Oil Spill News Discrepancies...

As we enter a weekend without further news as to whether BP's efforts to place a containment vessel over the oil leak in the subsurface, two news articles were published...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100514/D9FMI8SG1.html

Discusses that more than 35% of the spill has evaporated and 10% has been sopped up.  This because the crude is light, meaning it is dominated by short chain hydrocarbons, and thus much lighter than water with a strong propensity to float.  However, scientists disagree. Although I am sure there is a consensus somewhere that we will hear about shortly, especially if tied to massive research spending by the government or BP.

In any case, the New York Times reports massive 300' subsurface plumes of oil wrecking the biodiversity and flow rates an order of magnitude higher than reported.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html?hp

No word yet on the exact mechanism on how light end hydrocarbons maintain subsurface thicknesses like this in much denser water for any amount of time.  Thermoclines can't explain it, since the density differences hotter/colder water are an order of magnitude different than water/oil. One interestting note, the NYT makes it appear, without really saying so, that BP is actively obfuscating the rates of flow, which it quotes its own experts, from something ill-defined in the article as the "Pelican Mission" and the researchers, all with doctorates, are not identified as to their expertise.  However, Google identifies one unnamed group as the University of Mississippi's Water and Wetland Research Institute, and it's head, Ray Highsmith, as someone whose specialty is "Community Ecology".  Dr. Samantha Joye has more impressive credentials as specializing in:

"Biogeochemical cycling of nutrients, metals, and organic materials in coastal environments; biogeochemistry of methane hydrate and chemosynthetic habitats; ecosystem and geochemical modeling; microbial ecology, metabolism and physiology; molecular biology; global nitrogen cycle, global methane cycle".

In any case, University Scientists, whose best interest is in finding catastrophe and the funding it will generate seem to be on the job, while those working for BP, whose best interest is in finding smaller impact, are also on the job, and the rest of us fed news written by folks with apparent agendas.  

Previously, I wrote that 5,000 BOPD was a reasonable rate.  It seems to me to be much more believable than the 100,000 BOPD rates quoted elsewhere.  As one reader stated, at 100,000 BOPD, you should be buying BP stock, not shorting it.  In any case, the containment dome, if successful, would give us real rates, not speculation.  

As an oilman, albeit it one that has only drilled dry holes offshore, and thus not likely to stroll back into that harsh environment, I know first hand that the manufacturing and industrial processes we have today are first rate and our H&SE track record amazing relative to our economic output.  I get queasy about further regulation because it is rarely thought out, is often punitive, and overseen by people that are not objective and neutral, but actually dogmatic and hostile to our industry from a values perspective, which seems absolutely ridiculous... like putting pedophiles in charge of an orphanage.  Perhaps counter-intuitively, the more we regulate and strangulate offshore drilling increases the value of my assets, which are onshore.  It also helps OPEC and other international producers who regularly laugh at our wrong-headed societal antipathy to our home industries, because, in the great American Way, we will still consume, whether we consume US oil or Iraqi oil. Big Oil is not affected much, because they can operate anywhere, but US laws on production are ACTUALLY targeted on independents, who drill 90+% of US wells and produce 80% of US oil and gas. 

Comments

[R. de Haan]

More spin on the spill:
http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-14/obama-sends-bomb-inventor-mars-expert-to-fix-bp-oil-spill-in-mexican-gulf.html?xid=huffbloomberg

[Royal Enfield]

” ... like putting pedophiles in charge of an orphanage.” Ok choke, there is some right brain stuff going on here, but perhaps the you could polish up your use of literary device….

[Steve R.]

and why would BP, TO, and the others involved need rocket scientist dispatched from DC to solve this problem? The old adage of 'I'm Washington and I am here to help you' is the exact analogy, also believe me 'the check is in the mail'

[Jack Simmons]

I asked Dr. Joye in an email to please keep me posted on the findings of the voyages of the Pelican. Her fields of interest are ideal for research into these matters.

