[Ed: first posted at Newshoggers]


It appears certain now: the well casing of the Deepwater Horizon bore is and has been leaking into the sea floor at a depth of ~1000 ft. Leaking may not be entirely the proper word. It is not known, nor even discussed, as to when this may have occurred. This was discovered during the top kill drill mud injection, which is now believed to have injected much of the drilling mud into the sea floor where a disk joint failed. Which means, of course, that when the drilling mud isn't in "open communication in the strata or the rock formations below the sea floor," the oil, gushing upward, is.

Well, at least BP had the sense to drill the relief wells to a depth of 10,000 ft.  At least, this is what BP has said they're doing, drilling to 10,00 ft.  Perhaps this, too, is a lie.  One may surmise that, as the costs of the relief wells increase with depth, BP's internal cost-aversion governor could kick and stunt the well depth.  Nonetheless, they've managed to keep this a secret until now, knowing of the problem weeks ago. Still being dicks. Nonetheless, with evidence of yet another problem -- perhaps the problem - it appears that the remote acoustic kill switch would not have actually prevented BP from having to drill relief wells. This subsurface spill appears to be the source of multiple leaks on the sea bed. From one, to many and one.

And what if there should be other

[...]More

It looks like a lovely butterfly, if you're Haley Barbour.  Or a Balrog, if you're anyone else.



Some while back, when news first broke that oil in the gulf had streamed into the Loop Current, it was easily imagined that oil could hit the shores of Europe by autumn. Shockfront agents made a bold claim that oil would "hit Ireland by September." 

NCAR has done some modeling of the gulf situation.  Ireland might be a tad north.  The Azores and Portugal look the target.


More