Halliburton pleads guilty to destroying Gulf spill evidence

Halliburton knew (Photo credit: Marcellus Protest)

Halliburton Co has agreed to plead guilty to destroying evidence related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday.

The government said the guilty plea is the third by a company over the spill, and requires the world's second-largest oilfield services company to pay a maximum $200,000 statutory fine. Halliburton also made a separate, voluntary $55 million payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Justice Department said.

Halliburton also agreed to three years of probation, and to continue cooperating with the criminal probe into the April 20, 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

Court approval of the settlement is required. A Halliburton spokeswoman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The disaster caused 11 deaths and triggered the largest U.S. offshore oil spill following the rupture of the Macondo oil well, which was 65 percent owned by BP Plc. Halliburton had earlier provided cementing services to help seal the well. Read more >>

Deepwater Spill Causing Gulf Damage 2 Years Later, Scientists Find

Platform supply vessels battle the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Biologists are finding signs of lingering — and perhaps growing — damage throughout the gulf, from the bottom of the food chain to the top:

Scientists have confirmed that tiny creatures called zooplankton accumulated toxic compounds from coming in contact with the Deepwater Horizon oil. Because small fish and crustaceans eat the zooplankton and are then eaten by larger fish, that means those compounds could now be working their way up the food chain, they said.

Three months after BP shut off the flow of oil, scientists searching the floor of the gulf found a colony of deep sea corals that were covered in what they described as “frothy gunk.” They were in the area where undersea plumes of oil had been spotted. Nearly half were dead. Extensive tests resulted in a finding, released just last month, that the culprit was in fact oil from Deepwater Horizon. More...

Whistle blower: BP is deliberately sinking oil with Corexit to hide it for financial gain

"They're here! They've formed a corporation called BP." (Image by tnarik via Flickr)

Hell, anyone following the gusher knows why BP has used well over one millions gallons of Corexit: to hide the oil. This is spite of an EPA request to restrict the use of this highly toxic dispersant. And we all know Thad Allen is BP's pathetic straw man in uniform. Only those who live for Nascar and Xanax believe Obama's in charge.

From the Examiner:

Testimony before a Senate investigative panel this week is expected to reveal what many have suspected about BP all along; they don’t care about the environment, the animals that are dying, and the lives that are being destroyed by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

In a shocking interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on June 29th, Allegiance Capitol Corporation V.P. Fred McCallister said that BP is deliberately sinking oil with the toxic chemical disbursant Corexit, to hide the size of the oil spill. By sinking the oil before it can be collected, BP won’t have to pay fines on it.

McCallister said, “Everybody in Europe, where the standard practice is to raise the oil and collect it, is scratching their heads, and quite honestly laughing at what’s happening in the Gulf.” He added, “Everyone is looking at us and wondering why we’re allowing this to happen.”

McCallister is set to appear before a Senate investigative panel on Thursday and testify that BP’s only interests regarding the Deepwater Horizon spill is protectimg their own financial interests. His statements explained why BP has been refusing offers of help from additional foreign skimmers. More...

Two drill pipes discovered inside wreckage of the well

Image via Wikipedia

Second pipe may have crippled BP well's defense mechanism
Jim Tankersley, Tribune Washington Bureau

The gushing BP oil well is a mystery still unfolding, and late last month, a team of scientists from the Energy Department discovered a new twist: Their sophisticated imaging equipment detected not one but two drill pipes, side by side, inside the wreckage of the well's blowout preventer on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

BP officials said it was impossible. The Deepwater Horizon rig, which drilled the well, used a single pipe, connected in segments, to bore 13,000 feet below the ocean floor. But when workers cut into the wreckage to install a containment cap this month, sure enough, they found two pipes.

The discovery suggested that the force of the erupting petroleum from BP's well on April 20 was so violent that it sent pipe segments hurtling into the blowout preventer, like derailing freight cars.

It also offered a tantalizing theory for the failure of the well's last line of defense, the powerful pinchers called shear rams inside the blowout preventer that should have cut the pipe and stopped the rising oil and gas from reaching the Deepwater Horizon 5,000 feet above. Drilling experts say those rams, believed to be partially deployed, could have been thwarted by the presence of a second pipe.

The doubled-up drill pipe joins a list of clues that is helping scientists understand the complexities of the Deepwater Horizon accident, and from that, craft changes in how deep-water drilling is conducted. More...

Even TEN relief wells will be unable to plug the hole

Rumors abound regarding the nature of subsea operations and the true status of the Deepwater Horizon oil gusher. I've long since dismissed most main stream media accounts as propaganda, and seek out information from web citizens for a clearer picture of the truth.

While most of us realize that not all reports made by citizens are entirely reputable, contrary to corporate-owned media who have historically served as stenographers for the power elite, in most cases, citizens have no vested interest in lying about events.

