Gulf Watchers Tuesday - BP lied-warning to well leader1 hr. before blowout - BP Catastrophe AUV #587

Topics:  BP oil rig leader sought onshore advice on troubling test results, testimony reveals, BP Oil Spill Criminal Investigation May Ensnare Executives In Cover-Up, Former BP engineer is indicted in Gulf oil spill case, BP trial over gulf oil spill delayed until January, Previously unreleased photographs show impact of BP oil on endangered sea turtles, Asian American Fishermen Sue BP for Racial Discrimination, The Restore Act may be in trouble, SEC Should Investigate Shell's Statements of Arctic Drilling Risks, BP to invest $4 billion in Gulf of Mexico this year, BP may get second chance in Arctic through Rosneft tie-up with TNK-BP, Flaring Event Occurs At BP Refinery In Carson, Calif.

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It should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with BP's intense aversion to anything resembling the truth that leaked court documents show that BP lied in their internal investigation report that well leaders did not contact anyone onshore about pressure readings that should have set everyone's hair on fire. BP's internal report would also have use believe that, rather than take BP's own well designer's word for it that something was amiss with the pressure readings, BP's two well team leaders on the rig, Donald Vidrine and Robert Kaluza, opted to make decisions based on a don't worry, be happy “bladder effect” myth purportedly being put forth by Transocean's assistant toolpusher. From the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement's September 14, 1911 Report Regarding the Causes of The April 20, 2010 Macondo Well Blowout (pdf). Some time between 5:17 p.m. and 5:27 p.m., Jimmy Harrell (Transocean), Robert Kaluza (BP), Donald Vidrine (BP) and other members of the drill crew discussed the first negative test. According to Kaluza, this discussion about the pressure on the drill pipe was “long.” Kaluza stated that Jason Anderson, Transocean assistant toolpusher, explained that the pressure was due to a “bladder effect,” and that “this happens every time.” Brian Morel, a BP drilling engineer who had previously raised concerns about Kaluza’s abilities to execute procedures, was not on the rig at the time (he had departed hours earlier) to be consulted on the drill pipe pressure and other anomalies. The government's expert witness testified that he would expect his college students to have enough sense to shut down the rig in light of the results from the pressure tests. Kaluza was leaving the rig so one could logically ascribe his pushing the "bladder effect" myth to BP's culture of unconscionable greed. However, why Vidrine would buy into it defies all rational explanation since he stood a good chance of getting blown up himself. Human nature is such that we often make unwise decisions when evaluating risk. However, in the case of a deepwater rig there is so much at stake that it is absolutely critical that we all come to have a good understanding of what type of culture allows someone to resort to grasping at myths to justify a phenomenally stupid decision that will nearly certainly have huge, horrific consequences. Vidrine has been refusing subpoena's with the excuse that he is too sick to testify because of some mysterious, unidentified illness. He remains on BP's payroll and BP has joined forces with Vidrine's attorney to act like cornered rattlers to try prevent an independent, court-ordered medical evaluation of Vidrine. It will be very difficult for BP to argue against willful, criminal negligence if there is testimony from Vidrine, BP's top executive on the Deepwater Horizon rig when it blew. Basically, Vidrine allowed the Deepwater Horizon to blow to kingdom come based on the power of the “bladder effect” good fairy. That goes a fairly long way in explaining Vidrine's "illness". More terrifying than Vidrine's idiocy is the fact that the pressure tests were discussed at length with many people from Transocean and BP at a large meeting on the Deepwater Horizon. All were willing to stake their lives on the kindness of the “bladder effect” good fairy. We have seen no evidence that BP nor any other oil company has taken measures to change industry safety culture so that future deepwater blowouts don't occur because the culture of greed is so powerful as to prompt people who know better to use magical thinking to justify dangerous decisions. BP oil