BP denies reports of new leaks in Macondo well

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/194729.html

BP issued a quick and emphatic denial Thursday after reports began circulating on the Internet about new leaks in its Macondo well, source of a massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year.

"None of this is true," the British oil giant said in a statement in response to reports it had deployed boats and containment boom to the well site. It noted the well was capped in July of last year, permanently sealed in September, and continues to be monitored.

BP also downplayed speculation that an oily sheen spotted elsewhere in the Gulf late last week was fed by leaks in two of its exploration wells, plugged years ago, in Green Canyon block 504 off the coast of central Louisiana.

The Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, which regulates the offshore oil and gas industry in federal waters, was still investigating the source of the sheen. Chron

FACTS & FIGURES

On April 20, 2010, an initial explosion, then a larger one ignited BP's Deepwater Horizon platform. For over a day it burned before sinking, killing 11 crew members, releasing thousands of barrels of oil daily, and causing the greatest ever environmental disaster - criminal malfeasance by any standard. OpEdNews

BP was named by Mother Jones Magazine as one of the ten worst corporations in both 2001 and 2005 based on its environmental and human rights records. Catastrophe Map

In 1991, BP was cited as the most polluting company in the U.S. based on EPA toxic release data. Catastrophe Map

US votes to expand offshore oil drilling

US House of Representatives considers California offshore oil drilling

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179648.html

The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives has defied the American administration by voting for the expansion of offshore oil drilling amid concerns over soaring gasoline prices.

The controversial draft bill to expand offshore oil drilling was backed by 243 legislators, while 179 voted against it, AFP reported on Thursday.

Democrats have slammed the bill, saying that it would only bring massive contributions to oil companies, a year after the massive and environmentally disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The bill is reportedly not expected to win passage in the US Senate.

The oil drilling measure comes as US gasoline prices are currently leveled at around $4 per gallon. US President Barack Obama has warned that the bill poses a threat to the country's struggling economy.

Areas in the Outer Continental Shelf such as waters off California, Alaska, and the eastern US coast are among those to be targeted by the bill.

Obama has recently called on Congress to end tax breaks for oil and gas companies as they enjoy huge profits.

Meanwhile, the White House is worried that the high oil prices along with a number of other economic woes could dominate next year's presidential election campaigns.

'Gulf of Mexico health still at low level'

Experts emphasized their concerns, pointing to the mysterious deaths of hundreds of young dolphins and turtles, strangely stained crabs and dead patches on the sea floor.

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/175926.html

A group of scientists have said the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year has caused significant declines in the body of water's key health indicators.

More than three dozen scientists have given a grade of 68 percent for the overall health of the Gulf as the Americans mark the first anniversary of the BP's oil spill, according to an Associated Press survey of researcher on Wednesday.

Scientists judge that the current grade is just a few points below the 71 the same researchers gave last summer when asked what grade they would give the ecosystem before the spill.

The spill caused by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon's oil rig off the Louisiana Gulf Coast on April 20 last year left 11 workers dead, blackened beaches from Texas to Florida and triggered the United States' largest environmental disaster of all time.

According to official estimates, 4.9 million barrels (206 million gallons) of oil spewed out of Macondo well 5,000 feet (almost one mile) below the Gulf's surface.

Scientists say conditions have improved on the surface, however, there are still many unknowns about the long-term effects of the spill.

They have pointed to significant declines in key health indicators such as the sea floor, dolphins and oysters.

Experts also pointed to the mysterious deaths of close to 300 dolphins since the environmental disaster as well as strangely stained crabs and dead patches at the bottom of the Gulf.

On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama pledged to hold BP accountable for the worst environmental disaster in US history.

Obama, who was speaking on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, also acknowledged that the "catastrophic event" deeply affected the lives of millions of Americans, from local fishermen to restaurant and hotel owners and small businesses throughout the region,

'Biggest cover-up in US history'

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/159209.html


Months after the US government declared the waters in the Gulf of Mexico safe, thick layers of oil have been found along Louisiana coastal marshes, prompting local officials to accuse relevant authorities of 'cover-up.'

Louisiana officials say parts of the state's coastline are still being fouled more than eight months after British Petroleum's (BP) Deepwater Horizon rig caused the biggest oil disaster in the United States.

"This is the biggest cover-up in the history of America,'' AP quoted Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser as saying.

On Friday, Robert Barham, secretary of Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, joined Nungesser on a tour of the area.

"It has been eight months since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, and five months since the well was capped. While workers along the coast dedicated themselves to cleaning up our shores there is still so much to be done," Barham said in a statement.

The heavily saturated area that reporters saw was 30 feet (9 meters) to 100 feet (30 meters) wide in sections.

"There's been no mechanism to clean that up thus far," the parish president said.

"Every day, this shoreline is moving inland," lessening flood protection for residents, Nungesser added.

