Gulf Coast braces for an oily mess

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US senators demand BP records on Libya lobbying

Senior American senators have written to BP to demand it hand over records detailing how the firm lobbied the British government in the run-up to the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

By Robert Winnett in Washington and Christopher Hope
Published: 6:09PM BST 15 Jul 2010


Mr al-Megrahi was released in August 2009 and he flew back to Libya. BP has since won valuable oil contracts in Libya and is poised to begin deepwater drilling in the country next month Photo: AP

The request came after BP issued a statement confirming it had spoken to government in 2007 about the "slow progress" being made in negotiating a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.

The senators said that the American public deserved to know whether "justice and punishment for terrorism took a back seat to back-room deals for an oil contract".


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The demand is the latest blow for BP which is already being vilified in America in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

It is understood that the firm has minutes of two telephone conversations between Sir Mark Allen, a former senior MI6 official who is now an adviser to BP, and Jack Straw, the former Justice Secretary. There is also a private letter between the pair.

Within months of these communications, the Government agreed to a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya which paved the way for Abdel Basset al-Megrahi to be sent back to Tripoli.

BP has since won valuable oil contracts in Libya and is poised to begin deepwater drilling in the country next month. It is estimated the deal could be worth $20 billion.

In their letter, Senators Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez from New Jersey and Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand from New York, demand that BP "provide to the United States Congress all materials related to BP's verbal or written communications with Libya, the United Kingdom, Scotland, or other individuals or entities with regard to the convicted terrorist Abdel Basset al-Megrahi.

"It is disturbing to learn that oil contracts between BP and the government of Libya may have affected the release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence agent convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, from a Scottish prison last year," the senators wrote.
If BP refuses to release the information, the Senate could launch a formal inquiry and subpoena the documents.

Al-Megrahi was sent back to Libya from a Scottish prison last year on compassionate grounds. The decision was taken by the Scottish Executive on the basis that he only had three months to live. However, he is still alive.

BP's potential involvement in the case has been seized upon by American senators as the oil firm is under intense pressure over the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

The US Congress is already poised to ban BP from obtaining new offshore oil leases because of its poor safety record. New laws are also expected to be unveiled next week which would force BP to meet the full costs of the massive clean-up operation in the Gulf. The firm is currently at a crucial stage in a new attempt to cap the oil leak.

However, if the US Senators obtain information detailing any attempt by the firm to push for the release of a convicted terrorist for an oil deal it would seriously compound BP's problems in America.

In a statement, BP said: "It is a matter of public record that in late 2007 BP told the UK Government that we were concerned about the slow progress that was being made in concluding a Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Libya.

"We were aware that this could have a negative impact on UK commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan Government of BP's exploration agreement.

"The decision to release Mr al-Megrahi in August 2009 was taken by the Scottish government. It's not for BP to comment on the decision of the Scottish government. BP was not involved in any discussions with the UK Government or the Scottish government about the release of Mr al-Megrahi."

However, the firm believes that it is a matter for the British government whether any documents are released.

Mr Straw has insisted that "at no stage was any undertaking promised, hinted, given to the Libyans, that in return for an overall bilateral arrangement Mr Megrahi would be released".

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BP may break up

JULY 19, 2010
REUTERS


PHOTO: AFP

LONDON - UNDER-FIRE oil company BP Plc has started canvassing shareholders about a restructuring in the wake of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill which could include a break up of the business, the Sunday Times reported.

The newspaper, citing unnamed BP insiders, said options included selling the group's refineries and petrol stations, scaling back its US operations and ramping-up in-house engineering instead of outsourcing.

These are on top of the sale of about 10 per cent of its assets, including its stake in the giant Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska, the Sunday Times added.

A BP spokesman said it did not comment on rumour and speculation.

BP, which has already divested much of its downstream operations in recent years, said last month it planned to sell around US$10 billion (S$14 billion) of assets to help pay for costs from the worst offshore oil spill in US history, but declined to say which assets were up for grabs.

On Saturday, the oil group extended for another 24 hours a critical test of its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well that has so far shut off the huge oil leak, a top US official overseeing the spill response said. -- REUTERS

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BP-Apache Talks on Prudhoe Bay Stake Said to Stall

By Jeffrey McCracken and Stanley Reed



July 19 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc’s talks to sell half its stake in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay oil field to Apache Corp. stalled twice over the weekend, raising doubts about whether the deal will be completed, said a person with knowledge of the matter.

Talks between BP and Apache faltered late in the evening on July 16 before resuming Saturday. They hit a snag again early yesterday over issues ranging from the valuation of the deal to how current and future legal liabilities will be addressed, the person said.

BP, Apache and their advisers will likely reach out to each other again before letting the deal lapse, this person said. The companies last week were on track to clinch an agreement for Apache to buy half of BP’s Prudhoe stake for between $10 billion and $11 billion in an all-cash transaction, according to two people familiar with the matter. Deals often stop and start in the late stages of negotiations as final points are worked out.

“I don’t think the issue of future liabilities would be the main issue in these kind of negotiations,” said Victor Shum, an oil and gas analyst at energy consultants Purvin & Gertz Inc. in Singapore. “Valuations are likely to be far more significant, in my view. If a company was to buy the whole of BP, then the issue of future liabilities over the oil spill might be more significant.”

