The Top 40

A voice of reason trying to put things in some sort of perspective. However, the 48,000,000 seepage is gallons not barrels. That does put the estimated 30,000 barrels/day "spill" in a much larger category. However, I agree with the premise that once the well is brought under control (they say three months to drill an intercept well) the cleanup will go pretty well and, except for the "greenies," it will be forgotten by the majority of people. Unfortunately, the greenies will probably get their wish for no more offshore drilling here in the USA - until Peak Oil really starts to bite. I have no idea when that might be. Just know that it is coming someday in the future.

It will not stop offshore drilling, except in the US, and not even that where Cuba is concerned.

Leftists and serial killers have much in common. Ritualistically ordered disordered minds.

Gerard, go back to that thread. The poster was off by units of measure. It should have been gallons, not barrels.

The Gulf ecosystem is well-adapted to the presence of this material. What is really threatened isn't the ecosystem, isn'€™t the fishing industry or the oil industry. What is threatened is the tourism industry, for after all, who wants to go to the beach and sit or step on a tar ball?

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Witty writing does not obviate the reality that this voilcano will kill the Gulf and seep into the Atlantic Current, then on to the North Atlantic and westward/northward.

Whoever this person is, they should leave their mouth [ keyboard ?] closed and be presumed ignorant and fooilsh, rather than speak and remove any and all doubt

The Gulf ecosystem is well-adapted to the presence of this material. What is really threatened isn't the ecosystem, isn'€™t the fishing industry or the oil industry. What is threatened is the tourism industry, for after all, who wants to go to the beach and sit or step on a tar ball?

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Witty writing does not obviate the reality that this voilcano will kill the Gulf and seep into the Atlantic Current, then on to the North Atlantic and westward/northward.

Whoever this person is, they should leave their mouth [ keyboard ?] closed and be presumed ignorant and fooilsh, rather than speak and remove any and all doubt

"Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Witty writing does not obviate the reality that this voilcano will kill the Gulf and seep into the Atlantic Current, then on to the North Atlantic and westward/northward."

And your sources are? We can all be Monday morning quarterbacks and express our two cents worth. When refuting someone's statements that have been backed up by links to someone with expertise, it is nice to provide some counter authority. Otherwise it is just your biased opinion.

And a scintillatingly Apocalyptic one too! TEOTWAWKI!

Oil is natural, the Earth is natural, the fishes and the deep blue sea too. What isn't natural is tourists, enviro-nazis and politicians.
That should tell you what needs to go.

Sorry Mr V

Couldn't hold off responding to JJ and his uber-Source "Gedaliya"

JJ ... the factual sources are too numerous to list, but I've included one link to an article that quotes seven ... 7 ... scientists in marine biology and chemistry ... commenting on this disaster. Would that be enough for you, or is that too "biased" toward cold hard reality ?

Oh, one other thing JJ, one of my sources is an Aramco exec/engineer ... a 30+ year industry insider. My bias is toward facts, not feelings

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/30-shocking-quotes-about-the-gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-that-reveal-the-soul-crushing-horror-this-disaster-is-causing

OD,

Here's another side of the story for you. Admittedly from an investment advisory that is touting buying while prices are low. Just as your source is trying to drive oil company stock prices lower and oil prices higher. Anyone of those 30 quotes could mean something else if taken in context.

Try this on for some reframing of the situation:
"On June 3, 1979, workers aboard the Sedco 135-F semisubmersible drilling rig located in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche removed pipe from the Ixtoc-1 well to change the drill-bit.

During this routine process, oil and natural gas under tremendous geologic pressure overcame the weight of the drilling mud and the well blew out. The blowout preventer--a device designed to close the well in the event of a just such an emergency--activated but wasn’t powerful enough to shear through the thick pipe being pulled out of the well.

The result was devastating. Hydrocarbons gushing from the well ignited at the surface, and the 63 rig workers, some injured and burned, were rescued before the rig sank. Gas bubbling from the well continued to burn on the surface long after the rig went down.

In the late 1970s, the Bay of Campeche was still a relatively young hydrocarbon-producing region. The largest oilfield in this area is Cantarell, a giant field discovered in 1976 that produced more than 2 million barrels per day at peak production in 2003-04.

These young fields offered huge production rates because reservoir pressures were still high and oil flowed rather easily into wells. Although that was great news for the Mexican oil industry, it represented a significant problem for Ixtoc-1; the well gushed oil and natural gas into the Gulf of Mexico for some time.

Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), Mexico’s national oil company, made several attempts to plug the Ixtoc well, including pumping drilling mud, scrap rubber and other debris into the well under high pressure--the infamous top-kill. PEMEX also installed a containment cap over Ixtoc in an effort to collect some of the hydrocarbons flowing from the field.

But all of these efforts failed, and the well continued to spill oil into the Gulf of Mexico until PEMEX completed two relief wells that intersected the blown-out well. At that point the company was able to pump mud and cement into the well to plug it permanently.

The bad news: It took PEMEX nearly 10 months to drill the two relief wells and stop the spill. Over 290 days, the well gushed oil at an uncontrolled rate. The Ixtoc spill is estimated at 3.3 million barrels (138.6 million gallons) of oil.

The Ixtoc disaster had a significant environmental impact. The oil flowing from the well drifted into US waters, and tar balls washed onto Texas beaches. Mexican beaches also were heavily oiled; the bird population suffered, and commercial fisheries had to be closed for a time after the spill. Studies showed that biomass--the quantity of animal life in the region--fell more than 50 percent for some species in the immediate aftermath.

But most marine biologists who studied the after-effects of the spill were surprised at how quickly the Gulf recovered. In the warm waters of the Gulf, oil degrades at a far faster pace than it does in colder conditions; the basic rule of thumb is that for every 10 degrees Celsius oil degrades at about twice the speed. Accordingly, the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez in Alaska took much longer to break down than the oil in the Gulf of Mexico."

Reading further:
"The parallels between Ixtoc and the Macondo spill are clear, from the failure of the blowout preventer to the operator’s hurried, ad hoc attempts to slow or plug the well before the relief wells could be completed.

US media coverage of the Macondo disaster has been almost universally negative and sensationalist. And the Obama administration, admittedly under intense political pressure, has stepped up the rhetoric at BP (NYSE: BP) and CEO Tony Hayward. The political rhetoric has become so extreme that British government officials appear to be asking the US administration to tone down its comments directed at the company."

Read the whole thing here:
http://www.investingdaily.com/tes/17424/macondo-and-100-oil.html?cigx=d.k,stid.13236,sid.1948300,lid.202#

JJ

Thanks. Here's my Igor-computation ....

Ixtoc spilled ~3M barrels over a 300 day period - roughly 10K barrels a day Various rates have been offered up by BP and the national bureaucracies, all understating the loss rate. 25K barrels a day minimum up to 50K a day being lost, from knowledgeable sources looking at available data

So Deep Horizon is releasing 3 to 5 times as much. Ouch. I don't know if Ixtoc release was able to escape the GOM circulation and enter Atlantic Current pathways. This one will.

I don't know what the gas-oil ration was in Ixtoc. This one is heavily weighted toward gas ... and that collection of volatile HCs is gonna be muy bad for communities onshore.

Right now I'm not entering into any more instruments of "the market" Tangibles only

My source has moved his family out of Houston.

OD,
Yes, and I know people who are stockpiling food, water, gold, and firearms here in the Pacific Northwest because they see bad things ahead.

They may be right. I've seen some troubles in my time (77 years). I've been around through WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the 70s oil embargoes, Carter, the S&L crisis, the Exxon Valdez spill, Desert Storm, the swine flu, the meltdown of LTC, the dot com bust, 9/11, and too many others to recall. Someone is always predicting the end. It's never happened. I may be wrong, but I'm betting we will solve these problems and life will go on. Three years from now this oil spill will only be a slogan for the environmentalists much as Three Mile Island was for many years.

The relief well will be drilled by the middle of August. BP and the Feds are finally realizing they have to get organized to contain and clean up the free oil. Executive orders by Obama must be released to bypass environmental studies regs which are holding up action to contain and clean up the spill. There are finally some ships with skimmers going into action. There is no shortage of boom to defend the beaches if BP and the Feds will act. There is plenty of willing manpower to do manual cleanup where necessary. I saw several biodegradable substances demonstrated on Mike Huckabee's show that attract oil and can be used for clean up in the marsh lands. The effort is starting to gain some traction after much delay due to bureaucratic mixups and adherence to rote environmental road blocks to action. I predict that in two months we will see a totally different picture unless the Feds continue to put up roadblocks to action.

Tell your friend in Houston to move to the Cascade Mountains. Very safe here - except for the volcanoes and the earthquakes. Heh.