This is while US President Barack Obama and one his daughters went for a swim in the Gulf of Mexico last summer in an attempt to portray the water as safe and boost tourism industry reeling in the affected areas after millions of barrels of oil leaked into the gulf.

Nungesser has been a frequent and outspoken critic of the cleanup effort ever since the oil explosion began infiltrating the environmentally delicate Louisiana coast line in April 20.

The wildlife and fisheries department, meanwhile, said oiled boom remains in "numerous locations, forgotten or lost by contractors charged with their maintenance and removal."

The officials said biologists have found several oiled birds in the past few days, including at least two dead brown pelicans.

The explosion that destroyed the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and, according to the government estimates, led to more than 200 million gallons (757 million liters) of oil spewing from a hole a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil 'plume' threatens Gulf waters

Scientists say the oil plume is 35km long and located deep below
the ocean's surface [AFP]


Source: Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/08/2010819175228365585.html


Scientists have found a 35km-long plume of oil deep in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, despite US government claims that most of the oil from a ruptured well had dispersed.


The report released on Thursday in the journal Science is the first conclusive evidence of an underwater oil plume, a phenomenon which could explain the location of much of the oil that had been presumed to have disappeared.

Oil floating about 1,200 metres below the surface, where temperatures are 4.5 degrees Celsius, breaks down at a slower pace than oil on the surface, posing an unseen threat to marine life, scientists said.

"Many people speculated that the sub-surface oil droplets were being easily downgraded," Dr Richard Camilli, the study's chief author, told journalists.

"Well, we didn't find that. We found that it was still there," Camilli, a member of the research team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, said.

Contradictory claims

On August 4, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the "vast majority" of oil had evaporated, been removed by clean-up teams or was dispersing naturally.

The remaining 26 per cent, an estimated 1.3 million barrels of oil, was classified as "residual".

Government data suggested that it was located "either on or just below the surface as residue and weathered tar balls, has washed ashore or been collected from the shore, or is buried in sand and sediments".

The plume discovery appears to call those claims into question, although the scientists were careful not to overstate the conclusions of an expedition which lasted from June 19 to June 28.

The plume would have been undetectable without the scientists' high-tech equipment, including a special underwater mass spectrometer used to detect the chemical signature of the oil, which was carried deep below the surface by submersible devices.


"At this point, we know the plume exists, and we will know more about its potential biological activity in the future," Dr Chris Reddy, another of the article's authors, said.

The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20, which caused it to collapse and fracture the well head. Eleven people were killed in the incident.

About 4.9 million barrels of oil are thought to have spewed from the well in the Gulf of Mexico before it was capped last month.

Micro-organisms

Prior to the release of this study, scientists assumed micro-organisms in the water had eaten much of the oil, taking it out of the ocean.

But the size and depth of the plume means the role of microbes is less clear.

"Any self-respecting microbe will want to eat oil ... but microbes are a lot like teenagers; they work on their own time, their own scale ... it is difficult often to make predictions about microbe degradation," Reddy said.

"It may vary substantially in the Gulf in any one time."

When asked directly if the study's conclusions contradict US government data, one of the authors said: "I can tell you that we found the plume and I can't tell you how much oil is in it because we don't have the values yet".

Steve Murawski, the chief fisheries scientist for the NOAA, the organisation which provided the disperal data to the US government, attended the release of the new study and agreed that the plume could hurt marine life.

"This is a highly sensitive ecosystem," Murawski said. "The animals down at 3,000 to 3,400 feet [below the surface] grow slowly."

The oil, which includes toxic components such as benzine, could cause genetic problems for marine life even at low concentrations, Murawski said.

Towards the end of the news conference, a reporter with the Times Picayune in New Orleans, Louisiana, the epicentre of the spill, asked what affect the plume would have on fisherman who depend on marine life in the Gulf.

"How this equates to the fishery at this time, I can't say anything about that," one of the study's authors said.

Oil is no longer flowing from the well and Barack Obama, the US president has said the well is capped, but the replacement cap will not be completed until the middle of September.

BP spill to take 'decades' to recover

Vast quantities of crude remain hidden below
the waves of the Gulf of Mexico, posing a danger
to fish and other marine life.


Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=137878§ionid=3510203


As BP's "static kill" procedure finally plugs its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well, experts have warned that it could take decades for any signs of recovery.

BP finished the heavy pumping of cement into the ruptured well, temporarily halting the leak, but a "bottom kill" procedure is to follow next month in order to kill the spill permanently.

Although this signals an end to the worst oil spill in history, BP's chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, says, "we are far from finished," AFP reported on Sunday.

Though the massive slick has mostly dissolved or dispersed, vast quantities of crude remain hidden below the waves, posing a danger to fish and other marine life, which once supported a multibillion-dollar commercial and recreational fishing industry, the report said.