Sheila Williams, a spokeswoman for BP, and Bill Mintz, a spokesman for Houston-based Apache, declined to comment.

BP fell as much as 7.4 percent in London and traded at 381.9 pence at 8:39 a.m. local time. The shares are down 42 percent since the April 20 accident on the Deepwater Horizon rig that triggered the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Macondo Well

A failure of the negotiations with Apache, the largest independent U.S. oil company by market value, would be a setback for BP’s efforts to restore investor confidence and raise capital to pay for costs related to its Macondo well oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The well spewed 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil a day after the explosion until it was capped July 15, according to a U.S. government-led panel of scientists. U.S. government officials yesterday ordered BP to submit plans for reopening the sealed well and resuming efforts to capture oil after tests found a suspected leak seeping from the seabed.

In June, BP said it would suspend paying dividends to shareholders, trim capital spending and sell $10 billion of assets over the next year. It also agreed under pressure from President Barack Obama to establish a $20 billion escrow fund to compensate victims of the spill.

Price ‘Important’

A sale of half of Prudhoe Bay may allow BP to raise all the money it needs immediately for the spill in one transaction. It may enable BP either to take other assets marked for sale off the market or adopt a tougher line with potential buyers.
“Apache has a history of buying assets with a lot of growth potential and there’s talk of it buying these mature oil assets in Alaska, so questions of price would be very important,” Shum of Purvin & Gertz said.

BP is seeking offers for several other holdings, including its 60 percent stake in Argentina’s Pan American Energy LLC and fields in Venezuela, Colombia and Vietnam, said a person familiar with the matter.

BP’s success in at least temporarily capping the leaking well has helped revive investor confidence. BP rose as much as 11.6 percent last week, a third consecutive weekly gain.

Prudhoe Bay wouldn’t be the first big deal to collapse in recent months. American International Group Inc.’s sale of its Asian unit to Prudential Plc for $35.5 billion fell through in June when the two sides couldn’t agree on a lower price.

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Oil seeping from Gulf floor near well, but Coast Guard allows cap to stay in place another 24 hours

Published: Sunday, July 18, 2010, 8:42 PM Updated: Sunday, July 18, 2010, 9:20 PM

Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune



Dave Martin, The Associated PressThe Helix Producer burns off natural gas as it operates in the area of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico on on July 13.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen on Sunday evening agreed to allow a cap to continue to block the flow of oil from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead, despite the discovery of oil or natural gas seeping from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico at a location away from the well.

But Allen ordered BP to report any discoveries of future seeps within four hours and to follow more stringent testing rules as the testing continued. Given the current observations from the test, including the detected seep a distance from the well and undetermined anomalies at the well head, monitoring of the seabed is of paramount importance during the test period," Allen said in a letter to Bob Dudley, chief managing director of BP. "As a continued condition of the test, you are required to provide as a top priority access and coordination for the monitoring systems, which include seismic and sonar surface ships and subsea ROV and acoustic systems.

"When seeps are detected, you are directed to marshal resources, quickly investigate, and report findings to the government in no more than four hours," Allen wrote. "I direct you to provide me a written procedure for opening the choke valve as quickly as possible without damaging the well should hydrocarbon seepage near the well head be confirmed."

Allen also ordered BP to update him within 24 hours on how the cap testing will proceed.

"Now that source control has evolved into a period beyond the expected 48 hour interval of the Well Integrity Test, I am requiring that you provide me a written update within 24 hours of your intentions going forward," Allen wrote. "I remain concerned that all potential options to eliminate the discharge of oil be pursued with utmost speed until I can be assured that no additional oil will spill from the Macondo Well."

Federal and BP officials released no additional information Sunday night on the size of the seep, when or how it was found or its actual location in relation to the wellhead.

If the test were to end, BP would convert the closed cap to allow a riser to be connected to the well and the surface to collect oil in ships at the surface. That process could result in a return to uncontrolled releases of oil for as much as three days, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said during an early morning news conference Sunday.

The day began with dueling statements by Allen and Suttles disagreeing over how long the cap shutting in oil atop the broken Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico will remain in place.

Allen said he would make a decision by 3 p.m. Sunday on whether to extend testing of the effectiveness of the cap structure for another 24 hours, in accordance with the previous agreement between BP and the federal government.

Earlier, Suttles told reporters during a teleconference that BP would keep the cap on the well indefinitely until testing indicates oil is leaking from the well or making its way from the well into the water at some other location on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico.

"And I think, as we have said all along, if we did see a problem, we may have to reinitiate flow, but we are just taking this day by day, and (it) could be that we take it day by day all the way to the point we get the well killed," Suttles said.

"At some point, we may call the test complete, but we're not there yet," he said.

Allen's statement was aimed at making it clear that Suttles was not announcing a new strategy.

"Per my conversation with BP executive Bob Dudley as recently as 11 a.m. today, nothing has changed about the joint agreement announced yesterday between BP and the U.S. government," Allen said.

While Allen stressed the government's concern about the testing, Suttles stressed the positive signs the company was seeing.

"The well remains shut in," Suttles said in describing the company's plans. "Pressure slowly continues to build at 1 to 2 (pounds per square inch) per hour."

That pressure was at 6,778 psi Sunday morning, still short of a 6,800 psi goal Suttles said was set by BP and federal officials as one sign of the cap's success.

