nature of oil seeps and spills for over a many years. After over a decade of experience studying hydrocarbon visualization, modeling, and geochemistry in the Santa Barbara channel, Dr. Leifer developed a recognizable expertise in the area of oil spills. Soon after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in late April 2010, Dr. Leifer was sought out by the government and appointed to the National Incident Command's Flow Rate Technical Group. This group of highly specialized scientists was tasked with the responsibility of determining how much oil was leaking from the Macondo 252 wellhead. In this exclusive interview with Project Gulf Impact, Dr. Leifer expresses his frustration when asked to make scientifically sound conclusions based upon data that has been intentionally obscured and manipulated. Not only was he denied the proper quality of data after repeated requests, he also witnessed a blatant obscuring, by the media, of the results that ultimately were released by the flow rate group. BP argues that scientists have miscalculated the flow rate from the Macondo well, and that the actual spill size could be half the official estimate. ------------------------- Source: EPA Will Agree to Cut BP Oil Spill Estimate February 1, 2011 6:17 PM | "If BP gets away with reducing the flow estimate to half of the current estimate, it will be a masterful manipulation of government regulators and inexperienced administration officials. It appears that with the media now completely ignoring this tragedy, BP will successfully lowball the flow to minimize its liability. To give you an idea of the size of this issue, let's look at a few numbers: First, the official government estimate for flow into the Gulf is 4.9 million barrels, or about 60,000 barrels per day (this estimate is likely way low due to flow characteristics of these big deepwater wells, but that fact just complicates an already complicated subject, so I'll ignore it for now). Second, at the peak of it's "top hat" containment, BP was capturing about 25,000 barrels of oil per day, even as oil roared into the water around the cap. dailyhurricane.com/2011/02/source-epa-will-agree-to-cut-bp-oil-spill-estimate.html
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Post by clone on Mar 19, 2011 10:08:22 GMT -8
Probing BP's spill estimates: An editorial Published: Saturday, March 19, 2011, 9:30 AM Federal investigators have shown up at the homes of several BP executives in recent weeks to question them about the flow rate and how it may have differed from what the company told government officials and the public, according to sources. Giving false statements to a federal agency is a felony. Two sources familiar with the Department of Justice probe said the investigation also is examining whether BP executives used their internal knowledge of the spill for illegal insider trading. www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2011/03/probing_bps_spill_estimates_an.html
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Post by clone on May 31, 2012 10:55:59 GMT -8
BP Oil Spill Emails Reveal High-Level Discord Over Flow Estimates Updated: 05/31/2012 11:57 am "We should be very cautious standing behind a 5,000 [barrel per day] figure as our modeling shows that this well could be making anything up to 100,000 [barrels per day]," Mason wrote in one of the emails, obtained by The Huffington Post. www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/31/bp-oil-spill-flow-estimates_n_1558993.html
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Post by clone on Dec 19, 2014 0:33:07 GMT -8
Pre-trial hearing held for ex-BP exec Associated Press 1:25 p.m. CST December 3, 2014 NEW ORLEANS —Attorneys for a former BP executive facing an obstruction charge in the 2010 Gulf oil spill asked a federal judge Wednesday to dismiss the two criminal counts as his trial approaches in March... One count says Rainey obstructed Congress. The other charges him with making false statements regarding his calculations on the rate at which oil was flowing from BP's Macondo well after the explosion. www.thetowntalk.com/story/news/politics/state/2014/12/03/pre-trial-hearing-held-ex-bp-exec/19841849/
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Post by clone on Feb 25, 2015 4:40:53 GMT -8
BP appeals U.S. judge's ruling on size of Gulf oil spill NEW ORLEANS Mon Feb 23, 2015 6:56pm EST Feb 23 (Reuters) - BP Plc on Monday appealed a federal judge's finding of the size of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which leaves the company potentially liable to pay $13.7 billion in fines. In January, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans ruled that 3.19 million barrels of oil had spilled into the Gulf as a result of the disaster. A determination that less oil was spilled would likely translate into a lower fine for the company. The appeal comes days after Barbier rejected the company's attempt to reduce the maximum civil fine it could face for its role in the disaster. That decision could result in a $13.7 billion fine for the company under the federal Clean Water Act. www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/23/usa-bp-spill-idUSL1N0VX2OI20150223
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Post by clone on Mar 15, 2015 22:32:43 GMT -8
U.S. appeals ruling on size of BP oil spill WASHINGTON Sat Mar 14, 2015 12:43pm EDT (Reuters) - The U.S. government is appealing a federal court ruling that reduced the potential penalty BP Plc must pay for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill by almost $4 billion. The appeal, which was filed on Friday in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, challenges a January decision by U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier that set the size of the spill at 3.19 million barrels. The appeal did not detail what aspects of Barbier's ruling it was challenging. more: www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/14/us-bp-trial-appeal-idUSKBN0MA0QB20150314
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Post by clone on Jun 14, 2015 6:28:55 GMT -8
Fri Jun 5, 2015 3:34pm EDT Related: Environment BP executive acquitted of lying about Gulf of Mexico oil spill NEW ORLEANS A U.S. federal jury acquitted a former BP Plc executive on Friday of lying about how much oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in April 2010, according to lawyers on both sides of the case. David Rainey, BP's former vice president of exploration in the Gulf, faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison had he been found guilty of willfully making a fraudulent statement to federal law enforcement agents. The case was brought by the government over statements Rainey made to agents from the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nearly a year after the spill. The April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig led to 11 deaths and the largest U.S. offshore oil spill. Justice Department lawyer Robert Zink said witness testimony and text messages proved that Rainey deliberately understated the flow rate. On May 24, 2010, Rainey sent a 5,000-barrel-a-day estimate to Congress, terming it BP's "best scientific guess" at the flow rate, Zink said. www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/05/us-usa-court-bp-idUSKBN0OL23020150605*100,000* barrels/day VS. Exxon Valdez 257,000 total pyrelog.proboards.com/thread/167/100-000-barrels-exxon-valdez
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