Capsized cruise ship to take up 10 months to remove
January 30, 2012 by Trend PK
Filed under World News
GIGLIO, Italy: The cruise ship that capsized off Italy’s coast will take up to 10 months to remove, officials said Sunday, as rough seas off the Tuscan coast forced the suspension of recovery operations.
Officials called off both the start of operations to remove of 500,000 gallons of fuel and the search for people still missing after determining the Costa Concordia had moved four centimeters (an inch and a half) over six hours, coupled with waves of more than one meter (three feet).
A 17th body, identified as Peruvian crew member Erika Soria Molina, was found Saturday. Sixteen crew and passengers remain listed as missing, with one body recovered from the ship not yet identified.
Officials have virtually ruled out finding anyone alive more than two weeks after the Costa Concordia hit a reef, but were reluctant to give a final death toll for the Jan. 13 disaster. The crash happened when the captain deviated from his planned route, creating a huge gash that capsized the ship. More than 4,200 people were on board.
“Our first goal was to find people alive,” Franco Gabrielli, the national civil protection official in charge of the operation, told a daily briefing. “Now we have a single, big goal, and that is that this does not translate into an environmental disaster.”
University of Florence professor Riccardo Fanti said the ship’s movements could either be caused by the ship settling on its own weight, slipping deeper into the seabed, or both. He also could not rule out the ship’s sliding along the seabed.
Gabrielli noted that the body of a man recovered from the ship remains unidentified, despite efforts to obtain DNA samples from all of the missing, meaning that officials cannot preclude that the deceased is someone unknown to authorities. Costa has said that it runs strict procedures that would preclude the presence of any unregistered passengers.
Experts have said it would take 28 days to remove fuel from 15 tanks accounting for more than 80 percent of all fuel on board the ship. The next job would be to target the engine room, which contains nearly 350 cubic meters of diesel, fuel and other lubricants, Gabrielli said.
Only once the fuel is removed can work begin on removing the ship, either floating it in one piece or cutting it up and towing it away as a wreck. Costa has begun the process for taking bids for the recovery operation, a process that will take two months.
Gabrielli said the actual removal will take from seven to 10 months — meaning that the wreck will be visible from the coast of the island of Giglio for the entire summer tourism season.
Residents of Giglio have been circulating a petition to demand that officials provide more information on how the full-scale operations can coexist with the important tourism season. At the moment, access to the port for private boats has been banned and all boats must stay at least one mile (1.6 kilometers) from the wrecked ship, affecting access to Giglio’s only harbor for fishermen, scuba divers and private boat owners.
“We are really sorry, we would have preferred to save them all. But now other needs and other problems arise,” said Franca Melils, a local business owner who is promoting a petition for the tourist season. “It’s about us, who work and make a living exclusively from tourism. We don’t have factories, we don’t have anything else.”
Explosion on Gulf of Mexico oil rig
September 2, 2010 by Trend PK
Filed under World News
WASHINGTON: An explosion ripped through an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday dumping 13 people into the water, one of whom was injured, the US Coast Guard said.
“All 13 are accounted for and they are all wearing some sort of an immersion suit that protects them from the water,” Coast Guard chief petty officer John Edwards told MSNBC.
Nine helicopters had been dispatched to the rig 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Vermilion Bay in Louisiana, the spokesman said, adding the extent of any injuries suffered by the workers was not immediately clear.
Four Coast Guard cutters were also en route to the rig, said to be owned by Mariner Energy, and which was reportedly still ablaze.
“Right now we”re focused on search and rescue and then, ultimately, as this thing progresses we”re going to be looking into the cause,” Edwards added.
The blast comes more than four months after an explosion ripped through the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) off Louisiana, killing 11 workers and unleashing an environmental catastrophe.
Engineers prepare to seal ruptured BP oil well
July 31, 2010 by Trend PK
Filed under World News
NEW ORLEANS: Engineers Saturday readied a plan to permanently seal a damaged Gulf of Mexico well, despite delays to the process caused by debris left behind by a recent tropical storm.
As the work continued, incoming BP boss Bob Dudley vowed that the oil giant would not abandon residents affected by the spill after the well is finally sealed.
BP hopes to drown the well in an operation dubbed a “static kill,” in which mud and cement will be injected down into the ruptured wellhead via a cap installed on July 15.
Dudley on Friday said the operation had been pushed back a day, saying “we are hopeful by Tuesday the static kill will have been performed.”
