Recently in Energy Category

UPDATED:  At 9 am CDT, a fire on the platform at South Vermilion Block 380 was reported.  The production platform, owned and operated by Mariner Energy, is reported standing in about 340 feet of water.  Mariner is in the process of merging into Apache Corp.  At the time of the fire, there were 13 workers on the platform, all are accounted for and in the water in exposure suits.  Current reports are that it was...

Admiral Allen announced today that BP's fishing job being undertaken on their Mississippi Canyon Block 252 well has been called off due to total failure.  You'll recall that I disagreed with the procedure when it was announced on the 21st, believing it was unwise and risky.  After now attempting to fish out the drill pipe (actually 3 pieces) for several days, they have called off the job after completely failing at achieving their goal.  Previously,...

Updated:  I've been watching the feeds the last 2 days as BP has started its fishing job on the MC252 well.  The quality yesterday was terrible, but today pretty decent.  This afternoon, they ran into the BOP with drillpipe, then ran a wireline video camera in for first look.  Depths on the feed are off from the well schematic, but it's clear they're in the blind shear rams of the legacy BOP stack now.  It...

Yesterday, Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post published what I consider one of the most revealing stories of the entire BP odyssey since their Mississippi Canyon Block 252 well blew out on April 20th.  My regular readers know that I have been critical of both BP and the government in their management of this catastrophe, and that I have been often baffled about some decisions that are made.  There have been surprise, last minute decisions,...

Yesterday, marine scientists from the University of Georgia and the Georgia Sea Grant issued a report that directly contradicts National Incident Command's Happy Talk Report that most of the oil in the Gulf from BP's blowout magically degraded in less than two weeks after getting the well shut in.  In a statement yesterday, Charles Hopkinson, director of Georgia Sea Grant and professor of marine sciences in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences...

Things keep getting curiouser and curiouser with the Well that Won't Die.  In his presser this morning, Adm Allen announced that they are still trying to decide what to do about the relief well, the weak components on the old BOP, and how they're going to approach the relief well, which is still just sitting there, a tantilizing 3 1/2 feet from the blowout wellbore.  Dithering seems a strong word, but one I'll now use....

As the press has lost interest in this story, even though the blowout well is far from dead, the information coming from BP and the Unified Command has also begun to trail off.  In his presser yesterday, Adm Allen sounded downright bored and so ready to put this behind him.  The press, having grown to a very small group compared to two weeks ago, continue to ask the same questions over and over, and now...

For the last several days, I've been trying to figure out what BP is doing and what is the actual condition of BP's MC252 well after their "static kill" and cementing procedure last week apparently didn't work.  You'll recall that when Kent Wells announced this procedure, he actually used the words "killed" and "dead".  In his July 19th McBriefing, he said, "If we can do the static kill, it might kill - might kill just...

Adm Allen just finished his morning presser where he just casually mentioned that they are going to "test" the old BOP and capping stack and take pressure readings to determine if the  hydrocarbons in the annulus are "dormant" or if they're connected to the reservoir.  Translation:  "BP continues to have pressure on the wellhead from down below and have been letting me believe for a week that the well is static."  Of course, they've never...

Matt Simmons, who founded investment house Simmons & Co. and who wrote several books on peak oil, died yesterday at his summer home in Maine; reports are conflicting; the source in Maine says it was by drowning and others, a heart attack.  Matt was 67 years old.  A Peak Oil advocate, Matt wrote a great book in 2005 about the state of the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, called Twilight in the Desert.  He told me...