Ravi
Diamond Member
This is truly frightening. If this much oil spills out daily in the next three months (the time BP estimates it will take to cap the well), wouldn't the entire Gulf of Mexico and beyond end up covered with an oil slick?
Oil spill feared could become unchecked gusher, Governor Crist declares state of emergency
A leaked report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Emergency Ops document dated April 28 has the Coast Guard preparing for a worst case release that could potentially become an unchecked gusher meaning that instead of releasing 5,000 barrels a day or 210,000 gallons a day, it would release 50,000 barrels a day, or 2.1 million gallons a day.
"The following is not public," reads the report, "Two additional release points were found today. If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked resulting in a release volume an order of magnitude higher than previously thought."
The concern is that kinks in the piping and a deteriorating wellhead is what is currently controlling the flow to 5,000 barrels a day. The other concern is that sand which is an integral part of the formations that normally holds the oil under the Gulf is essentially sandblasting the pipe. The formation that was being drilled by the Deepwater Horizon is reported to have tens of millions of barrels of oil.
"The loss of a wellhead, this is totally unprecedented," said Ron Gouget, a former oil spill response coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "How bad it could get from that, you will have a tremendous volume of oil that is going to be offgassing on the coast. Depending on how much wind is there, and how those gases build up, that's a significant health concern."
"We'll take help from anyone," Doug Suttles, chief operating officer of BP's exploration and production unit, said on NBC's TODAY show.
"We're not interested in where the idea comes from, what we're interested in is how do we stop this flow and how do we stop it now?" Suttles said.
Oil spill feared could become unchecked gusher, Governor Crist declares state of emergency