Hundreds of miles of Louisiana's fragile coastal wetlands remain covered in blankets of oil and each new tide blankets the once-golden coasts of Florida in tar balls.

Although experts claim the oil appears to be biodegrading rapidly, Jim Cowan, a professor in Louisiana State University's department of oceanography and coastal sciences says, "this whole notion that that stuff is weathering away is really questionable."

"What dispersed oil does is eventually dissolve into sea water and the ultimate fate of that is ultimately undetermined," AFP quoted Cowan as saying.

BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April, killing 11 workers. It took the oil giant 106 days to seal the ruptured well.

Some 4.9 million barrels of oil have leaked into the Gulf of Mexico since then, with only 800,000 barrels captured, leaving BP with a tarnished reputation and a loss of billions of dollars.

US spill 'world's worst oil accident’

Over 200 million gallons of oil have gushed into
the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon
rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 people.



Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=137249§ionid=3510203


The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is by far the world's biggest accidental release of crude into marine waters, new US data attained by federal scientists says.

According to the most precise estimates yet by a joint response command including BP and the US government, 4.9 million barrels of oil have leaked from a ruptured BP well since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 people.

That amount eclipses the estimated 3.3 million barrels spilled into the Bay of Campeche by the Mexican rig Ixtoc I in 1979. That incident was previously thought to be the world's largest accidental release.

The Monday statement adds that cleanup teams have so far only managed to contain 800,000 barrels of crude.

"We've never had a spill of this magnitude in the deep ocean," said Ian MacDonald, a professor of oceanography at Florida State University. "... I think we'll be hearing the echoes of this, ecologically, for the rest of my life."

The team believes that the current estimates are accurate to within a 10 percent error. However, the government is continuing to study the data and may refine the estimate.

The amount of oil said to be gushing from the well has been a matter of dispute from the earliest days of the spill.

The latest data comes as BP plans to inject mud and cement into the ruptured well to permanently seal it. The procedure is expected to take five to seven days.

The well has been temporarily sealed for two weeks now.

The oil spill has so far caused huge environmental damage and economic losses in four US Gulf states.

US Coast Guard ignores chemical limits

A BP worker holds up a sample of water taken from the
Gulf of Mexico to be tested, while working off Louisiana's coast


Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=137137§ionid=3510203


The US Coast Guard is under fire for allowing the use of huge amounts of chemical dispersants to fight the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico waters.

According to a Washington Post report on Sunday, the US Coast Guard, which is in charge of the oil spill clean-up, allowed BP to deploy dispersants 74 times over 54 days.

The chemicals were used both on the surface and deep beneath at the site of the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, which ruptured an undersea well, killing 11 workers.

This is while on May 26, US President Barack Obama ordered a strict mandate to limit the use of such chemicals.

The dispersants were deployed to break down the leaking crude oil into smaller particles, which will not wash up on the Gulf coasts.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that they are being used, the chemicals are considered to be a "tradeoff" that shifts the ecological burden from the Gulf shores to deep sea life, Carys Mitchelmore, an expert in aquatic toxins, told CNN.

This is because some organisms deep under the ocean will see the smaller droplets "as food", Mitchelmore added.

The findings were revealed by an analysis of federal documents prepared by the office of US Congressman Edward Markey, the Post said.

The recent development comes as authorities in the state of Louisiana reopened 2,400 square miles (6,200 square km) of coastal waters for fishing.

The US Food and Drug Administration has deemed seafood harvested from such open areas safe for human consumption.

BP's chief operating officer Doug Suttles has also stated that he would "absolutely" eat Gulf of Mexico seafood and would even feed it to his family.

However, environmentalists, who believe that the seafood has undergone an insufficient amount of testing, warn that BP's use of chemicals means that there are lingering questions about toxicity in the fish.

BP to drill off coast of Libya

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=136035§ionid=3510203


The oil giant BP will start drilling off the Libyan coast soon, amid intense pressure over the company's involvement with the Lockerbie case.

The deep-water drilling will take place in the Gulf of Sirte off the northern coast of Libya within a few weeks, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.

The news comes at a time when investigators are probing the oil giant for its involvement in the release of Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi-also known as the 'Lockerbie bomber' to secure the multi-million dollar contract with the North African nation.

BP and its Libyan partner, the Libya Investment Corporation (LIC), signed an exploration agreement worth $900 million with Libya's National Oil Company (NOC) in 2007.

With the US still angry over the Gulf of Mexico environmental disaster, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is set to investigate whether BP played any part in the Scottish government's decision last year to release the Lockerbie bomber from prison.

BP denies any involvement and argues that Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds.

Megrahi was the only man convicted of the 1988 bombing of a Pan American flight to the United States, which crashed over the Scottish town of Lockerbie leaving 270 people dead. Most of the passengers onboard the airliner were US citizens.