rig leader sought onshore advice on troubling test results, testimony reveals May 04, 2012, 9:00 AM     Updated: Friday, May 04, 2012, 7:41 PM At 8:52 p.m. on April 20, 2010, exactly 57 minutes before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, the top BP man onboard called an engineer in Houston to say he didn't understand the results of a test that would tell them whether the well had been properly sealed. What Donald Vidrine said he was seeing should have caused him to shut the project down, an expert witness for BP has testified in a court deposition. Mark Hafle, the engineer in Houston, told Vidrine something wasn't right. But instead of stopping operations or investigating further, Vidrine concluded -- apparently by the end of the phone call -- that it was safe enough to remove the well's drilling mud, the last barrier against a blowout. … Hafle's recollections, taken down by BP investigators, and the assessment of the expert witness, who is the former director of drilling research at the University of Tulsa, are contained in court-sealed filings obtained this week by The Times-Picayune. They shed new light on critical decisions by Vidrine, who has refused to testify, citing medical issues. The documents reveal a tragic misstep and lingering uncertainty from the top rig man in the very same minute that gas was first detected in the well. And as Vidrine appeals a court order for his medical records to be examined by an appointed doctor, the evidence about his words and deeds could be a central part of the federal government's effort to prove that negligence caused the spill. … The government is pursuing billions of dollars in pollution fines through civil litigation; separately, the Justice Department is also conducting a criminal investigation that could yield manslaughter charges. ... An investigative report by BP's Mark Bly stated that there was "no evidence that the rig crew or well site leaders consulted anyone outside their team about the pressure abnormality." But the sealed court documents are the first to show that Vidrine actually asked for help late in the process and apparently ignored warnings from Hafle, the engineer who designed the well. When Vidrine started his shift at 6 p.m. that day, the crew had just used the blowout preventer, a stack of valves and pipes a mile under the sea, to close off well openings and test the pressure in the hole below, to make sure the cement linings they had poured had properly sealed the well's walls. A successful test would show no pressure on the drill pipe running down into the well and no pressure or fluid flowing into a line on the blowout preventer. Instead, the crew found huge pressure on the drill pipe and none on the other tube, called the "kill line." Vidrine asked them to run the test again. After a few adjustments, the same odd readings reappeared. Then he called Hafle and talked with him for 10 minutes. … Vidrine and Kaluza have refused to testify, but according to Bly's report, they were convinced by Transocean's toolpusher and driller that pressure on a rubber valve in the blowout preventer was probably causing false pressure readings on the drill pipe, a phenomenon they called the "bladder effect." BP and several experts have subsequently said the bladder effect is a myth. The expert witness for the government -- petroleum engineer J.J. Azar, the retired director of drilling research at Tulsa -- was questioned by Justice Department attorneys in December 2011. He testified that even his college students should know that the pressure test can't be successful if there's any pressure on the drill pipe. He added there was only one proper course of action for anyone after seeing the test results they got on the Deepwater Horizon. "If I was right there on that rig site, whether I was a driller, well site leader, (offshore installation manager), toolpusher, senior toolpusher, and seen that anomaly, I shut the well down, sir," Azar said. … Transocean's engineer in charge of the blowout preventer, Christopher Pleasant, testified in 2010 that he agreed with Vidrine that the second test was successful. Azar also testified that the Transocean drilling crew missed a final chance to close in the well when they noticed the problems about seven minutes before the oil and gas got above the shutoff valves. Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle declined to comment on the Azar deposition or the implications of Vidrine's phone call to Hafle.