When the cap process began, officials had said the pressure goal was as high as 8,000 psi, but BP officials then surmised that the release of 184 million gallons of oil since the spill might have emptied the deep oil reservoir enough to reduce the pressure of oil and gas flowing to the surface.

Higher pressure is a good sign, as a drop in pressure might indicate that oil and gas might be escaping into a formation below the Gulf floor, and might escape into the water through a fissure, such as indicated by the AP report.

But BP and federal officials could continue to consider the cap operation as in test mode through the mid-August goal of completing a relief well that would permanently shut in the well, Suttles said.

"What the government has required us to do is complete a very specific monitoring program," he said. "But the fact that the pressure continues to go up is a good sign."

But at least one vocal critic warned that the cap may limit the ability of federal officials to determine how much it should fine BP for the release of oil in the Gulf, and of others to determine damages to businesses and natural resources.

On Sunday, U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., warned that the alternate system to allow oil to flow through the cap structure and risers to the surface for collection could be the last chance to get accurate figures of how much oil has been released since the well blowout on April 20.

"If it is necessary to again allow the well to flow, either because a decision to keep it shut in indefinitely is unsound, or in order to conduct the relief well 'bottom kill,' then there would be no reason at that point for not taking the opportunity to conduct a 100 percent hydrocarbon collection test," Markey wrote in a letter to Allen.

"It is imperative that we understand your current plans and be able to assess the ramifications of different options at this point," Markey wrote. "I am also concerned, as I know you are, that continuing to keep the well fully shut in could pose risks of additional problems with well integrity, an issue that I have raised with both you and BP in separate letters over the past few weeks."

In his statement Sunday morning, Allen stressed the importance of the results of tests of the integrity of the cap.

"Work must continue to better understand the lower-than-expected pressure readings," he said. "This work centers on two plausible scenarios, depletion of oil from the reservoir and potential leakage caused by damage to the well bore or casing.

"While we are pleased that no oil is currently being released into the Gulf of Mexico and want to take all appropriate action to keep it that way, it is important that all decisions are driven by the science," he said. "Ultimately, we must ensure no irreversible damage is done which could cause uncontrolled leakage from numerous points on the sea floor."

Those tests include seismic mapping of the subsurface by ships steaming around the well, which is actually delaying the completion of alternate plans to locate vessels above the well to capture additional oil if the cap doesn't work, Suttles said. The vessels must be moved out of the way each time a test is done.

Suttles said the delays were not a significant problem, and that plans to increase storage capacity at the surface by the end of July are still on schedule, in the event the cap doesn't work and collection of oil must resume.

If the use of the cap to shut off the flow of oil from the well must be abandoned, it will take about three days to switch to the collection plan, during which oil would again flow uncontrolled into the Gulf, he said.

The seismic tests are looking for indications that oil and gas are flowing away from the well into a subsurface formation.

Sonar tests also are being conducted to look for oil and natural gas escaping the well or the subsurface, and remote operating vehicles are looking for visible signs of escaping oil. Officials are monitoring the temperature of the oil and gas in the blowout preventer, which remains at 40 degrees. Warmer temperatures also would be an indication that oil is moving away from the well, Suttles said.

"So far, we have not seen any indications of that, which is why we're encouraged at this point."

Suttles said drilling of the first relief well remains on track for entering the well about three miles below the surface by the end of July. It could take another two weeks after that to staunch the flow of oil permanently with heavy drilling mud and cement.

The first relief well has reached 17,864 feet, about 100 feet above and 4 feet to the side of the target area where it will break into the existing well, he said. A second relief well has reached 15,874 feet, but has been put on hold to await completion of the first well.

Suttles said workers also are sampling bubbles visible around the wellhead to assure they are not an indication of leaking of oil or natural gas or gas hydrates from the well.

He said initial tests that he did not describe indicate the bubbles are not hydrates -- a solid form of methane or natural gas formed by the combination of cold temperatures and pressures a mile below the water's surface. But Suttles also said workers had been unsuccessful in actually capturing the bubbles, and thus additional tests must be completed to confirm that conclusion.

"If you can imagine, it is not an easy operation to collect those bubbles so that they can be tested to see what their make-up is," he said.

Suttles said BP officials also have been encouraged by the lack of reports of impacts on new areas of the Gulf shoreline in recent days.
He said there are about 50 skimmers operating near the wellhead, and they are capturing less oil.

"Yesterday, we recovered about 7,600 barrels of oily liquid," he said.

""This is about half of what we recovered the day before."

There also was only one burn of collected oil near the well, compared with 19 the day before.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, appearing on CNN's "State of the Union" show Sunday morning, said the cap closure seemed a hopeful improvement.

"You know, we have to stay focused on making sure that the well is capped," Landrieu told correspondent Candy Crowley. "We then really have to aggressively capture the oil, clean the coast, make sure that all of the families, you know, are compensated, and then begin to restore the wetlands down here."

"So it is welcome news. It's the first piece that we've had in a long time," Landrieu said. "As everybody said, we're cautiously optimistic about it. But it's just a beginning. We have a very, very long way to go."

Landrieu said he's still in support of an effort to get BP to provide $75 million to pay for a tourism marketing campaign for the New Orleans region, especially since organizations making decisions today on where to locate future conventions could be influenced by the bad publicity about the spill.

"We know because we are a fairly large tourism economy that if you spend money on the front end, you actually mitigate the damages on the back end," Landrieu said. "Now BP really understands this, because if you pick up any paper in America today, there are full-page ads with BP talking about the work that they are doing down here. So I know they know that marketing works."