The compromised well casing has already been mentioned by main stream media. Bearing that in mind, here's a rather disturbing post by "Rob Kall" at "Life After The Oil Crash" forum.

By Rob Kall
June 17, 2010

(...)

Here's the latest report I just received from my contact inside BP:

Ok, here's the deal.

Size of reservoir - estimated by BP and its partner, Andarko to be between 2.5B and 10B bbl. (that's 100,000,000,000 gallons and 400,000,000,000 gallons.
Yes - all of those numbers are BILLIONS.

BP has admitted in at least 3 interviews that the well casing is compromised (broken). So, when they tried the Top Kill - and then the Junk Shot - the stuff shot out the sides and didn't go much down the hole. A REAL top kill should just take a few hours - or it's not going to ever work.

The casing was undoubtedly broken apart by the natural gas 'explosion' at the bottom of the well, which was the result of methane coming out of solution (ie. the methane hydrates melting and expanding dramatically). Much like when your washer's water line has air in it and you shut off the valve and the line 'hammers', the well 'hammered' when the BOP shut (the guess is 80%), and the dramatic upshot in pressure, as well as the acoustic shockwave, broke the casing.

The Question of the Day is: Did the explosion rupture the casing for its entire length?

If that is so, then a relief well will be unable to plug the hole. TEN relief wells would be unable to plug the hole.

The consensus seems to be, among oil people I've spoken with, that this is exactly the case.

If that's so, then the well will run until Obama nukes it. That is the only thing that could close it.

If they can't plug it via the relief wells, and if they don't nuke it (it can't be conventional explosives, for a few reasons), then about 1/2 of the oil and gas will run out. That would be 50 BILLION to 200 BILLION gallons of oil, over a 10 year period. Although, like the interest you pay on a house note, the biggest part would be up-front.

Dead sperm whale found in Gulf

Image via Wikipedia

MyFoxTampaBay.com staff report

GULF OF MEXICO - Scientists have spotted a dead sperm whale in the Gulf of Mexico, and are doing tests to see if the oil spill had anything to do with its death.

The whale was found floating 77 miles due south of the Deepwater Horizon spill site.

It is the first dead whale spotted since BP's rig exploded on April 20.

The whale was not found in oiled waters, but scientists can't yet say where or how it died.

They say its condition suggests it has been dead for several days to more than a week, and they are taking samples from it to glean information on how and where it died.

It's estimated that between 1,400 and 1,660 sperm whales live year-round in the Gulf of Mexico. According to NOAA, they spend most of their time in the upper Gulf offshore area.

They live at depth in areas where subsurface dispersants and oil are present, and feed on deepwater squid, which may also be impacted by the oil and dispersants.

The sperm whales are an endangered species, and some scientists say that just a few sperm whale deaths could endanger the long-term survival of the Gulf's entire native sperm whale population.

The NOAA ship that spotted the whale is due back in port July 2. After that, they say full analysis of the samples will take several weeks.

Even The Relief Well May Blow Up

Image by uscgd8 via Flickr

May 19th, 2010 report from Solveclimate.com

Did Deepwater Methane Hydrates Cause the BP Gulf Explosion?

According to the National Academy of Sciences, which published a bullish report on the energy potential of methane hydrates,

"Industry practice is to avoid methane-bearing areas during drilling for conventional oil and gas resources for safety reasons."

Professor Sum explained that because "with oil there is usually gas present," it is possible for methane hydrates to form in the pipe even when not drilling through hydrate-bearing sediments. The pressure and cold of the deepwater create conditions that encourage gas flowing into the pipe to form hydrates, and if the rate of crystallization is rapid enough, the hydrates can clog the pipe.

The cofferdam that BP lowered over the broken pipe gushing oil to contain the spill was almost immediately clogged by methane hydrates, which formed spontaneously. Gas escaping with the oil from the well, when trapped in the steel structure with cold water under great pressure, rapidly accumulated into an ice-like matrix.

Documented Explosive Hazard

In a book about methane hydrates, which Professor Koh co-authored, brief mention is made of a case in which methane hydrates caused a gas pipe to rupture on land, leading to loss of life.

Two workers were attempting to clear a line in which a hydrate plug had formed. The authors say that "the impact of a moving hydrate mass" caused the pipe to fail. The explosion caused a large piece of pipe to strike the foreman, killing him. The book then quotes from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers Hydrate Guidelines to describe proper procedures for safely removing a hydrate plug in a pipe on land.

SolveClimate was not able to find more detailed public documentation of this incident in Alberta, but mention is made in an article in a publication of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a federal research center associated with the Department of Energy, of a different unspecified incident on a drilling rig.

"Forces from methane hydrate dissociation have been blamed for a damaging shift in a drilling rig's foundation, causing a loss of $100 million," the article reports.

