Nice technical summary of events leading up to the blast

Nice summary of technical decisions leading to the blowout, with "lessons learned" summary at the end:

What Were the Causes That Led to the Deepwater Horizon Blowout and Explosion?

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6597

Summary of decisions

A good summary of the decisions that led to the blast:

BP Decisions Set Stage for Disaster
Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704026204575266560930780190.html?KEYWORDS=BP+Decisions+Set+Stage+for+Disaster

Not yet in loop current

Talked to an oceanographer friend last week. The spilled oil is caught up in an eddy, but the eddy is currently detached from the GOM loop current. These eddies may rejoin the loop current or may not.

Given the amount of oil in the water, both on the surface and at depth, it seems likely it will get into the loop current eventually.

This week the friend said he has seen water samples from a plume. The oil is visible, so the concentration is definitely higher than the parts per million initially reported by NOAA.

Obama started to clean up the MMS

The Obama administration started to clean up the MMS but did not follow through:

Rolling Stone
The Spill, the Scandal, and the President
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/111965

Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar initially came down hard on the MMS, but did not follow through. He left the Bush era appointees running the shop. There were no significant reforms, leading the lax inspection and enforcement.

Interesting quote:

MMS has fully understood the worst-case scenarios for deep-sea oil blowouts for more than a decade. In May 2000, an environmental assessment for deepwater drilling in the Gulf presciently warned that "spill responses may be complicated by the potential for very large magnitude spills (because of the high production rates associated with deepwater wells)." The report noted that the oil industry "has estimated worst-case spill volumes ranging from 5,000 to 116,000 barrels a day for 120 days," and it even anticipated the underwater plumes of oil that are currently haunting the Gulf: "Oil released subsea (e.g., subsea blowout or pipeline leak) in these deepwater environments could remain submerged for some period of time and travel away from the spill site." The report ominously concluded, "There are few practical spill-response options for dealing with submerged oil."

That same month, an MMS research document developed with deepwater drillers – including the company then known as BP Amoco – warned that such a spill could spell the end for offshore operations. The industry could "ill afford a deepwater blowout," the document cautions, adding that "no single company has the solution" to such a catastrophe. "The real test will come if a deepwater blowout occurs."

BP has a record of cutting corners on safefy to cut costs:

In March 2006, BP was responsible for an Alaska pipeline rupture that spilled more than 250,000 gallons of crude into Prudhoe Bay – at the time, a spill second in size only to the Valdez disaster. Investigators found that BP had repeatedly ignored internal warnings about corrosion brought about by "draconian" cost cutting. The company got off cheap in the spill: While the EPA recommended slapping the firm with as much as $672 million in fines, the Bush administration allowed it to settle for just $20 million.

BP has also cut corners at the expense of its own workers. In 2005, 15 workers were killed and 170 injured after a tower filled with gasoline exploded at a BP refinery in Texas. Investigators found that the company had flouted its own safety procedures and illegally shut off a warning system before the blast. An internal cost-benefit analysis conducted by BP – explicitly based on the children's tale The Three Little Pigs – revealed that the oil giant had considered making buildings at the refinery blast-resistant to protect its workers (the pigs) from an explosion (the wolf). BP knew lives were on the line: "If the wolf blows down the house, the piggy is gobbled." But the company determined it would be cheaper to simply pay off the families of dead pigs.

Well production rates

Talked to a friend from BP this weekend. He says a the flow rate of a good deep water well is 12,000 barrels per day. A great well may flow at 25,000 bpd. The 40,000 to 55,000 bpd for the Deepwater Horizon well would make it one of the best producing wells in the Gulf.

BP may be losing the well bore

BP may be losing the well bore:

The Oil Drum
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593/648967

If BP loses the well bore, there may be no way to plug the well. The implication is uncontrolled release of oil into the Gulf of Mexico until the formation pressure became low enough to stop forcing the oil to the surface.

The flow rate could rise to 150,000 barrels per day from the 50,000 or so bpd that are currently being released. The prospect was estimated to contain 100 million barrels recoverable. How much would wind up in the GOM?