BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
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Edited to add: I am wondering whether the world would have reacted the same proactive way,if the same oil spill had happened not in US,but in some thrid world developing country.If not in US, a rich country,would BP have spent this much amount of money in cleanup and law suits? If not affected in a rich country,would you and me have bothered to the same extent,about those costal flora and fauna?
Big Oil’s real horror was not the spillage, which was common enough, but because it happened so close to the US. Millions of barrels of oil are spilled, jettisoned or wasted every year without much attention being paid.There are more than 2,000 major spillage sites in the Niger delta that have never been cleaned up; there are vast areas of the Colombian, Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon that have been devastated by spillages, the dumping of toxic materials and blowouts. Rivers and wells in Venezuela, Angola, Chad, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda and Sudan have been badly polluted. Occidental, BP, Chevron, Shell and most other oil companies together face hundreds of outstanding lawsuits. Ecuador alone is seeking $30bn from Texaco.[………]
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I have been closely following the Gulf of Mexico BP oil spill ever sicne it happened..Initaially it seemed interesting on how the whole process is run,later it turned surprising as to how they are dealing with it,but now it has become a dangerous reality,something which both Government and others agencies are not able to deal with.. Today is 30 days since the disastrous blowout and massive spill that occurred on April 20 on BP’s Mississippi Canyon Block 252 well.[…]
The well has been flowing uncontrolled since at a rate that is far in excess of the 5,000 barrels per day claimed by the US Coast Guard, MMS, and BP.The well in question began leaking oil after an explosion occurred on the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20, killing 11 workers.After the explosion, oil began spewing out of the undersea gusher, located only 80 kilometres from the Louisiana coast. To date, at least seven million gallons have flowed out of the well, endangering the local environment and economy.
Lately,the authorities are trying to ‘Top-kill’ the oil well.
Top kill strategy
The top kill method involves pumping heavy mud into the spewing well, so that the flow of oil can be stopped. If successful, cement would then be used to cap the well.The same technique has been used to stop leaks in above-ground wells. But it has never been tested 1,500 metres underwater — the same depth where the well is located.
BP officials have put the odds of success at 60 to 70 per cent. But they won’t know for sure until the operation has been active for about 24 hours.”We’re doing everything we can to bring it to closure, and actually we’re executing this top kill job as efficiently and effectively as we can,” said BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles.
There is also a risk that the top kill operation could make the situation worse by causing additional leaks in the undersea well.Anil Kulkarni, a Penn State mechanical engineering professor, said that if the leak “ruptures all over, then it would be even more difficult to close it.”
Sharing some images ( Pictures belong to those to took pains to click it,and not me..These days I am very much afraid of uploading others snaps,in fear of copyright violations)
BP oil spill shows need for biofuels, developers say
Images COPY-PASTED FROM
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/multimedia/gulfoil/?photos
Edited to add :
BP officials, who along with government officials created the impression early in the day that the strategy was working, disclosed later that they had stopped pumping the night before when engineers saw that too much of the drilling fluid was escaping along with the oil.
It was the latest setback in the effort to shut off the leaking oil, which federal officials said was pouring into the gulf at a far higher rate than original estimates suggested.[………]
Nimmy's Experiment with Blogging 