Broken Seafloor

From Susie at Suburban Guerrilla

Just when you thought it could not get worse, reports are beginning to surface that the BOP is not the only place that Deepwater Horizon oil is gushing from. If oil is also gushing from the seafloor, sealing the well is greatly complicated.

Alexander Higgins has an excellent discussion of the possible seafloor leaks and the problems of sealing this well.

Among other things, he reports:

• ...these additional leak indicate that the relief well that BP is counting on to cap the Gulf oil spill won’t be the final solution to stop the leaking oil well.
• ... normal hiccups involved in a worse case scenario of the relief well could mean that BP may not be able to cap the the leak until Christmas.
• ...last year’s Montara oil leak in the Timor Sea took 5 passes before the relief well actually hit the leaking well casing.

• To make matters worse the BP Gulf oil spill relief wells are further complicated by a much higher leak rate, are being dug twice the distance under the seafloor, face hurricanes, dense rock and other problems.

• Matt Simmons believes that the well casing may have been destroyed when the oil rig exploded and says that oil is leaking from the seafloor up to 7 miles away because of the explosion.

BP denies that oil is leaking from the seafloor.

BP changed their name in 2001 from British Petroleum to BP and created a new logo. I can see why they wanted to get rid to Petroleum in their name. They wanted to be viewed as an energy company, a much broader branding than just an oil company.

But why get rid of British. Are they ashamed of being British? I don't think so. They just didn't think being called British P was very good. In light of what is currently happening in the Gulf, we would be lucky if it was only pee that was gushing into it.