Landrieu also expressed support for a quick end to a moratorium by the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement on drilling new wells in deepwater areas of the Outer Continental Shelf.

"You know, if you look at this from a distance and you look at it as a matter of philosophy, maybe (the moratorium) is arguable," he said. But the same people hurt by fishing bans caused by the spill also have relatives hurt by the loss of jobs caused by the moratorium.

"Those of us down here obviously are as interested or are more interested in safety than anybody else in the country," he said. "But we believe that there is a way to drill safely. And you can handle the moratorium with a scalpel and not a hammer."

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., appearing on "Fox News Sunday," criticized President Barack Obama for not returning to the oil-stricken Gulf South since early June.

"I'm afraid he's decided to deal with this issue, at least politically, by not coming back here and trying to move it off the front page rather than dealing with the situation forcefully," Vitter said."He was coming here on a pretty regular basis. ... He hasn't done that in Louisiana since June 4.

That's personally disappointing to me."

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With the GOM fishing almost gone now they want to ban Lobster fishing off the East Coast?


Regulators consider lobstering ban for Mass. to NC

WARWICK, R.I. – Lobstermen are speaking out against a proposed ban on lobstering from Massachusetts to North Carolina, saying a bleak assessment of the stock's health is way off.

Dozens of lobstermen traveled to Warwick, R.I., for a meeting of the board that advises the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission on lobster rules.

The board is considering a five-year moratorium on lobstering south of Cape Cod to North Carolina to deal with a population crash. The region supplies about 7 percent of the Northeast's total catch. A final decision is expected later this year.

Nick Crismale of the Connecticut Lobsterman's Association says a moratorium would do "biblical" damage to the industry. Massachusetts lobsterman Albert Rosinha urged the committee to use conservation measures.

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From the NHC:
Quote:

000
WTNT63 KNHC 222222
TCUAT3
TROPICAL STORM BONNIE TROPICAL CYCLONE UPDATE...CORRECTED
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL032010
615 PM EDT THU JUL 22 2010

CORRECTED HEADER TO TROPICAL STORM BONNIE

...DEPRESSION BECOMES TROPICAL STORM BONNIE...

DATA FROM AN AIR FORCE HURRICANE HUNTER RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT
DURING THE PAST HOUR INDICATE THAT SURFACE WINDS ASSOCIATED WITH
THE DEPRESSION HAVE INCREASED TO 40 MPH...65 KM/HR...AND THAT THE
DEPRESSION HAS BECOME A TROPICAL STORM.


SUMMARY OF 615 PM EDT...2215 UTC...INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------
LOCATION...22.9N 75.4W
ABOUT 200 MI...320 KM SE OF NASSAU
ABOUT 415 MI...670 KM ESE OF KEY WEST FLORIDA
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...40 MPH...65 KM/HR
PRESENT MOVEMENT...NW OR 315 DEGREES AT 14 MPH...22 KM/HR
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...1005 MB...29.68 INCHES

$$
FORECASTER KIMBERLAIN/BEVEN

Maps, radars and Satellite pictures will update automatically:

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Governor Jindal declares State of Emergency: Oil could “enter coastal homes”, evacuation orders expected today

July 23rd, 2010 at 06:43 AM

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Jindal declares emergency preparing for storm, Shreveport Times, July 23, 2010:

Gov. Bobby Jindal on Thursday declared a state of emergency… [The storm] was spending a lot of time over water, instead of land which would break it up. “It’s wise to prepare for a Category 1 hurricane, just in case,” the governor said…
The biggest worry, state officials said, is that winds and high tides would drive the Deepwater Horizon oil far up into Louisiana’s marshes, which serve as nurseries for much of the nation’s seafood. If that happens, it could also enter coastal homes and camps. “There’s a potential for winds and waves to drive oil inland,” Jindal said. … He said BP wil be held accountable for any damages caused by oil intrusion.
Agriculture Secretary Mike Strain instructed cattlemen along the coast to secure their livestock to prevent any exposure to oil…
Parishes with low-lying areas that usually flood during storms are expected to issue evacuation orders today as the disturbance moves closer to the state.

[American Patriot]

Storm was pretty much over already. Well, it hit Florida this morning and is moving into the Gulf so it will pick up speed and power and slam the coast of LA sometime tonight or tomorrow morning actually. I haven't looked at the maps since early this morning so I'm guessing.

Storm was moving at 45 mph so it will be across the Gulf in a few hours.

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Gulf seafood declared safe; fishermen not so sure

By JASON DEAREN and GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writers Jason Dearen And Greg Bluestein, Associated Press Writers – Mon Aug 2, 6:11 pm ET

VENICE, La. – Seafood from some parts of the oil-fouled Gulf of Mexico has been declared safe to eat by the government, based in part on human smell tests. But even some Gulf fishermen are questioning whether the fish and shrimp are OK to feed to their own families.

Some are turning up their noses at the smell tests — in which inspectors sniff seafood for chemical odors — and are demanding more thorough testing to reassure the buying public about the effects of the oil and the dispersants used to fight the slick.

"If I put fish in a barrel of water and poured oil and Dove detergent over that, and mixed it up, would you eat that fish?" asked Rusty Graybill, an oysterman and shrimp and crab fisherman from Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish. "I wouldn't feed it to you or my family. I'm afraid someone's going to get sick."