I hope the experts are correct about the likelihood of further indictments but one can't help but wonder why it took DOJ two years to figure out BP was lying through its teeth when it was giving 1,000 to 5,000 per day flow estimates when the video of the spewing Macondo that was all over TV proved the insanity of such utter nonsense. The lies that BP was spewing no doubt complicated efforts to put together a response plan. If top BP execs don't end up wearing prison orange big oil will take this lesson to heart and lie as it suits them when we are faced with the next disastrous spill. h/t Yasuragi, rubyr, AnotherAmericanLie BP Oil Spill Criminal Investigation May Ensnare Executives In Cover-Up Posted: 05/ 3/2012 12:50 pm Updated: 05/ 3/2012 8:48 pm The Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank April 22, 2010, killing 11 crewmen and causing the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. On April 25, 2010, three days after the Deepwater Horizon rig sank in the Gulf of Mexico, Doug Suttles, a senior BP executive, told reporters the company's deep-sea well was leaking about 1,000 barrels of oil a day, a fraction of its maximum output. "This is a long way away from something more significant," Suttles said. Yet as Suttles and other BP executives assured the nation that the leak was small, the oil company's engineers had developed internal models showing a probable flow that was magnitudes greater, setting the stage for an unparalleled disaster, according to a newly unsealed federal affidavit and internal BP documents. BP's internal flow-rate models -- and growing evidence that BP employees may have deliberately withheld from federal officials the damaging information found in them -- have emerged as a major focus of the Justice Department's two-year criminal investigation into the spill, according to legal experts and attorneys involved in litigation over the disaster. Documents obtained by The Huffington Post also indicate that Kurt Mix, a senior BP engineer charged April 24 with obstruction of justice, shared information with more senior BP executives during the spill, including a senior vice president, Jonathan Sprague, who formerly managed BP's Gulf of Mexico operations. Legal experts said criminal convictions for covering up the size of the spill could land senior BP personnel behind bars and swell the company's civil liability by billions of dollars. … “I’d be shocked if there weren’t more arrests and charges, against people significantly higher up the food chain than Mix,” said Dan Cogdell, a Houston criminal defense attorney specializing in white collar and environmental cases. It was “completely transparent” that prosecutors plan further arrests related to the flow rate, Cogdell said. … Prosecutors may be targeting BP executives for withholding information about the company’s internal flow-rate models with the government, said the consultant [for one of BP's corporate partners], who has discussed the matter with attorneys directly involved with civil and criminal litigation over the spill. . "Other BP people are going to be indicted," he said. "They're going after them on the flow rate." "They're going to try to get some of the big boys," he added. … Mix faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted, and prosecutors will likely use the possibility of a heavy sentence as a bargaining chip to coerce him to testify against higher-ups at the company. "It's typical -- getting somebody under indictment that they might be able to crack, and then moving up the ladder," said Dick DeGuerin, a prominent Houston criminal defense attorney. … But the engineer [who worked with Mix on efforts to seal the well] also said that the flow rate figures publicly endorsed by BP executives lacked credibility among those working to cap the well. The gap between the company's figures and reality became particularly obvious after live video of the leaking pipe began to be broadcast on the Internet and on national television, he said. BP's public estimates ranged from 1,000 barrels to 5,000 barrels per day through the first six weeks of the spill. A government-organized scientific team ultimately estimated that the flow averaged more than 50,000 barrels per day throughout the three-month spill. "You could look at the video that was on the news every night and know that it's not 5,000 barrels a day," the engineer said. "My granddaughter probably could have figured that out." … During the spill, Mix reported to Jonathan Sprague, identified in federal court documents as a BP vice president for global wells organization and a former manager of the company's extensive Gulf of Mexico operations, according to the organizational charts. An April 25, 2010, email shows that Mix shared with Sprague flow-rate calculations, including potential flow volumes from the well that were far higher than the company's public estimates. … Those emails involved Rob Marshall, manager of BP's sub-sea operations in the Gulf of Mexico, Gary Imm, a deepwater project manager, and Sprague. BP produced the emails as