Although public discussion of damage from methane hydrate accidents appears to be minimal, the danger is well-recognized within the industry. Last November, one Halliburton executive gave a presentation before a meeting of the American Association of Drilling Engineers in Houston, titled "Deepwater Cementing Consideration to Prevent Hydrate Destabilization."

It recognizes that the cementing process releases heat which can destabilize methane hydrates, and presents something called Cement System 2 as a solution to the problem. One of the graphs shows that the system doesn't achieve gel strength for four hours.

Yet according to an eyewitness report broadcast on Sunday on 60 Minutes, BP managers made the decision to decrease pressure in the well column by removing drilling mud before the cement had solidified in three plugs Halliburton had poured.

When a surge of gas started shooting up the well, a crucial seal on the blowout preventer at the well head on the ocean floor failed. It had been damaged weeks before and neglected as inconsequential by Transocean managers, according to the CBS news broadcast, even after chunks of rubber emerged from the drilling column on the surface.

According to the Associated Press, the victims of the Deepwater Horizon explosion said the blast occurred right after workers "introduced heat to set the cement seal around the wellhead." It is not known if Halliburton was employing Cement System 2, and testifying before the Senate last week, a Halliburton executive made no mention of methane hydrate hazards associated with cementing in deepwater.

A Promising Substance

Professors Koh and Sum are concerned that a focus on the dangers of methane hydrates in deepwater drilling will obscure their promise as an energy solution of the future. They are conducting research in the laboratory to create methane hydrates synthetically in order to take advantage of their peculiar properties. With their potential to store gas (both natural gas and hydrogen) efficiently within a crystalline structure, hydrogen hydrates could one day offer a potential solution for making fuel cells operate economically. Still at the fundamental stage, their work on storage is not yet complete enough to apply to commercial systems.

At the same time, there is an international competition underway to develop technology to harvest the vast deposits of methane hydrates in the world's oceans. Japan has joined the US and Canada in pursuit of this energy bonanza, motivated by the $23 billion it spends annually to import liquefied natural gas.

According to a Bloomberg News article called "Japan Mines Flammable Ice, Flirts with Environmental Disaster," the Japanese trade ministry is targeting 2016 to start commercial production, even as a Tokyo University scientist warned against causing a massive undersea landslide that could suddenly trigger a massive methane hydrate release.

The U.S. has a research program underway in collaboration with the oil industry, authorized by the Methane Hydrate Research and Development Act of 1999. The National Methane Hydrates R&D Program is housed at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) of the Department of Energy.

The National Academy of Sciences provided a briefing for Congress last January on the energy potential of methane hydrates based on its report which asserts that "no technical challenges have been identified as insurmountable" in the pursuit of commercial production of methane hydrates. More...

Anger on the bayou is palpable

Image via Wikipedia

winonadailynews
"The whole place is full of oil."
Barataria estuary now ground zero in oil spill
The meandering sand dunes and bird islands of Barataria Bay have become the epicenter of the environmental disaster spewing from BP's offshore well. And fishermen are bitter.

Oil-caked birds, stranded sea turtles, globs of gooey brown crude on beaches, coated crabs and mats of tar have been found throughout the inlets and mangroves that dot the bay. The oil has smothered this watery otherworld with a rainbow sheen and is threatening the complex web of wetlands, marshes and bayous that make up this national treasure.

Everything from crabbing to bait fishing is shutting down, and the anger on the bayou is palpable.

"It's scary, you know, man," marine mechanic Jimmy Howard said from his ramshackle and hurricane-battered fishing shack, a cigar stub stuffed in his mouth. "I see them doing what they can, you know. All the boats going out, all the boom. I'm hoping they can contain it."

Barataria teems with wildlife, including alligators, bullfrogs, bald eagles and migratory birds from the Caribbean and South America. There are even Louisiana black bears in the upper basin's hardwood forests.

Before the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20, oyster and shrimp boats plowed through these productive bays as fishermen snapped up speckled trout and redfish within minutes of casting their lines.

Now it resembles an environmental war zone. Many of the bay's nesting islands for birds are girded by oil containment boom, and crews in white disposable protective suits change out coils of absorbents to soak up the sticky mess.

"The whole place is full of oil," said fishing guide Dave Marino. "This is some of the best fishing in the whole region, and the oil's coming in just wave after wave. It's hard to stomach, it really is."

At the entrance to Barataria, dredges and bulldozers are building sand berms on barrier islands to intercept the advancing oil. National Guard helicopters drop sandbags into breaches smashed through the islands by hurricanes, and local officials are moving in barges to use as makeshift barriers.

Shrimp boats have been enlisted in the skimming effort _ the Coast Guard says about 2,450 barrels of oily water have been picked up. But it's bittersweet work for the shrimpers, whose fishing grounds have been shut down. More...

