A federal drilling moratorium was proposed because of the oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico 2010. The oil industry has loudly criticized the ban. But a group of four oil companies are really doing something that may help lift the drilling moratorium. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell are committing $1 billion to set up a rapid oil spill response system in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, BP could try an operation by this weekend called a “static kill” to permanently seal the BP oil leak. But approaching tropical storms are threatening to delay the procedure.
Deep water oil spill response system
The oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico 2010 and also the drilling moratorium have been a wakeup call for the oil industry. Billions of dollars are spent figuring out how to drill deeper and deeper wells, while oil spill cleanup technology has languished on the shelf. The New York Times reports the first funding for the rapid response system can be used to build containment equipment, including underwater systems and pipelines, that can be able to deal with deep water mishaps. The oil spill response system being developed by the participating oil companies can be expected to work down to 10,000 feet deep and capture up to 100,000 barrels a day.
Oil companies try deeds rather than words
The oil business consortium hopes the government will be persuaded to lift the six-month ban on deep water drilling soon following the oil spill response initiative. The Wall Street Journal reports that BP provided the model for the new system by muddling through 3 months of trial and error during the disaster . The Marine Well Containment Company is a non-profit venture set up to develop the system, which could possibly be ready to deploy within 18 months.
Approaching storms increase urgency of oil spill containment
A procedure called a “static kill” could permanently seal the BP oil leak this weekend. CNN reports that the static kill involves pumping mud to the well to force oil back to the reservoir below. Comparable approaches have failed, but BP officials say the static kill could work because pressure within the well is lower than they expected. Even so, BP continues to drill the permanent relief well that could be ready at the end of the month. The timing of the static kill is crucial because operations could possibly be disrupted for up to two weeks by a tropical storm headed for the gulf.
More information available at these websites
nytimes.com
wsj.com
cnn.com
No comments:
Post a Comment