Oil Spill Deal

[KD5NRH]

Originally Posted by Jeff_Green

You do not have first hand accounts of what you have been disagreeing with here. Your purpose is to blabber on about how evil big oil is because they... ::GASP:: make a profit!!!

I'm agreeing with Jeff again; that makes Todd at least as wrong as...well, whatever the heck we last agreed against. I'm too lazy to go look it up, but it must have been something really wrong.

While we're at it, why isn't he railing against those damn price-gouging photographers out there. Charging what the market will bear rather than a nice, fair 10% over actual project cost is just capitalist greed.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Heard that it is 40% gas by volume and now they are wondering what effect the gases will have to the water and it they will create dead zones.

Also they are finally bringing in vacuum barges that can pull up a lot of oil off the surface faster than the skimming method. I think the barges are being deployed along the Louisiana coast since the berms are not working as well as expected and that there is plenty of oil in concentrated patches where the barges will work best.

Don't know what is really going on at the wellhead to reduce the amount of hydrocarbons being released.

[iCe]

I think that

(A) I would love to know the composition of the gas

(B) The gas volume is a good thing in that it will (can?) release from the water and be a non-issue. Most people have no idea how much natural gas, BTEX, etc gets vented every single day BY PERMIT, never mind the stuff that gets released and not reported. Same with CO2.

(C) Oil on the surface is the biggest problem. As the GOM waters warm and time goes by we might see more on the surface. At this point I can't even guess. They used dispersant at the source and that surely affected how it would react. The oil and gas was/is being "jetted" into the surrounding cold water at high pressure (as well as the water pressure being very high) so who knows what's really going on there. As you can see from all of the disagreement over what I think happened the actual disposition of the oil and gas is kind of an unknown at this point. I don't think that even a days worth of estimated flow of oil has made it to land. That begs the questions- where is it and why not? Of course I also think that their estimates are trash at best.

PS- OMG we are all going to die... someday... I think I'm looking at at least 50 more years. I hope this thread dies before me.

[donlfaulkner]

The way it's going, it may not!

[Anthony Martinez]

Originally Posted by Some Idiot

We are addicted

Video: An Energy-Independent Future | The Daily Show | Comedy Central

not gonna lie, I laughed a lot when I watched that.

[KD5NRH]

Originally Posted by iCe

(A) I would love to know the composition of the gas

Hydrogen, carbon, probably some sulfur and other smelly stuff.

(C) Oil on the surface is the biggest problem. As the GOM waters warm and time goes by we might see more on the surface. At this point I can't even guess.

One interesting thing as the water warms up will be that hydrates should revert to a gaseous state. I would assume that most of them do anyway at some point during the trip to warmer, lower pressure waters near the surface, but some may travel a long distance in solid form before releasing the gases, resulting in some false alarms if a high enough concentration lets go at once.

[ronocnikral]

Originally Posted by iCe

I think that

(A) I would love to know the composition of the gas

In addition I would like to know...

LWD responses (gamma ray, resistivity, neutron/density at a minimum)
relative permeability curves
complete fluid analysis
pressure build analysis

oh well...

[iCe]

Originally Posted by KD5NRH

Hydrogen, carbon, probably some sulfur and other smelly stuff.



One interesting thing as the water warms up will be that hydrates should revert to a gaseous state. I would assume that most of them do anyway at some point during the trip to warmer, lower pressure waters near the surface, but some may travel a long distance in solid form before releasing the gases, resulting in some false alarms if a high enough concentration lets go at once.

True CnH2n+n and stuff...