part of the civil litigation over the spill. In the emails, dated April 22, 2010, Marshall notified Imm and Sprague that Alistair Johnston, an expert retained by BP, had created a model estimating that the Macondo well may be leaking 82,000 barrels per day. In his response to Sprague and Marshall, Imm told them to keep the numbers under wraps. "Please tell Alistair not to communicate to anyone on this," Imm wrote. Imm added that "a number of people have been looking at" the flow-rate estimates, and that company officials had already had "difficult discussions" with the Coast Guard about the figures. Other BP experts also generated flow-rate estimates far higher than the company's official figures at the time, documents show. On April 24, 2010, Mix estimated that the flow from the well was from 8,600 to 69,500 barrels per day, according to a federal affidavit. The next day, Doug Suttles, the BP executive, publicly endorsed the estimate of 1,000 barrels per day. BP has never disclosed the methodology behind the 1,000-barrel-per-day estimate. Rear Adm. Mary Landry, the Coast Guard official who led the initial federal response to the spill, said it was provided to her by Suttles. "It would have been Doug Suttles," Landry said in an interview with The Huffington Post last June. "Somebody was giving Doug numbers." During the initial weeks of the spill, Suttles, leading BP's response, was the company's chief liaison with the federal government. Suttles left BP, where he was chief operating officer for exploration and production, last year. … According to DeGuerin, the defense attorney, government prosecutors do not need to show that BP officials lied to the federal government about the extent of the spill to win a criminal conviction. Any attempt to conceal the truth could result in a guilty verdict, he said. "A dodge, an evasion, a coloring of the facts, is as bad as an outright lie," DeGuerin said. "If it's not accurate, it's not accurate."

Former BP engineer Kurt Mix was indicted by a grand jury a week after his arrest. The government took the unusual step of arresting Mix before indicting him which is normally not done in white collar cases. Speculation is that the arrest is the government's way of making  an impression on Mix in an attempt to convince him to agree to a plea. Other experts have speculated that the government will put pressure on Mix to implicate his superiors. Mix no longer works for BP. Finding out how that came to be should prove to be an interesting story. BP normally keeps tries to keep anyone who can hurt them in court dependent on a BP paycheck. Former BP engineer is indicted in Gulf oil spill case May 02, 2012, 8:40 PM A week after he was arrested by the FBI, a federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted former BP engineer Kurt Mix on two counts of obstruction of justice in relation to the 2010 Gulf oil spill. Mix is accused of deleting hundreds of text messages from his iPhone that estimated the rate at which oil was spewing from BP's Macondo well in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The indictment, which is almost identical to an FBI affidavit filed last week, alleges that Mix tampered with his iPhone to keep certain information from a grand jury investigating the spill. "The amount of oil flowing was relevant to various efforts to stop the flow and was also relevant to assessing the damage caused by the flow, including potential civil damages and civil and criminal fines and restitution," the indictment said. Mix, 50, of Katy, Texas, resigned from BP in January. He had assisted in efforts to stop the flow of oil after the April 20 explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon and killed 11 workers. If convicted, Mix could face up to 20 years in prison for each count. He was released on $100,000 unsecured bond after his arrest last week. Wednesday's indictment formalizes the charges against him. He will be arraigned before a federal magistrate on Thursday. ... Generally, white-collar suspects like Mix are indicted rather than arrested, unless prosecutors decide the defendant is a flight risk. Dane Ciolino, a professor at Loyola Law School, mused that the government might have taken the unusual step of arresting Mix for two reasons: because pictures of Mix in handcuffs would send a message that the government is aggressively prosecuting its case, and because the shock of being arrested could lead Mix in the direction of signing a plea deal. "If he wasn't a flight risk, it seems like this was just for the cameras and the press," Ciolino said. "It was all for effect -- the effect on public opinion, and the effect on him." … The indictment contends Mix was warned repeatedly by BP that he should not withhold or delete evidence. But on two separate occasions, he deleted hundreds of text messages from his iPhone shortly before he was to turn them over to a vendor helping to collect data relevant to the case. O'Donnell's affidavit said many of the more than 300 deleted messages were later recovered by forensic experts working for the FBI.

