What If He’s Right?
by ilene - July 19th, 2010 3:45 pm
What If He’s Right?
Courtesy of James Howard Kunstler
Just when America was celebrating the provisional end of BP’s Macondo oil blowout, and getting back to important issues like Kim Kardashian’s body-suit collection, along comes Matthew Simmons with a rather strange and alarming outcry on doings in the Gulf of Mexico that contradicts the mood of renewed festivity, as well as just about every shred of reportage from any media outlet, mainstream or otherwise.
Matt Simmons Houston-based company has been the leading investment bank to the US oil industry for a long time, financing exploration and drilling in places like the Gulf of Mexico. Simmons, 68, recently retired from day-to-day management of the company. For much of the decade he has been what may be described as a peak oil activist. His 2005 book, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, warned the public that Saudi Arabia’s oil production had reached its limits and, more generally, that an oil-dependent world was entering a zone of serious trouble over its primary resource. He took this aggressive stance despite risking the ire of the people he did business with.
Matt Simmons is a sober individual and a very nice man (I’ve met him twice over the years), a button-downed corporate executive who’s been around the oil business for forty years. His knowledge is deep and comprehensive. From the beginning of the BP Macondo blowout incident in April, he’s taken the far out position that the well-bore is fatally compromised and that BP has been consistently lying about their operations to stop the flow of oil. Perhaps most radically, Simmons claims that an oil "gusher" is pouring into the Gulf some distance from the drilling site itself.
Last week, Simmons came on Dylan Ratigan’s MSNBC financial show, but he did a longer interview over at the King World News website. (click here for ERIC KING’S INTERVIEW WITH SIMMONS). Simmons’s current warning about the situation focuses on the gigantic "lake" of crude oil that is pooling under great pressure 4000 to 5000 feet down in the "basement" of the Gulf’s waters. More particularly, he is concerned that a tropical storm will bring this oil up – as tropical storms and hurricanes usually do with deeper cold water – and with it clouds of methane gas that…
No, the Oil Gusher has NOT Been Stopped Yet … But There is Still Very Good News
by ilene - July 12th, 2010 9:17 pm
Courtesy of George Washington writing at Zero Hedge
Contrary to widespread reports that the oil gusher has been stopped, the live feed below from ROV 2′s BSkandi camera shows that it is still gushing out of the pipe which has been connected to the new containment cap:
BSkandi – ROV 2 (456854) bkup=45684 |
It is still very encouraging that the cap seems to be working so far, and – if the system of pipes, cap and well can handle the pressure – BP should be able to connect the pipe all the way up to the collection vessel at the surface.
Updates as they arise …
Note: BP just switched the camera around, so you can no longer see oil gushing out of the pipe. I’m not sure when they’ll swivel back so we can see…
BP’s Attempt At LMRP Installation In Process
by ilene - June 3rd, 2010 9:01 pm
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
BP has commenced its attempt at installing the LMRP. If past experience is any indication, this last chance to capture the flow will also be unsuccessful. One can be sure, however, that many in the White House are watching and praying , knowing full well that if oil continues gushing into the open ocean through August, the administration’s popularity rating may be the next thing used to plug the gusher at the ocean bottom. In addition to the embedded camera angle below, this link provides access to a second live cam that is focusing on the actual LMRP, and the direct BP camera feed can be seen here. A last fallback is the live CNN feed which seems to always work.