The US pointman on the crisis, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, said Friday the delay was needed to allow engineers to clear debris from the damaged wellhead caused by Tropical Storm Bonnie, which briefly halted spill operations.
BP burns more Gulf oil than Exxon Valdez spill
July 16, 2010 by Trend PK
Filed under World News
NEW ORLEANS: BP recovery operations in the Gulf of Mexico have now burned off more oil than all the crude which spilled from the Exxon Valdez in 1989, a senior US response official said Friday.
Since operations started in April after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank off the Louisiana coast, more than 270,000 barrels (11.3 million gallons) of oil have been burned in hundreds of controlled operations, US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Paul Zunkunft told reporters.
By comparison, about 10.8 million gallons spilled into Alaska”s Prince William Sound 21 years ago when the Exxon Valdez tanker struck a reef, triggering what was then the worst oil spill in US waters.
“The in situ burns have exceeded 270,000 barrels, far in excess of the entire Exxon Valdez spill,” said Zunkunft, the federal on-scene coordinator.
Another 800,000 barrels of oil-water mixture has been skimmed from the surface by a flotilla of thousands of boats involved in clean-up and containment operations.
Zunkunft said oil recovery rates from skimming have ranged between 15 percent and 60 percent of the skimmed oil-water mixture.
US gives green light for BP oil well test
NEW ORLEANS: BP received the green light Wednesday from the US government to begin a crucial test that could allow the leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well to be sealed once and for all.
After days of painstaking deliberations, Admiral Thad Allen said he gave the British energy giant the go-ahead after overcoming fears the test could lead to “irreversible leakage” below the seabed.
“At this time we will be releasing an order to BP to proceed with the well integrity test,” said Allen, the former US Coast Guard chief leading the government”s response to the 85-day disaster.
“This test will run for a maximum of 48 hours at which time we will stand down, assess where we”re at, and assess the next steps.”
Procedures leading up to the actual test, which included disconnecting the Q4000 and Helix Producer vessels, which were collecting oil from the wellhead, were already underway.
In addition, “over 40 ocean skimmers and other assets have been positioned around the wellhead” to help contain the additional oil, the joint command center said, vowing that containment efforts would resume as soon as testing was complete.
Storm still fouling BP oil spill response in Gulf
HOUSTON: Rough seas and winds continue to disrupt spill responders” efforts to contain the oil gushing from BP PLC”s (BP, BP.LN) well in the Gulf of Mexico two days after Hurricane Alex made landfall hundreds of miles away from the spill site, the U.S. Coast Guard said Friday.
More bad weather is expected to slow the work over the weekend, the Coast Guard said.
Alex, which ranked as a Category One, or the weakest possible hurricane, has delayed by about six days the hookup of a third oil containment vessel. If all goes well the Helix Producer, which is already at the well site, should be on line July 7 and should be able to produce about 20,0000 to 25,0000 barrels of oil a day, Retired Adm. Thad Allen, the federal response commander, said during a news conference.
The delay means that between 120,000 to 150,000 barrels of oil could go uncollected, Allen said. Alex hit northern Mexico about 100 miles south of Brownsville, Texas.
The foul weather is also the likely the cause of the reduction in the capacity of the containment ship, the Q4000, Allen said. The ship can normally flare off 10,000 barrels of oil a day but has been achieving about 25% less than its average rates during the storm.
BP and the government response team are working on plans to strengthen their collection system in order to make it more hurricane-ready, however, most of those plans have hinged on a storm arriving in the height of the Gulf Coast”s hurricane season, which normally falls between mid-August and mid-September. Alex”s early arrival and the threat of more storms to follow underscores the fragility of the operations.
On Thursday, BP recovered a total of 25,150 barrels of oil. About 16,915 of those barrels were collected by the Discoverer Enterprise, the main containment vessel. The Q4000 flared off about 8,235 barrels of oil.
About 57 million cubic feet of natural gas was flared as well. Government and independent scientists estimate that about 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil a day are flowing from the well. The gusher started in late April when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank, killing 11 people.
The remnants of Alex also continue to halt near-shore skimming operations, Allen said.
Coast Guard Admiral Paul Zukunft in New Orleans said that the bad weather has prevented about 20,000 barrels of oil a day from either being skimmed or in situ burned for the last two days. Protective booming has also been dislodged.
willie nelson
May 27, 2010 by Trend PK
Filed under World News
Country music fans have come to expect a little eccentricity from legendary crooner Willie Nelson, but he pulled off a real shocker this time: He cut his hair.
“Oh Noooooo!,” wrote one fan who saw a picture of Nelson’s new do on the website of Nashville television and radio personality Jimmy Carter.