Now that a temporary cap has kept oil from spewing out of BP's blown-out well for more than two weeks, state-controlled fishing areas in Louisiana, Florida and Mississippi have slowly begun to reopen.

Despite splotches of chocolate-colored crude that wash up almost daily on protective boom and in marshes east of the Mississippi River, Louisiana has reopened those waters to fishing for such finfish varieties as redfish, mullet and speckled trout, and will allow shrimping when the season begins in two weeks. Oysters and blue crabs, which retain contaminants longer, are still off-limits.

Smell tests on dozens of specimens from the area revealed barely detectable traces of toxic substances, the Food and Drug Administration said. The state of Louisiana has also been testing fish tissue for oil since May and has not found it in amounts considered unsafe.

In Mississippi on Monday, FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said the government is "confident all appropriate steps have been taken to ensure that seafood harvested from the waters being opened today is safe and that Gulf seafood lovers everywhere can be confident eating and enjoying the fish and shrimp that will be coming out of this area."

Similarly, BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said Sunday that authorities "wouldn't open these waters ... if it wasn't safe to eat the fish."

He said he would eat Gulf seafood and "serve it to my family."

Experts say smell tests may sound silly but are a proven technique that saves time and money. Moreover, they are the only way to check fish for chemical dispersants, though FDA spokeswoman Meghan Scott said government scientists are developing a tissue test. It is not clear when it will be ready.

Federal scientists say that unlike mercury, which accumulates in some fish, the most common cancer-causing compounds in oil are quickly metabolized and eliminated in the bodies of finfish and some crustaceans.

The FDA has declined repeated requests to provide information about the toxic substances that were found, but the agency is mostly looking for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which have been linked to cancer. The compound is found in many foods, such as corn oil, kale and smoked meats. Scientists studying the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska found that the villagers' own smoked fish contained levels of the contaminant hundreds of times higher than those found in the shellfish tainted by the oil spill.

As for the dispersants, the Environmental Protection Agency said the ones used in the Gulf have low toxicity in humans, meaning the public health risk is low.

Ralph Portier, an aquatic toxicologist at Louisiana State University, said that all the data and testing he has reviewed so far show that seafood caught in the recently reopened areas of the Gulf is safe, and he would feel comfortable eating it. President Barack Obama ate Gulf seafood when he visited Mississippi a few weeks ago.

"The major theme here should be that we have no indication that there's a problem. We have not seen dispersant or the telltale signs of oil in finfish and shrimp," Portier said.

But his colleague Kevin Kleinow, a professor of aquatic toxicology, said he is laying off Gulf seafood until the government releases more specifics about the testing it conducted, including exactly what species are being monitored and what levels of toxic substances are being found.

He said he is also concerned that a smell test won't sniff out dispersants.

"Some of them — we've done work on a number of surfactants that are
used in dispersants — have very little odor," he said.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called on BP on Monday to fund a 20-year testing and certification program to restore confidence in seafood from the Gulf, which accounts for a majority of the domestic shrimp and oysters eaten by Americans and about 2 percent of overall U.S. seafood consumption.

"This will be the most monitored, safest seafood you will get anywhere in the world," Jindal said. The initial cost of his plan would be $173 million over five years, and it would require that three criteria for seafood be met in that time, including that tissue samples from fish show no signs of oil from the spill.

"If these conditions are not met by the end of the fifth year, BP should fund an additional three years of the project," said Kyle Plotkin, the governor's spokesman.

BP did not immediately return a call for comment.

Dawn Nunez, whose family operates a shrimp wholesale business in Louisiana, said he finds it absurd that the government is reopening the fishing grounds when so many doubts linger.

"It's nothing but a PR move," she said. "It's going to take years to know what damage they've done. It's just killed us all."

Not everyone is concerned.

Andrew Hunt, a real estate agent who lives in Meraux, La., motored his small recreational fishing boat out to the newly opened area of marsh and reeled in a foot-long speckled trout.

"We'll go and have us a nice little fish fry," he said.

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Matthew Simmons: BP Won't Last The Summer, And There's Another Big Hole 7 Miles Away

Joe Weisenthal | Jun. 8, 2010, 5:30 PM | 7,736 | 49

Matthew Simmons is sticking by his story that there's another giant leak in the Gulf of Mexico blowing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. On CNBC's Fast Money, he says he'd be surprised if BP lasted this summer, saying this is disaster is entirely BP's fault.

Simmons has been all over cable news lately -- yesterday he descirbed to Dylan Ratigan how the next nightmare will be when a Hurricane picks up the oil and paints the Gulf Coast region black.

Tags: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

A POSSIBLE BIG DOT!

Matt Simmons apparently drowned at his home Sunday night




NORTH HAVEN, Maine (NEWS CENTER) - The Knox County Sheriff's Department says Matthew Simmons, the founder of the Ocean Energy Institute, drowned at his house on North Haven late Sunday night.

Simmons was a leading investment banker for the energy industry and had recently retired to work full time on the new Ocean Energy Institute.

He was a leading proponent of offshore wind power and had started raising money to develop and build offshore turbines.

He and his family had also bought and rebuilt the Old Strand Theater in downtown Rockland.

[American Patriot]

So this guy was drowned at his home?

That's all we have?