Another oil leak from offshore oil platform #23051 in the Gulf

skytruth.org
Routine Gulf Monitoring - Here's Why We Need It
Three days ago we blogged about a possible small, but persistent, leak from offshore oil platform #23051 in the Gulf of Mexico, not far from the ongoing Deepwater Horizon spill. We asked for confirmation from anyone who might happen to be in the vicinity. Ask, and ye shall receive:

Photograph taken 6/5/10 of apparent oil leak in the vicinity of Platform 23051, courtesy J Henry Fair. Semisubmersible drill rig in foreground; workboat at left where the plume originates at the surface. Note a second plume apparently originating from platform in the background at upper right; this may be Platform 23051 (not yet confirmed).

Professional photographer J Henry Fair flew over the site yesterday using the MMS platform location in our blog post, and took photos of what he found. Here are the two he sent us today. There is an obvious plume of oil in the water next to a semisubmersible drill rig. J Henry identified it as the Ocean Saratoga rig (nice picture here), owned by Diamond Offshore.

The May 17 rig status report available on Diamond Offshore's website (which prominently features a photograph of Senator Mary Landrieu, with the caption "Credit where credit is due") shows the Ocean Saratoga is currently under contract to drill for the same company that owns and operates Platform 23051. The platform may be the one visible in the background of the photo above, apparently trailing another oily-looking plume. So it's possible that we've actually discovered two separate leaks or spills in the same vicinity.

A closer look at the semisubmersible rig, work boat, and apparent plume of oil near the location of Platform 23051 in the Gulf of Mexico, taken June 5, 2010. Photo courtesy J Henry Fair.

J Henry described the workboat at the end of the oil plume as "churning the oil" as if to disperse it more quickly. It's unclear from these pictures if the workboat is itself the source of this oil plume, or if indeed it's motoring around where an oil plume is emerging at the ocean surface in an attempt to break it up. In any event, this spill is certainly large enough to require reporting to the Coast Guard.

Other than us - is anybody watching what's going on out there?

This is why we think America needs publicly transparent, routine satellite monitoring wherever we allow offshore oil and gas drilling.

BP, Coast Guard & Feds Withheld Videos Showing Massive Scope of Oil Spill

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

ABCNews
New videos show more clearly than ever how BP, with little resistance from the Coast Guard or other federal agencies, kept the public in the dark about just how bad things were beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

On May 1, 11 days after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, and nine days after oil began spilling into the Gulf, the Coast Guard had still only released a single image of oil leaking a mile beneath the surface -- a fuzzy photograph of a broken pipe spewing oil.

But inside the unified command center, where BP and federal agencies were orchestrating the spill response, video monitors had already displayed hours of footage they did not make public. The images showed a far more dire situation unfolding underwater. The footage filmed by submarines showed three separate leaks, including one that was unleashing a torrent of oil into the Gulf.

BP officials said they made all the video available to federal officials.

"The video has been available to the unified command from the very beginning," said Mark Proegler, a BP spokesman. "It's always been here from the beginning. They had it."

Coast Guard officials told ABC News that BP refused to allow them to release the more startling images, arguing they were proprietary. But at the time, the agency was doing little to convey to the world what the images were showing. Coast Guard Admiral Mary Landry was sticking with estimates, calculated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which put the spill's size at about 5,000 barrels a day for several weeks. Coast Guard officials said they were focused on the response, and advised the public not to worry about just how much oil was pouring into the water.

"I would caution you not to get fixated on an estimate of how much is out there," said Adm. Landry.

Two days later, as oil continued to spew, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said much the same thing.

"This fixation on the number of barrels is a little bit misleading," said Napolitano.

BP officials said everyone inside the Unified Command center in Louisiana agreed that the 5,000 barrel figure was the best they could offer.

But Dr. Ian MacDonald, an oceanographer and oil expert at Florida State University said he disagrees, and he remains "baffled and bothered" by the decision to keep under wraps the images that he believes indicated the spill was much bigger.

"We need to know what's coming at us," he told ABC News. "You know, we are Americans, we respond to threats. Don't sugarcoat it. Tell us the truth and we'll do the best we can. And I think that's exactly what didn't happen here. The government, I'm sorry to say has been behind the information curve every step in this process."

Sen. Bill Nelson , a Florida Democrat, said the apparent suppression of the tapes prevented an independent analysis of how much oil was spilling, a move that might eventually save BP millions, since federal fines are based on $1,000 a day per barrel.

The difference between a spill of 5,000 barrels a day and 20,000 barrels a day is $15 million a day. "It clearly tells us why they drug their feet to release these tapes," Nelson said. "I guess they were hoping that they could get it under control and this whole problem would go away."