It is extremely disappointing that Judge Barbier has agreed to BP's stall tactics instead of standing up for the public's interest in granting the government a timely trial. One hopes that the government will take this time to work their way up the food chains of the responsible companies to bring criminal charges against top execs and to implement debarment. Nothing else has seemed to persuade big oil to not sacrifice safety for greed. h/t Phil S 33 BP trial over gulf oil spill delayed until January 5:24 p.m. CDT, May 3, 2012 A trial to assign blame and damages that could total tens of billions of dollars for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been put off until January, in a setback for the U.S. government, which wanted to try its case this summer. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans on Thursday scheduled a trial for Jan. 14, 2013, more than 10 months after its original date. The decision means the federal government and Gulf Coast states, which also wanted a summer trial, may have to wait longer to recover money from BP Plc and its drilling partners. It is unclear how the new timetable will affect strategy, or whether it might spur the federal government to press harder for settlements and help local residents seeking money for cleanup or restoration. "This may spur the government to settle," said Edward Sherman, a professor at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans. "The Obama administration may want to show its stuff before the November elections." However, Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor specializing in product liability, said the delay might make it harder for governments to reach settlements. "A delay could give the governments more time to strengthen their bargaining positions, but they lose leverage that comes with having a trial scheduled in the near term," he said. A comprehensive trial to resolve claims involving BP, drilling partners Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton Co., federal and state governments, private plaintiffs and others had been scheduled for Feb. 27. It was put on hold while BP negotiated with the private plaintiffs. Barbier's order came one day after he granted preliminary approval to BP's estimated $7.8 billion settlement to resolve economic, property and medical claims by 125,000 individuals and businesses harmed by the spill. He set a Nov. 8 fairness hearing to consider objections before granting final approval. … BP had urged that a trial on remaining Gulf spill issues be delayed until after the Nov. 8 fairness hearing, to help ensure that any "overlapping or parallel actions" would not distract from administering the settlement with private plaintiffs. But the governments objected, saying such a delay would be unfair to residents and the broader public interest. … About 311 witnesses have been deposed and 90 million pages of documents have been produced in the case, court papers show. "You wonder whether there will ever be a trial," said Tobias, the University of Richmond law professor. "The farther we move past the actual event, it may complicate matters for all sides. Memories fade and evidence could grow stale." The case is In re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the Gulf of Mexico, on April 20, 2010, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, No. 10-md-02179.

Warning: graphic photos if you click through. In yet another of its disgraceful efforts to minimize the effects of BP's black monster National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (No Oil At All) bogarted some truly ugly images of oiled wildlife. It took a FOIA request from Greenpeace and two years for the agency to cough up the photos that provide a very different version of reality than the picture No Oil At All was painting at the time. If you have the stomach to view them the photos are on Greenpeace Blogs. Previously unreleased photographs show impact of BP oil on endangered sea turtles May 6 Previously unreleased photographs from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico show boxes and bags full of oil-covered and dead endangered sea turtles and a group of sperm whales swimming through an oil sheen. The photographs were obtained by the environmental group Greenpeace through a Freedom of Information Act request sent to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in July 2010. .. “We were seeing so many pictures and stories of turtles that were scrubbed clean and released back into the wild [in 2010]. The emphasis was on rescue,” Hocevar [Greenpeace’s director of ocean campaigns] said. “At the same time, they had all these shocking pictures of dead turtles, turtles in garbage bags, turtles in boxes that present a very different image of the impacts of the disaster.” Attempts to reach three NOAA officials Sunday for a response were unsuccessful. Most of the oiled and dead turtles in the pictures appear to be Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, which the United States lists as endangered. Two photographs show what appear to be three adult sperm whales and one juvenile sperm whale swimming through an oil slick. In 2010, an NOAA official said the unnatural deaths of just three adult sperm whales in the northern Gulf of Mexico could crash the small population of the endangered mammals living there. … Since the spill, NOAA has collected 613 dead sea turtles from the northern Gulf of Mexico and relocated 274 turtle nests to Atlantic Ocean beaches in Florida.