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Monday, August 16, 2010

Gulf Shrimpers Find Oil In Reopened Fishing Areas. Government Says "Shut Up"!

Sierra Club Alleges Areas Were Solely Reopened to Limit BP's Liability

While the government says that the oil is gone, shrimpers say its still there.

The Press-Register reports:

Opening state offshore waters to fishing and winding down the cleanup effort on the coast is premature, said Louie Miller, state director of the Mississippi Sierra Club.

"We've got shrimpers out there saying there is oil out there," Miller said. "We had a meeting Wednesday night where we had over 150 shrimpers... who are saying there is oil out there and these underwater plumes are varying in size and shape. This stuff is obviously moving around out there."

***
[William Walker, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources] "If you are not going to validate what you are saying through accepted scientific protocol and approaches, then quit talking about it without any evidence what you are saying is true," Walker said.

In other words, shut up.

Obviously, gulf shrimpers have a strong motivation to have everyone think that the shrimp is safe and the oil is all gone. They wouldn't be speaking out unless the problem was fairly bad.

Indeed, the Sierra Club accuses the government of reopening oiled fishing grounds to limit BP's liability:

The existence of oil is irrefutable, Miller said. Oil has reappeared on beaches in Alabama, Petit Bois and Horn islands and continues to wash ashore in Louisiana, he said.

Miller said there also is evidence of submerged oil.

"It is a weird thing. It is like strands, this black water, as they are calling it. It is like strands that are about three to four times the thickness of human hair. These things can be about foot-and-a-half, to five- to six-feet-long."

Miller said the assumption is oil that has been dispersed.
"To open up these waters, in my opinion, is nothing more than to limit the liability of BP to pay claims," he said.
"Because now they can deny any claims after the time at which these waters were opened back up," Miller said.

PBS Newshour also covered the shrimpers' distrust of the government's claims that all is well:

PBS: [Vice president of the Louisiana Shrimpers Association Acy] Cooper says despite government claims that most of the oil is gone, there’s plenty of it still on the bottom.
COOPER: I went out there and we made about four or five passes with the wheel, with the boat, stirred up the mud, and before you know it, oil was coming up.So these are the kind of areas that we need to distinguish where it's at, and these are the new places we need to keep closed.We don't need to open this.Keep them out of there.

(Video here). And see this.
Truthout reports:

Two days after [William] Walker's announcement [that all was well] and in response to claims from state and federal officials that Gulf Coast waters are safe and clean, fishermen took their own samples from the waters off of Pass Christian in Mississippi.

The samples were taken in water that is now open for shrimping, as well as from waters directly over Mississippi's oyster bed, that will likely open in September for fishing.
Commercial fisherman James "Catfish" Miller, took fishermen Danny Ross Jr. and Mark Stewart, along with scientist Dr. Ed Cake of Gulf Environmental Associates and others out and they found the fishing grounds to be contaminated with oil and dispersants.
***

On August 13, Truthout visited Pass Christian Harbor in Mississippi. Oil sheen was present, the vapors of which could be smelled, causing our eyes to burn. Many ropes that tied boats to the dock were oiled and much of the water covered with oil sheen.

***

A resident, who has a yacht in the harbor, spoke with Truthout on condition of anonymity due to fears of reprisal from BP. "Last week we were sitting on our boat and you could smell the chemicals," he explained. "It smelt like death. It was like mosquito spray, but ten times stronger. The next day I was hoarse and my lungs felt like I'd been in a smoky bar the night before."

***"BP has bought off all our government officials, and shut them up. You can't say the oil is gone, it's right here! Them saying it's not here is a bunch of bullshit."

Truthout spoke with another man, who was recently laid off from the VOO [vessels of opportunity] program. He also spoke on condition of anonymity. "Just the other day one of the Carolina Skiffs passed us spraying something," he said. "We went west instead of east as we turned and a group of Carolina Skiffs was spraying something over the water."

A Carolina Skiff is a type of boat, usually between 13' and 30' long, very versatile and can function well in shallow or deep waters. They are known for having a large payload capacity and a lot of interior space.

Alarmed by what he saw, the former VOO worker called the Coast Guard to report what he believed was a private contractor company spraying dispersants. "We were later told by the Coast Guard they'd investigated the incident and told us what we saw were vacuum boats sucking oil, and they were rinsing their tanks," he said. "But we know this is a lie and that BP is using these out of state contractors to come in and spray the dispersant at night and they are using planes to drop it as well."

He worked in the VOO program looking for oil. When his team would find oil, upon reporting it, they would consistently be sent away without explanation or the opportunity to clean it. "They made us abort these missions," he said. "Two days ago I put out boom in a bunch of oil for five minutes, they told me to abort the mission, so I pulled up boom soaked in oil. What the hell are we doing out there if they won't let us work to clean up the oil?"

He told Truthout that as his and other VOO teams would be going out to work on the water in the morning, they would pass the out-of-state contractors in Carolina Skiffs coming in from what he believed to be a covert spraying of the oil with dispersant in order to sink it. He believes this was done to deliberately prevent the VOO teams from finding and collecting oil. By doing so, BP's liability would be lessened since the oil giant will be fined for the amount of oil collected.

*** "I can take anybody in here out and show them oil, every single day," David White, a local fishing charter captain responded. "I was in the VOO program, driving around calling in oil, telling them where it is and nobody ever came. I never saw any skimmers there and I'm talking about some serious oil. I can show you tar balls going across the bottom like tumbleweeds."