Nelson’s waist-long, reddish pigtails have long been one of the singer-songwriter’s signature features. But spokeswoman Elaine Schock said Nelson, who’s been hanging loose in Hawaii, got his hair cut in the past couple of weeks.
Schock said the Texas-born performer didn’t make a big fuss about the makeover and thought he might have grown tired of dealing with long locks. She said, “there’s a lot of maintenance.”
| The Associated Press
thad allen
May 27, 2010 by Trend PK
Filed under World News
Coast Guard Commander Thad Allen talks about Gulf oil spill
There are signs that the “top kill” operations may be effective, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen told NPR. He is in Houma, Louisiana, meeting with local officials and residents.
“Since yesterday afternoon, British Petroleum and their subcontractors have been pumping a heavy mud down into the well bore below the blowout preventer, and over the course of the last 12 to 18 hours, they’ve been able to force mud down, and not allow any hydrocarbons to come up,” Allen said, in an interview on Morning Edition. He is in charge of clean-up efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.
The “top kill” effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, had pumped enough drilling fluid to block oil and gas spewing from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well was very low, he said, but persisting.
BP has made enough claims during this process that they need to be careful making any others. Even Fox News anchors recognize they cannot be trusted. Enough mud has apparently been pumped into the well to stop oil from being pumped out, but that could change; it’s basically a pressure battle. And importantly, capping the well this very second would still mean untold millions of gallons of oil on and below the surface of the Gulf. But capping the underwater gusher is clearly a top priority, and right now they’re claiming some success on the top kill.
The communities most directly harmed by oil’s abuse are organised, networked and ready. The public is roused, angered and ready to act. The oil corporations are on notice: the true cost of their operations is simply too great to bear. For as long as we continue to use oil, the operations of its providers will be restricted, reined in, regulated and, ultimately, retired.
| Admiral Thad Allen talks about the oil spill |
oil spill gulf of mexico 2010
April 30, 2010 by Trend PK
Filed under World News
New data show that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is five times larger than it was estimated previously! The situation is rapidly getting out of control, and Coast Guard officials have announced they will try to burn portions of the oil in an effort of oil spill containment.
The new estimate show that there are at least 5000 barrels of oil leaked per day, a huge difference from the 1000-barrels-a-day estimate we previously heard of. This oil spill the size of Jamaica is affecting 50 miles around the coast of Louisiana.
In a press conference, Mary Landry, Coast Guard Adm also said that there are reports of an oil spillage coming from a third place, which would make the situation even worse. The disaster has already affected and killed many of the creatures living in that portion of the Sea and threatens to end with the lives of even more animals. In the meantime Governor of Louisiana has asked for emergency assistance.
Gulf oil slick growing: US Coast Guards
NEW YORK: A growing oil spill is fast approaching the Louisiana coast and officials are considering the option of burning the crude in the water, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
The 100-mile by 45-mile spill is about 20 miles off the Louisiana coast, and could reach there in three days if current weather conditions persist, Rear Adm. Mary Landry said in a press conference here. Louisiana has activated its spill response plan, she added.
“If we don”t secure the well this will be one of the most significant spills in U.S. history,” Landry said. “But we”re working hard to secure the well.”
Responders are considering so-called “in-situ” burning–controlled burning of crude on the water surface. The measure could be used as part of Wednesday”s offshore operations, Landry said.
The measure comes as BP PLC (BP), the operator of the lease where a Transocean Ltd. (RIG) oil rig sank last Tuesday, has so far failed to shut down the well. The company, which originally estimated that its attempt to activate underwater infrastructure to cut the oil flow would last 24 to 36 hours, is still trying this strategy as its engineers have devised new options, said BP executive Doug Suttles.
“We will not stop until we have exhausted every single option,” Suttles said, adding that the company was spending $6 million a day in the effort.
In addition, BP plans to drill an 18,000-foot relief well to stop oil flow, and to put in place a dome above the leak to contain the spill. The dome is being built and it will be put in place in two to four weeks, Suttles said.
The U.S. Minerals Management Service, which supervises offshore oil and gas operations, will grant BP on Tuesday the permit to drill, said regional director Lars Herbst.
Some 700,000 gallons of diesel that were stored in the rig”s pontoon still appear to be in place, Landry said.
The 1,000-barrel-a-day spill, which emanates from two sources in the drilling pipe that once connected the 5,000 foot-deep well to the floating platform, is probably the deepest ever to occur, Landry said.