One has to bear in mind that the most dangerous place in the world is between Billy Nungesser and the press. Although Billy rarely misses any chance for self-promotion one must give him credit for being a bulldog in keeping in touch with his community and advocating for them. I think Nungesser has hit the nail squarely on the head in his conclusion that BP did not want locals who care about their environment and communities working for the Vessels of Opportunity. Even though the outcome was blatantly racist I wonder if BP's underlying motivation for excluding Asians was race. It surely was a quick, easy way to keep a huge percentage of people who depend on the Gulf's health for their livelihood as ignorant as possible of the consequences of BP's black monster that was befouling the Gulf waters. One hopes that the plaintiff's will prevail in this case and that the judge will be generous in awarding damages. Asian American Fishermen Sue BP for Racial Discrimination Posted: 05/03/12 12:42 PM ET Vietnamese and Cambodian fishermen in Village L'est and Versailles in New Orleans East were among the first residents to return after Katrina, only to see their livelihoods crushed a few years later by the BP spill. In early April, 41 Asian-American fishermen sued BP in U.S. Eastern District of Louisiana court in New Orleans, claiming discrimination in the company's Vessels of Opportunity program. Other groups of fishermen have also sued over treatment in the VOO, which hired boats to remove spilled oil. Asian Americans were underrepresented in the program given their numbers in the Gulf fishing community. Over half of all commercial fishermen affected by the spill were Vietnamese and Cambodian Americans but they accounted for less than 10 percent of the vessels hired by BP, the suit says. Of the 5,000 vessels that BP engaged, only 350 belonged to Vietnamese and Cambodian Americans. Plaintiffs in the case are represented by attorney Ryan Beasley in Harvey, La.. The suit says that during the VOO program, BP sent emails to Danos and Curole Marine Contractors, LLC in Larose, La. and DRC Emergency Services, LLC, in Mobile, Ala., telling them not to hire vessels owned by Vietnamese and Cambodian Americans. The class action suit was filed against BP, Danos and Curole, and DRC Emergency, and seeks damages for civil rights violations and employment discrimination. The suit says that 4,000 Asian Americans were affected by BP's policies, and claims that defendants violated Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 -- which says all Americans have the same rights as white citizens. … Last week, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said "I can't absolutely say whether or not there was discrimination against Asian American fishermen in the VOO. But we do know that local people were passed over in the program, and that was because they'd come back to the community and say there's oil all around." Nungesser continued, saying "BP preferred to hire people who didn't live here, didn't have a passion for this area and who wouldn't let other people know what they'd seen." He said local fishing vessels were tied to docks while out-of-state boats were in the area working for the VOO. "We asked but never got a list of boats that were working in the program," Nungesser said. "That's absurd. We wanted to make sure local boats and fishermen hurt by the spill were being hired," especially since the waters in southeast Louisiana were closed to fishing. … Nungesser said "unfortunately, it takes a lawsuit to get to the bottom of what happened. BP hasn't been forthright with people, and we've learned that we can't trust what the company says. It takes lawsuits and Congressional hearings to find out." A mid-2010 statement from the Asian Pacific American Society of New Orleans or APAS discussed U.S. District Court Judge Ginger Berrigan's May 2, 2010 decision that several provisions in BP's cleanup contract with fishermen and volunteers were illegal -- including terms requiring BP's exemption from liability, along with complete confidentiality required from workers and a demand that BP be listed on volunteers' insurance policies. Contracts handed out to Asian-American fishermen at the John Alario Center on the West Bank on a Sunday in mid-2010 included language that should have been removed after Judge Berrigan's decision, APAS warned. APAS told fishermen that even though illegal wording may have remained in Vietnamese versions of the contracts, those provisions couldn't be enforced. … For Asian American and all fishermen who want to learn their rights and need help with BP claims, Nungesser recommended Seedco's newly-expanded Southeast Louisiana Fisheries Assistance Center Facility, which opened earlier this year next to his office in Belle Chasse. "These people are doing a great job of helping fishermen get back on their feet and assisting them with legal matters," he said. The old office was in a temporary facility down the street. Before the BP spill, Asian Americans held 75 percent of shrimp licenses in Louisiana for vessels longer than 50 feet, according to data compiled by David Burrage, Mississippi State University extension professor of Marine Resources. And they held more than 60 percent of shrimp licenses for vessels longer than 45 feet in Mississippi and Alabama. ... And of an estimated 40,000 Vietnamese living in these three Gulf states -- including 30,000 in Louisiana -- one in three works in the seafood industry, according to Dr. Burrage in 2009. In fact, incomes of most of Louisiana's Vietnamese-American households depend on seafood in one way or another. … This article was published in The Louisiana Weekly in the April 30, 2012 edition.