I've seen a few concerns about benzene exposure. I suppose that, knowing it's a carcinogen, it's not unreasonable to be concerned, but people get more exposure to benzene from fueling their vehicles over their lifetime than they should from the leak. Also- glycol dehydrator and amine plant vent stacks (of which there are 100's of thousands if not more) have, until recently, had no controls on their emissions. BTEX (Benzene, Toluene, Ethyl-benzene, and Xylene... some of the alkenes) emissions have only been required to be controlled in the last 10 or so years. Even then it's dumped back to crude oil tanks (from whence it came) and sold. From there it goes to all of the usual places. Prior to controls being put in place on new units (old units are grandfathered... or they were the last time I had to care about EPA regulations)... the vapor was vented. . I just saw two little dehy's on my way out of Aransas NWR yesterday and their emissions were not controlled. That's the norm imho. Amine (and other solvent) treaters vent their CO2 (and BTEX, sulfur compounds, etc) to the air. At some rate (#/Hr) they are required to be incinerated by the EPA. I think the reg is called Title 5 but I don't deal with that anymore and I don't care to even think about it at this point If the H2S concentration is high enough the "old" answer was to build sulfur plants and recover the liquid sulfur. Sulfur plants are nasty, dangerous, corroding pieces of crap. They don't make any money (used to but the market was fertilizer and either the market was flooded or the demand dropped. I'm not sure what happened). These days they inject it back into the formation (as a liquid) because you can't get or keep a permit to emit the tail gas and tail gas plants are expensive and not efficient enough to meet the requirements of the regulations even if the permit was attainable. Liquid H2S is weird stuff (aside from being kill you dead dangerous). An engineer friend of mine dubbed it "floam" because it behaves so oddly when you start pumping it down hole. Injection pressure can be as low as 1,200 psig and and high as 2,800 psig. Considering that it's 90% H2s and higher and that deadly concentration is in the ppm range you don't want to be around if something leaks. Like most things in the industry, it's regulated, controlled, and generally safe. At least as safe as driving a car.

I drove by one of the largest amine plants I had ever been around in the 4 corners area 15 or so years ago. It treated coal bed methane. I can't remember the CO2 venting rate but it was very high. A BCF/day comes to mind but that might be high. Maybe not...

With all of the media driven hysteria I suppose that it's not unreasonable for people to be concerned about benzene and other "toxics" coming from the spill. But... there are so many other active sources that I can't get too worked up about it. Probably because my house isn't on the shore of one of the beaches that is being impacted (at a much lower level than was originally thought... but tell that to the people that live there). Look up- Non-Attainment Area. Port Arthur is a non-attainment area. I believe that Texas City is a non-attainment area. Corpus Christi may be an non-attainment area.

Go to Google Earth and zoom in on these coords.

29°50'12.09"N
93°57'48.11"W

It's a plant (non-petroleum) in Port Arthur owned, at the time I shot some photo's of it, by a company in New York if I remember right. I drove by it one morning at 2am-ish (hard to remember exact time). I shot a few images of it spewing what was obviously not steam and sent them to the EPA. I can't remember the name of the company but when I looked them up their violations list was huge. They do not care... I never heard anything from the EPA... and didn't expect to.

BTW- Every image that I've ever seen of "pollution" coming from power plants or refineries was of steam. It's not that they don't emit... it's that the emissions are not usually visible, especially during the day, and that the photographer / videographer didn't have a clue about what he was shooting. Plus steam plumes are more dramatic.

On the topic of hydrates- When we had to deal with them in the plant(s) we always tried to clear them by injecting methanol and raising the temperature. That helped but the best solution was to follow that up with reducing the pressure to 0. It's hard to make them vaporize without lowering the pressure.

[KD5NRH]

Originally Posted by ronocnikral

In addition I would like to know...

I'll settle for the next three sets of winning lottery numbers

[Anthony Martinez]

Originally Posted by KD5NRH

I'll settle for the next three sets of winning lottery numbers

man, I'll take just one set!

[iCe]

I shot the nesting site of some barn swallows today. It's one of those places that are out of control and not regulated... maybe regulated a little... like had to build the tank with a floating roof to minimize vapor released. Tanks have to be inspected every 5 years (I think it's 5). That means pumping the oil out until the roof is on it's legs, opening the tank, cleaning the tank, inspecting the bottom of the tank and roof seals, bolting everything back up, and putting the tank back in service. It's about a month long process.

The birds didn't seem to mind the evil oil inside the tank

[XtremePhoto]

Here ya go Todd, you have been pointing fingers and wanting to lay blame, well here is a huge portion of it and it wasn't BP:



-G-

[iCe]

Here's an interesting thought... or not...

"They" have been ramping up the flow estimates lately. Now we are at 100,000 Bbl/day if I remember correctly. They are finally saying that the relief well is getting close. On 6/12 I was told by someone that knows that the relief wells would be complete by around the first of July. I'm sure he knew the timeline before then but that was the first time I had been able to talk to him. If he knew the time line then surely everyone else involved in this mess knew, yet, until now, "they" have been saying August and the flow rate estimates (which are total bs imho) have steadily increased which further aggravates the uninformed. This is turning into quite the well played soap opera.

[Sonny]

Ok Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. Religious/Political discussions are NOT allowed

We have let this thread go on long enough and it has taken many tangents. I believe we have very lenient of rule #1. For now I will temporarily close this thread until the Mod team can decides otherwise.