DEEPWATER HORIZON UPDATE May 13, 2010

Numbers to date:
Total response vessels: 526
Containment Boom deployed: over 1.1 million feet
Containment boom available: over 300,000 feet
Sorbent boom deployed: over 320,000 feet
Sorbent boom available: over 850,000 feet
Boom deployed: over 1.4 million feet (regular + sorbent and fire boom)
Boom available: over 1 million feet (regular + sorbent and boom)
Oily water recovered: more than 5 million gallons
Dispersant used: over 475,000 gallon
Dispersant available: more than 215,000 gallons
Overall personnel responding: more than 13,000
14 staging areas are in place and ready to protect sensitive shorelines.

Cost to date:BP announced today that the response amounts to about $450 million, including the cost of spill response, containment, relief well drilling, commitments to the Gulf Coast States, settlements and federal costs. This bill increases by $10 million a day.

Oversight Continues of BP’s Containment Efforts
MMS reports that significant progress has been made by BP on the construction of the “top hat” containment system. The “top hat” has been placed on the seabed and the Drill Ship Enterprise is constructing and lowering the riser piping that will bring the captured oil to the surface. MMS also reports that the drill ship drilling the second relief well is en route to the drill site to begin drilling preparations. Gas and oil production from the Gulf of Mexico remains near normal with few adverse impacts to other operators from the oil spill.

First footage of the leak: Oil and gas stream from the riser of the Deepwater Horizon well

New testimony and evidence reveals what happened the just before the blast
A sequence of equipment failures is being blamed for the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20th and the subsequent leaking of an estimated 4 million gallons of oil since. At the hearings Wednesday congressional and administration panels laid out a list of breakdowns that contributed to the disaster: a leaky cement job, a loose hydraulic fitting and a dead battery.

New reports of what happened the day of the explosion say that workers were stabilizing the mile-deep well to mothball unit production and shortly after midnight (22 hours before the explosion), contractor Haliburton finished pumping cement into the well. The cement plugs are meant to stop any upsurge of gas or oil in the piping.

The cement and metal casing along the well walls were checked and positive pressure tests indicated they were sound. However, there are no federal standards for the makeup of the crucial cement filler, the Government is currently working to create new high standards.

According to the testimony and other evidence that has emerged, the first sign of trouble came shortly before dawn. Workers pumped out heavy drilling fluid for a negative pressure test to make sure underground gas couldn't seep into the well. That test failed: it meant the well might be leaking. Another test was run. It too failed. Workers decided to return to work despite this failure. The next measures were to pump heavy drilling fluid out of a pipe rising to the surface from the wellhead. The pip was instead filled with lighter seawater to prepare for the placing of the last cement plug.

Further Increasing their risk of a blowout, heavy drilling fluid was pumped out of a pipe rising to the surface from the wellhead. It was replaced with lighter seawater in preparation for placing the last cement plug. Federal rules say an operator must hold newly cemented well-wall casing under pressure for up to 12 hours before resuming drilling.

Investigators are still unclear of the main cause of the explosion but the fact remain that the last plug was still missing just before 10 p.m. on the 20th when the drilling fluid pushed by underground gas began kicking up uncontrollably through the well. Workers attempted to activate a set of hydraulic cut off valves known as a blowout preventer to stop the surge. However, there was hydraulic fluid leaking form a loose fitting in the preventer's emergency system, which made it harder to activate the shear rams to cut the piping and cap the blowout. In addition a battery had gone dead in a t least two control pods meant to automatically switch on the preventer in an emergency.

It seems clear that more government regulation and oversight is needed to ensure safety and precautionary standards are being met.

Also on Wednesday, a group of Louisiana crab fishermen claimed in a lawsuit that Halliburton used a new quick-curing cement mix with nitrogen. This type of mix generates more heat that other mixes and can cause bursts of methane gas to escape from the well. Whether or not Halliburton used this type of cement mix has yet to be proven.

Obama supports increase in taxes and liability
President Obama has given his support to legislation that would raise taxes on oil companies from 8-cent per barrel to 9 cents-per barrel immediately. The increased tax would be paid into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, an account established to ensure that there are sufficient resources available to clean up spills and pay damages. The per-incident spending cap from the fund would be raised from $1 billion to $1.5 billion. The bill would also provide $29 million to the Interior Department to fund the inspection, enforcement and study of potential spills.

In addition the administration is sending a spill- response package to Capitol Hill that includes raising the $75 million cap on economic damages to $10 billion, a huge increase. The economic damages includes things like lost wages or loss of profits like canceled hotel bookings due to the spill.

The package also includes raising the cap on natural resource damages from $500 million to $750 million.

Also included in the bill:

$15 million to guarantee that out-of-work fishermen will be compensated for lost earnings.

$2 million to the Food and Drug Administration to monitor the spill's impact on seafood caught in the Gulf of Mexico. That could include deploying technology to speed the analysis of seafood samples for contamination.

$2 million to U.S. EPA and $5 million to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for environmental studies to aid in responding to the spill.

Permission for the Department of Agriculture to provide food directly to Gulf Coast states to distribute to those who are in need.

$5 million for grants from the Economic Development Administration's Economic Adjustment Assistance program for strategic planning and technical assistance.