Sunday, August 21, 2011

North Sea Oil Spill

But they covered it, I mean cleaned it up quick.

"Oil spill not expected to reach Scotland" August 16, 2011|Associated Press

LONDON - Royal Dutch Shell estimated yesterday that 54,600 gallons of oil have spilled into the North Sea from a rig off Scotland’s eastern coast. The Gannet Alpha rig, 112 miles east of Aberdeen, is operated by Shell and co-owned by Shell and a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil.

Glen Cayley, technical director of Shell’s European exploration and production activities, called the spill “significant’’ given the amount of oil that generally spills into the North Sea. “We care about the environment and we regret that the spill happened,’’ he said.

Cayley said he believed waves would disperse the oil sheen and the spill was not expected to reach the shore....

Yeah, it's just going to magically disappear like all the other oil spills.

The British government said the leak was small compared with the BP spill that dumped 206 million gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico last year, but said it was still substantial for the UK’s continental shelf.

We will get to the Gulf below.

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"North Sea oil leak sealed, Shell says" August 20, 2011|Associated Press

LONDON - Royal Dutch Shell PLC said yesterday that it has closed a valve that was seeping oil from a pipeline off Scotland’s coast, stopping the worst spill in a decade in Britain’s North Sea oil fields.

So they say.

The company said closing the valve was a key step in halting the leak at its Gannet Alpha platform, but that it would monitor the pipeline to make sure the valve remains sealed....

Oh.

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And while we are on the topic of sealed valves.

"Oil sheen in Gulf prompts inquiry" August 19, 2011|By Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press

LONDON - A new oil sheen has been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico, although energy company BP said yesterday that the discovery had nothing to do with its operations and was far from the site of its disaster-hit Macondo well. 

Related: Photos: Oil At BP's Deepwater Horizon Gulf Spill Site

Don't you just love the slick of corporate and media lies?

A spokesman for another company involved in investigating the sheen said he believed it had already dissipated since being first spotted last week.  

Sigh.

BP spokesman Daren Beaudo said his company had sent several remotely controlled submersibles into the water during the weekend to investigate the source of the sheen - a shiny coating that floats on the surface and generally comes from leaked or spilled oil - but had concluded “that it couldn’t have been from anything of ours.’’ 

Why $hould we believe BP?

A statement from BP placed the site of the sheen near two abandoned exploration well sites in the Green Canyon Block in the Gulf of Mexico, although its size was not disclosed.

The sheen was 172 miles from BP’s Macondo well and about 100 miles off the Louisiana coast.

The company’s account differs from an anonymous report received by the Coast Guard’s National Response Center during the weekend, which says that a submersible sent down to a plugged and abandoned well Saturday determined that it was leaking. The report, which was called in to the center Sunday evening, names BP as the suspected responsible party. It says that the equipment captured footage of a release and that remedial actions would be determined based on the results of the sampling.

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Enforcement, and Regulation confirmed that the report was associated with the incident.

But Beaudo told the Associated Press that the initial report may not be accurate.

Un-flipping-real.

He said the company tested the cloudy water near the wellhead and believes the substance was silt from the Gulf floor.

Not the 2-inch thick muck that the corexit sank to the bottom?

On Wednesday, another discharge of crude oil was reported in the Green Canyon Block, according to federal records. That one was the result of heavy rain washing oil into the water from an Exxon Mobil platform, according to the report.

Reports of oil sheens are common in the Gulf of Mexico, where oil and gas production, ship traffic, natural seeps, and abandoned and plugged wells all can contribute to the problem.  

Yeah, NO BIG DEAL!!

Ever notice when it is REALLY A SERIOUS PROBLEM the government always says, no problem, it's all safe, everything is okay, but when it is one of their self-created and contrived, agenda-pushing problems it's urgent.

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"65 arrested at oil pipeline protest

Sixty-five environmentalist protesters were arrested outside the White House yesterday, the first day of a planned two-week protest over a proposed oil pipeline from Canada to the US Gulf Coast, Park Police said. The protesters want President Obama to deny a permit for the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline. It would go through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. TransCanada says the pipe would provide jobs and needed oil (AP)."

Protesters? In AmeriKa? Buried in a brief?

Also see:  

"Dutch prosecutors are investigating the deaths of 34 boys in a Catholic institute for the mentally disabled in the 1950s, the latest probe in a long-running inquiry into sexual abuse in the church....

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Related: New Dutch investigation into deaths at Catholic institute