BP’s Bill for the World’s Largest Oil spill: $61.6 billion

On April 20, 2010, a well blowout a mile under the Deepwater Horizon exploration ship sent a surge of oil and gas up to the rig, setting it on fire and killing 11 crew members. The well leaked for 87 days, and 3.19 million barrels of crude oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico. BP just totaled up the amount of legal bills, damage settlements, restoration costs, and fines it has paid to hundreds of lawyers, 400 local governments, thousands of claimants and the federal government, and the tab comes to $61.6 billion.

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“BP’s big bill for the world’s largest oil spill reaches $61.6 billion,” Steven Mufson, Washington Post

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BP ‘Grossly Negligent’ in the Gulf Oil Spill

On Thursday September 4, 2014 U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Barbier, Louisiana born and bred, found BP to be “grossly negligent” in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, attributing 67% of the blame to the company, 30% to contractor Transocean, and 3% to submarine cement subcontractor Halliburton. BP may be liable for as much as $18 billion in fines under the Clean Water Act. BP had tried to claim its two partners in the drilling venture were equally responsible, so the ruling essentially doubles that. BP says it will appeal.

With this fine on top of other Deepwater fines, costs, and damage expenses, BP’s total bill for the disaster could reach $50 billion.

BP Oil Spill +2

While the media fleet sailed with the Titanic centennial story, this week marked the anniversary of another maritime disaster. The Deepwater oil spill happened two years ago, but you wouldn’t know it unless you live on the Gulf Coast. Most media coverage  boosted the recovery of tourism and the fishing industry. Only the editors of the Tampa Bay Times have a weather eye on the future:

“Two years later, spill’s dangers linger,” Tampa Bay Times editorial

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Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Blame Game. It’s Back!

BP Global has charged that its subcontractor, Halliburton Energy Services, destroyed evidence of shoddy cement work on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. BP claims the “Mocondo Blowout” that caused last year’s catastrophic Gulf oil spill was caused by Halliburton’s substandard work.

More:

“BP says Halliburton ‘intentionally destroyed evidence’ after Gulf oil spill,” Vivian Kuo, CNN

 “BP says Halliburton destroyed Gulf spill evidence,” Reuters via Chicago Tribune

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Commission Establishes Oil Spill Blame

Contractor Halliburton knew the cement it used to seal the BP Deepwater oil rig was faulty but used it anyway, according to a report released by a federal commision. “Halliburton and BP both had results in March showing that a very similar foam slurry design to the one actually pumped at the Macondo well would be unstable, but neither acted upon that data,” according to investigators.

Thomas Roth, Halliburton’s vice-president of cementing, recently stated that his company’s tests showed the materials had “good stability,” a claim contradicted by BP officials.

Just who is to blame for the disaster?

PB Funds University Oil Spill Research

BP is funding a half-billion dollar Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GRI). $25 million has just been awarded to study the ecological interactions of oil and dispersant. First round funding has gone to Louisiana State University ($5 million), the University of South Florida’s Florida Institute of Oceanography ($10 million)  and the Northern Gulf Institute consortium ($10 million).

 

Hat tip: InsideHigherEd.com

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Spill Spoof Aids Gulf Recovery

@bpglobalpr, a parody BP public relations Twitter account, has  155,678 followers; the real BP Twitter account has 13,925. The anonymous spoofer has raised $10,000 towards Gulf restoration by selling T-shirts; BP’s repair, cleanup, compensation, and PR efforts have earned nothing but scorn.

 

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BP Caps Oil Well

BP cut a pipe 5000 feet below the Gulf of Mexico and put a cap on the valve that has been leaking oil for the past month. “Cap” sounds much less formal than the Top Hat BP tried to use a few weeks ago.

Some oil is being recovered, but crude oil is still gushing into the water, fouling  sea life, birds, and the shores of four states. The rate of the oil spill may have been slowed, but estimates vary. To get an idea of the scope of this ongoing disaster, use the PBS Oil Spill Ticker.

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Oil Spill: Measuring the Mess

 

BP was scheduled to release an updated estimate for the Deepwater Challenger oil spill rate of flow yesterday, but all we have seen is BP’s denial that the firm provided the lowball estimate of 5,000 barrels a day. We know 5,000 barrels a day is a gross underestimate, since BP now claims it is pumping that much into a tanker from a tube insert and oil is still gushing from the sea floor pipe.

Academic engineers viewing recent video of the underwater spill site estimate the flow rate at anywhere from 20,000 to 125,000 barrels per day. BP seems to imply the initial 5,000 barrel daily rate was made by the government but, even if this is true, the company did nothing to correct the figure.

BP claims third-party estimates are inflated by gas and fail to account for the volume of natural gas in the mix. The National Incident Command has established a Flow Rate Technical Group to answer the disputed question, and BP is not part of the group.

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BP Sips Away at Oil Spill

BP announced that it has inserted a tube into the seabed pipe that has been gushing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico for nearly a month. The new tube is diverting 1,000 barrels of oil a day into a tanker, according to BP. The blowout is spilling  anywhere from 5.000 to 80,000 barrels into the Gulf each day, so this is colf comfort.

 UPDATE:

BP now says it is reclaiming 2000 barrels a day from the oil spill. What BP has not done: revise the estimated rate of oil spill volume upward, as other observers have.

New directions in BP engineering outlined by Carl Hiaasen (Miami Herald). 

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