Yerkes provided Truthout with a written statement from Lawrence Byrd, a local boat captain who was a task force leader in the VOO program from June 4 to July 21. On July 27 and 28, Byrd took BP officials, Coast Guard officials and an EPA official on a fact finding mission in search of oil.
"The Coast Guard told us if we could show them the oil, they'd put us back to work," Yerkes told Truthout, "So Byrd took him, and other officials out on his boat and showed them the oil."

Byrd's statement contains many instances of the group encountering oil on the trips:

"Within 30 minutes in the Rocky Bayou and Boggy Bayou we found 4 different football field sized areas of oily sheen on the water ... We moved east from there in search of weathered oil, just past Mid Bay bridge we found a 2 acre oil slick with a water bottle full of crude oil. At this time the Coast Guard Lt. had seen enough to warrant a 2nd trip with BP officials and EPA."

The next day, July 28, Byrd wrote:

"On board were BP officials, a Parson official, 2 Coast Guard Lts and EPA. First stop Crab Island Destin where we found tar balls, dead fish and plenty of dead sargasm grass. All officials seemed very concerned about all of our findings."

There is a clear pattern that VOO workers in all four states are consistently reporting:

• VOO workers identify the oil.
• They are then sent elsewhere by someone higher up the chain of command.
• Dispersants are later applied by out-of-state contractors in Carolina Skiffs (usually at night), or aircraft are used, in order to sink the oil.
• The oil "appears" gone and, therefore, no additional action is taken.

"There are surfers coming in with oil on them," Yerkes continued, "There are divers telling us it's on the bottom. We have VOO workers coming in after finding oil three inches thick atop the water as of last week and they go back out there and it's gone."

Project Gulf Impact filmed local fishermen saying much the same thing:

“Fishermen do not want to lose our credibility or deliver contaminated seafood to market and make people sick.” – Kathy Birren

“While President Obama and state officials claim that the Gulf is ‘open for business,’ these fishermen say the spraying of dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico is ongoing and they’re concerned that seafood pulled from impacted waters is unsafe for eating.”

“The tissue testing of this seafood is inadequate and testing for the toxic dispersants is non-existent.” – Tracy Kuhns, Louisiana Bayoukeeper

“I think it is crucial for the public to be made aware of the concerns of the commercial fishermen. And if a commercial fisherman who makes his living off of those products doesn’t want to deliver them to the public, the public needs to know why.” – Chris Bryant, Commercial Fisherman.

Is the Sierra Club right? Are still-oiled fishing areas being reopened solely to limit BP's liability?
Are fishing areas instead being reopened to try to save the Gulf fishing industry (even though local fishermen and shrimpers would rather have dangerous areas remain closed so that Gulf seafood's reputation isn't permanently destroyed)?

Or is it just part of the same old attempt to cover up the severity of the crisis?

[American Patriot]

Nobody gives a shit what the Sierra Club says.

[American Patriot]

Researchers say previously unknown microbe thriving by eating spilled oil in Gulf of Mexico


Published August 24, 2010
| Associated Press


WASHINGTON – A newly discovered type of oil-eating microbe is suddenly flourishing in the Gulf of Mexico.


Scientists discovered the new microbe while studying the underwater dispersion of millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf following the explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.


And the microbe works without significantly depleting oxygen in the water, researchers led by Terry Hazen at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., reported Tuesday in the online journal Sciencexpress.


"Our findings, which provide the first data ever on microbial activity from a deepwater dispersed oil plume, suggest" a great potential for bacteria to help dispose of oil plumes in the deep-sea, Hazen said in a statement.


Environmentalists have raised concerns about the giant oil spill and the underwater plume of dispersed oil, particularly its potential effects on sea life. A report just last week described a 22-mile long underwater mist of tiny oil droplets.


"Our findings show that the influx of oil profoundly altered the microbial community by significantly stimulating deep-sea" cold temperature bacteria that are closely related to known petroleum-degrading microbes, Hazen reported.


Their findings are based on more than 200 samples collected from 17 deepwater sites between May 25 and June 2. They found that the dominant microbe in the oil plume is a new species, closely related to members of Oceanospirillales.


This microbe thrives in cold water, with temperatures in the deep recorded at 5 degrees Celsius (41 Fahrenheit).


Hazen suggested that the bacteria may have adapted over time due to periodic leaks and natural seeps of oil in the Gulf.


Scientists also had been concerned that oil-eating activity by microbes would consume large amounts of oxygen in the water, creating a "dead zone"

dangerous to other life. But the new study found that oxygen saturation outside the oil plume was 67-percent while within the plume it was 59-percent.


The research was supported by an existing grant with the Energy Biosciences Institute, a partnership led by the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Illinois that is funded by a $500 million, 10-year grant from BP.



Other support came from the U.S. Department of Energy and the University of Oklahoma Research Foundation.


Sciencexpress is the online edition of the journal Science.

[vector7]

IG report shows Obama White House rewrote Gulf spill report to support drilling moratorium

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posted at 9:30 am on November 10, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

When the Obama White House announced its moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP-Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in April, the administration insisted that they followed the recommendations of its panel of experts.

This story blew up when the panel of experts insisted that they had not recommended any kind of blanket moratorium, and that one simply wasn’t necessary to address the deficiencies at MMS that contributed to the catastrophic fire and spill.