Republicans will no doubt try to load the transportation bill with truckloads of environmentally nasty legislation such as the Keystone pipeline. Let's hope that the Democrats will be able to stop the worst of it while saving the Restore act. The Restore Act may be in trouble Published: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 6:01 a.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 11:33 p.m. An amendment that could send billions of dollars to the Gulf Coast for restoration from the BP oil spill is headed to conference committee next week. Members of the U.S. House and Senate must reconcile their versions of the transportation bill that contain the Restore Act, which would dedicate 80 percent of Clean Water Act spill fines back to the coast. Environmental advocates following the bill say the Restore Act may be the least controversial amendment in the transportation bill, but there are plenty of other issues for partisan lawmakers to fight about. The bill also includes controversial amendments like one that would authorize the Keystone XL pipeline, which would be used to transport oil sands from Canada to the United States. The issue, supported by Republicans, has drawn the ire of Congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama. “There is no issue with the Restore Act. The issue will be whether they can get a transportation bill that will pass both houses,” said David Muth, Louisiana director for the National Wildlife Federation. ... The conference committee, which meets Tuesday, will include 14 senators and 33 representatives, including U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La. ... Lawmakers are running up against the clock to get the Restore Act passed before the U.S. Department of Justice reaches a settlement with BP. The transportation bill was seen as the best chance to quickly get the Restore Act to the president’s desk. Local lawmakers say they are working behind the scenes to ensure the Restore Act, which has earned bipartisan support, stays in the transportation bill.

Any assertions that big oil is prepared to deal with the consequences of a large spill in the fragile Arctic ecosystem should be taken as nothing but pure fiction. There simply is no evidence to support such nonsensical claims. h/t Yasuragi Also, no one should be counting on the Coast Guard dashing to the rescue in case of a serious spill. Two of their icebreakers are in a sorry state and the other is not capable of breaking through heavy ice. Lawmakers confronting cold reality for pricey icebreakers | Seattle Times Newspaper Yet the United States is so short of icebreakers capable of navigating those still-unpredictable waters that since 2007, it has made the annual supply run to McMurdo Station, the American research outpost in Antarctica, with a ship leased from Sweden. The nation's two heavy-duty U.S. icebreakers sit sidelined in Seattle, home of the Coast Guard's three-ship icebreaker fleet. The Polar Sea and its twin, the Polar Star, are 1970s-era cutters that have been patched up to keep going past their original life span. The only working icebreaker is the 12-year-old Healy, which boasts elaborate scientific labs but can break through only thinner ice. SEC Should Investigate Shell's Statements of Arctic Drilling Risks Posted Wednesday, May 02, 2012 The Center for Biological Diversity requested that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigate Royal Dutch Shell for potentially misleading statements about its readiness to drill in the Arctic Ocean for offshore oil. San Francisco, CA - infoZine - “Drilling for oil in the harsh Arctic environment presents serious risks to people and wildlife. In these conditions, Shell’s claims that it is ready to drill must be closely scrutinized,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center. “The BP spill caused tremendous damage to the environment and local communities, costing billions. Shell’s drilling in remote, icy waters — set to begin this summer — risks even more.” … In its public statements about drilling off the coast of Alaska, Shell has claimed it can mechanically recover 95 percent of oil from open water. But the spill-containment device the company intends to use has yet to be tested or proven. After the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, only 3 percent of the spilled oil was mechanically recovered; after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound, 8 percent of spilled oil was recovered mechanically. “Shell asserts that it’s adequately prepared for drilling off Alaska, yet there’s no nearby Coast Guard station or other infrastructure in the Arctic for swift oil-spill response,” said Sakashita. “We’re worried about spoiling the Arctic’s pristine wildlife habitat and are concerned that Shell simply doesn’t have the ability to safely drill this summer in some of the world’s harshest waters, so we’ve asked the SEC to look into it.” The letter notes potentially misleading statements by Shell about the condition of the Kulluk, the drill rig that it plans to use in the icy, stormy waters of the Arctic Ocean. Although the company said the drill rig was ready for use in 2010, an inspection report the following year found that it was unprepared for drilling and even lacked a blowout preventer, a key piece of equipment in stemming the flow of an oil spill. The Kulluk is currently being repaired in Seattle. ...