I am very interested in this vast underwater oil plume, which strikes be as being somewhat implausible with the propensity of oil to float.

How do they know there is an oil plume underwater? How were they able to measure it? Or is this another computer model at work?

(Don't get me started on computer models.)

Just what are the long and short term impacts of this amount of oil drifting around in this part of the ocean? Where does it all go? How do we know? What forms of life eat the oil? What eats the oil eaters?

Is this a huge poison cloud for all the creatures there, or has a big dinner bell gone off for countless bacteria and plankton? What if the oil spill leads to a fishing boom in the gulf? Will BP be entitled to a royalty?

I was also amused at the estimated rates of oil coming up. If true, BP has hit the jackpot.

[Jack Simmons]

Some more stuff on Dr. Joye.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=Samantha+Joye&hl=en&as_sdt=4000

Here's one letter abstract she coauthored:

Anaerobic oxidation of short-chain hydrocarbons by marine sulphate-reducing bacteria

Olaf Kniemeyer1,7, Florin Musat1, Stefan M. Sievert2, Katrin Knittel1, Heinz Wilkes3, Martin Blumenberg4, Walter Michaelis4, Arno Classen5, Carsten Bolm5, Samantha B. Joye6 & Friedrich Widdel1

Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Celsiusstraße 1, D-28359 Bremen, Germany
Biology Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02536, USA
GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Telegrafenberg, D-14473 Potsdam, Germany
Institute of Biogeochemistry and Marine Chemistry, Bundesstraße 55, University of Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
Institute for Organic Chemistry, RWTH Aachen University, D-52056 Aachen, Germany
Department of Marine Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-3636, USA
Present address: Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology, Hans Knöll Institute, D-07745 Jena, Germany.
Correspondence to: Friedrich Widdel1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to F.W. (Email: [email protected]).

Top of pageAbstract
The short-chain hydrocarbons ethane, propane and butane are constituents of natural gas. They are usually assumed to be of thermochemical origin1, but biological formation of ethane and propane has been also observed2. Microbial utilization of short-chain hydrocarbons has been shown in some aerobic species3, 4 but not in anaerobic species of bacteria. On the other hand, anaerobic utilization of short-chain hydrocarbons would in principle be expected because various anaerobic bacteria grow with higher homologues (≥C6)5. Indeed, chemical analyses of hydrocarbon-rich habitats with limited or no access of oxygen indicated in situ biodegradation of short-chain hydrocarbons6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Here we report the enrichment of sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB) with such capacity from marine hydrocarbon seep areas. Propane or n-butane as the sole growth substrate led to sediment-free sulphate-reducing enrichment cultures growing at 12, 28 or 60 °C. With ethane, a slower enrichment with residual sediment was obtained at 12 °C. Isolation experiments resulted in a mesophilic pure culture (strain BuS5) that used only propane and n-butane (methane, isobutane, alcohols or carboxylic acids did not support growth). Complete hydrocarbon oxidation to CO2 and the preferential oxidation of 12C-enriched alkanes were observed with strain BuS5 and other cultures. Metabolites of propane included iso- and n-propylsuccinate, indicating a subterminal as well as an unprecedented terminal alkane activation with involvement of fumarate. According to 16S ribosomal RNA analyses, strain BuS5 affiliates with Desulfosarcina/Desulfococcus, a cluster of widespread marine SRB. An enrichment culture with propane growing at 60 °C was dominated by Desulfotomaculum-like SRB. Our results suggest that diverse SRB are able to thrive in seep areas and gas reservoirs on propane and butane, thus altering the gas composition and contributing to sulphide production.

It would appear some of these creatures do not need oxygen to break down hydrocarbons.

[Open Choke]

Ahhh... oil as food. Fishing has boomed in the seven years following a spill typically and has been attributed to oil being food to lowest food chain organisms. A royalty! If I were BP's attorneys, I would argue for economic benefit if I am going to be liable for economic loss thereof.