A new report from the Inspector General probing the White House response accuses the administration of rewriting key sections of the report in order to falsely give the impression that the panel had made that recommendation:

The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.

In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG report obtained by POLITICO.

“The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts,” the IG report states, without judgment on whether the change was an intentional attempt to mislead the public.

The White House claimed some vindication, saying that the IG had stopped short of accusing the administration of a deliberate deception, and called it “a misunderstanding.”

That seems like a bit of a stretch, especially since the supposed mistake didn’t exactly occur in a vacuum. Opponents of oil drilling, usually among Obama’s allies on the Left, had demanded an end to drilling in the region at least until the investigation into the disaster was completed.

The White House version of the report gave Obama political cover to order the six-month moratorium — at least until those involved in its peer review cried foul after the White House publicly used them to defend the action.

But even if it was just a “misunderstanding,” an artifact of some guileless editorial tweaking that inadvertently put a paragraph ahead of or behind an important qualifier, it was at the very least incompetence.

Why was the staff of energy “adviser” Carol Browner allowed to edit a report issued by the Department of Interior’s blue-ribbon panel in the first place? Why did no one review those changes at Interior to determine whether the edits were justified, especially since the IG report indicates that the edits took place because the staffer or Browner didn’t think it summarized the findings properly?

Why not just ask the report’s authors to rewrite it themselves?

This is no mere academic exercise.

Thousands of people lost their jobs because of this supposed instance of sloppy editing, and the delay it created in safe exploration and drilling may impact the region for years, as well as America’s energy independence.

[American Patriot]

Morning Bell: Gulf Oil Spill, One Year Later

Posted April 20th, 2011 at 9:29am in Energy and Environment 35 Print This Post

A year ago today, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico cost the lives of 11 men and threatened untold damage to the ecosystem. It was an unprecedented disaster, and the tragic loss of life it entailed made it all the more imperative that such an accident never repeat itself.
In the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, the disaster response proved heroic: The crew of a Tidewater supply vessel rescued the 115 survivors of the explosion in little more than an hour. But in the weeks and months that followed, crisis management proved significantly less adept. It took 87 days to cap the rig’s exposed oil well, which steadily spilled oil into the Gulf. And as The Wall Street Journal reports today, the effects of the Obama Administration’s response to the spill are more apparent now than ever, with offshore oil production down 13 percent and crude oil prices up 33 percent.
Following the disaster, the White House’s response seemed to become little more than a thin cover for the enactment of an economically crippling energy agenda. In May, President Obama issued a six-month moratorium on all deepwater drilling. In June, a federal judge struck it down, calling it “arbitrary and capricious,” not justified by the Gulf’s safety record. A few weeks later, in defiance of the judge, the Administration reissued the moratorium. The judge held the Administration in contempt.
In time for the November 2010 elections — and ahead of schedule — the Administration “lifted” the moratorium — but, for months, no deepwater permits and few shallow water permits followed. A new term was coined: “permitorium.” Eventually, the Department of the Interior issued a few farcical deepwater permits, but today’s average is well below the historic norm.
One year later, even the most resilient Gulf Coast residents wonder how long they can live like this.
Leslie Bertucci, a native of New Orleans and the owner of the oilfield equipment company R and D Enterprises, isn’t shy about sharing her views:

My message for President Obama is that I would love for him to come to R and D Enterprises in Harvey, La., and meet us and see us and talk to our employees and get a real, true understanding of the reality of what is really happening because of this moratorium that shouldn’t be in place in the first place,” Bertucci says.

For this hard-working mother of six — who, with her husband, built her business from its start in a spare bedroom of her home to the industrial campus it is today — says the drilling moratorium has caused her company’s revenue stream to all but dry up. R and D Enterprises supplies equipment to transport chemicals to and from deepwater oil rigs. When those rigs aren’t allowed to drill, R and D’s equipment sits idle.
The best course forward is clear: The Obama Administration needs to resume the usual rate of permitting in both deep and shallow water to reinvigorate the Gulf, recover lost government revenue, decrease dependence on foreign oil, create jobs, and prevent even higher gas prices in the future. No policy can reverse last year’s spill — but better energy policy could ease the burden that the Administration itself imposed on the Gulf.
As Bertucci puts it: “The explosion was horrendous, the loss of life was devastating to the families, to the companies they worked for, to our whole community. I think the damage to our ecosystem, to our marshlands and coastline was awful… The moratorium doesn’t change any of that at all. Safety is No. 1 and needs to be No. 1, but I don’t think that all of the operators in the Gulf need to be shut down because there was a mistake on one rig.”
Click here to watch our new three-minute video on the oil spill and moratorium.
Quick Hits:

• France and Italy will send military advisers to Libya to assist rebel forces, joining a team of about a dozen British military advisers.
• President Obama is holding a summit on immigration reform, but border state governors Jan Brewer (R-AZ) and Rick Perry (R-TX) weren’t invited.
• U.S. taxpayers stand to lose $11 billion on their bailout of General Motors. The U.S. government plans to sell a significant share of its stake in GM this summer.
• Will the Pentagon be able to stave off more defense cuts? Watch a special Heritage event with Under Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter today at 11 AM ET.
• Global warming advocates received a chilly reception from the Supreme Court yesterday. Read our analysis on Foundry.org.