More news to set one's teeth on edge. While the Gulf continues to suffer from the effects of BP's black monster BP is happily back to business as usual. More frightening is the fact that it sounds like they will be going after oil that is increasingly dangerous to extract. BP to invest $4 billion in Gulf of Mexico this year 05/07/2012 BP PLC has five offshore rigs operating in the Gulf of Mexico, which is the same number as it had before the April 2010 deepwater Macondo well blowout, a BP executive told an Apr. 30 breakfast audience at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston. By yearend, BP expects to add three more rigs focused on exploration, appraisal, and development, said Bernard Looney, BP executive vice-president, developments. BP is investing $4 billion in the gulf this year and hopes to invest at least that much every year for the next decade, Looney said. … BP currently has two rigs in operation at Thunder Horse, two at Atlantis, and one at Kaskida. Of the three rigs that BP expects to add to the gulf by yearend, one of those rigs will be equipment brought back to the gulf from West Africa. He described what he sees as the next chapter in deepwater activity. "The big new play is the Palaeogene or Lower Tertiary. In the Gulf of Mexico, this includes BP's discoveries at Kaskida in 2006 and Tiber in 2009," Looney said. "Each of these fields has accessible hydrocarbons today, but each also has resources that lie beyond our industry's current limit of 15,000 psi and 275° F."

This is very sad news for the environmentally delicate Russian Arctic. All we can hope for is that the greed and distrust that plagued the last deal will continue to trump any effective agreement. BP may get second chance in Arctic through Rosneft tie-up with TNK-BP 06 May 20126 The British company attempted a deal with the state-controlled Rosneft in 2011 but bypassed its joint venture – leading to the deal collapsing in legal wrangling when BP's Russian oligarch partners in TNK-BP objected. But, in what may appear a coup for the oligarchs, TNK-BP has been invited by Rosneft to consider exploring together in the region of vast, largely untapped oil reserves. It plans to begin talks with the Russian state-owned company soon. "Upon receiving Rosneft's invitation to participate in the Arctic projects, we responded with a letter confirming TNK-BP's interest," Chris Einchcomb, TNK-BP's senior vice president of exploration and appraisal told Dow Jones. "We look forward to starting working group meetings with Rosneft in the nearest future." His comments came as Rosneft announced an Arctic oil partnership with Norway's Statoil and follows Rosneft confirming major Arctic exploration deals with ExxonMobil and ENI in the past month. The wave of deals has been spurred by Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin's announcement last month of improved tax terms and other incentives to encourage exploration in remote areas.

More in the ongoing, endless list of BP refineries polluting in unplanned events. Given BP's history it would be shocking if this is not due to shoddy equipment maintenance. Flaring Event Occurs At BP Refinery In Carson, Calif. Apr 27, 2012 LOS ANGELES -(Dow Jones)- An unplanned flaring event is taking place at the 265,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Carson, Calif., owned and operated by BP (BP), according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The event is expected to last until midnight Saturday. No firm indications have been given as to which unit has been affected and calls to BP weren't immediately returned.