the BP oil scandal and clean up

[luukje]

an interesting fact for my american friends:

Just read some interesting piece on the fight against the oil disaster. Belgian and Dutch companies as Jan De Nul and Deme claim to have the technologie to clean up the mess in half the time US operators will need. For every aspect of the clean up, these companies have proven technology far superior to their american counterparts.

However the Jones act prevents foreign companies from operating in US coastal waters.

This means any coastal repairs are twice as expensive in the US (and the belgian and dutch companies have been able to take the world market, fe building the palm isles in Dubai).

[I__CHAOS__I]

i bet china can do it for a tenth of the price

[luukje]

Maybe in the future, but for now the advanced technology is owned by the belgian and dutch companies.
They do cut costs by building these advanced ships in Korea and China.

[Sporting_Lisbon]

I think that it is ridiculous that after a month that thing hasn't been fixed yet.

[wicked_assassin]

[quote=""luukje""]

However the Jones act prevents foreign companies from operating in US coastal waters.

[/quote]

Isn't Bp also a forgein company? Besides you have to remember that those rules were made up in a different time for it's own reasons.

Edit: chaos, a chinese person cost less... I could hire myself 100 chinese people for a day if i whant to (considering only the financial aspect)

[Bart331]

I had a guest lecture last week on this topic from the guys who thought up this solution, there is indeed some kind of protection act which prohibits any foreign dredging company to work on US ground.

They are trying to construct enforcements to block the oil from reaching the marshlands but the US dredging company's cant handle those amounts of capacity. There are 4 world leading companys in dredging: Jan De Nul, Deme , van Oordt and Boskalis. They each have 3/4 times the capacity of the entire US industry, since speed is critical (if you wait a month the area can be wasted already) i think they are gonna remove the act to allow foreign company's.

[adeadmanrunning]

Well no matter what bp is going to be going out of business. They are under an investigation by the us govornment and already have fines of $87 million for a blast that killed 12 people by osha in '05. Now they will have to jack up prices to be able to pay for what ever the us govornment fines them.

"A cap placed on the ruptured well last week to channel much of the billowing oil to a surface ship collected about 620,000 gallons Monday and another 330,000 from midnight to noon Tuesday, BP said." And that is only covering maybe a half of whats leaking out. But that is based only on a guess.

Not to mention they have ruined the souths economy. Many people along the souths coast are fishermen but with all the oil it has killed the fish and shrimp population, and whats left of it cant be harvested due to them being infected with oil from what they eat.

[scoop10]

i think obhama should dtop blaming bp just to take the heat off him self. BP employs 25000 american employess 10000 british employess they can hardle call them selves "british" petroliam
Its BP fault they said they had a plan for a disaster like this but obviolis they didnt, BP is ardley even a british company anymore. lol. but if these men are found guilty for any criminal wrong doing then they SHOULD face JAIL.............but when u earn 7 figures a year JAIL is a long way away.............................................

[IndyBrit]

I'm tired of all the blowhards running to the microphones on this one. Put everyone involved to the full test of the process, but only the process. That's why we have the process, so we don't just make some sh*t up everytime something bad happens.

It's pathetic when the President says things like he wants to know whose a$$ to kick. This isn't 4th grade lunch. He doesn't need that to generate some sort of gravity of the office. It reminds me of Bush's "bring it on." That kind of stuff has no business in the Oval Office, and it generally comes back to haunt the speaker.

[Macabee]

The whole thing is stupid. Deep water drilling has enough oil supply to meet just 1% of US demand. Instead, too many in the US listen to the ignorant Drill Baby Drillers instead of cutting our gluttonous oil needs by just that very same 1%. Just 1%! The average US car only gets 22.5 miles per gallon. All it would take is an increase to 22.725 mpg. Yep, crazy I know! Granted, cars account for only 40% of US oil use but maybe you guys get the idea.

To the Drill Baby Drillers I have this to say: "We told you so".

Mac

[IndyBrit]

Macabee,
Your numbers are way off. For example, this well is about 2,000 bopd (when we send it to the refinery instead of the beach), so it would take only about 40 wells this size to achieve your estimate of our total deepwater capacity. Worldwide, it is believed that deepwater oil may represent about 1/3 of total oil reserves - meaning it is an absolutely huge resource.

That's not a particularly important point, though. None of us like the kind of damage that this thing has proved these are capable of. However, there are always competing alternatives, and they also have drawbacks. For example, this one well would require roughly 1500 of the big 200' windmills to generate the equivalent energy. Those windmills have to be constructed, transported, installed, operated, maintained, and occasionally replaced - which will not have a zero environmental impact. It would require 60,000 windmills to achieve your 1% figure.

I think a good solution is to bill the cost of this cleanup to fuel usage. For example, if this is going to be a $50 Billion event, and we think there will be the equivalent of one of these every 20 years, that would be about 35 cents on every gallon of gas and diesel sold in the country. If that were charged as a tax, and put into an environmental fund rather than the government general fund, it would be an excellent way to 1) have the funds set aside for these things, and 2) internalize the environmental impact of oil at the fuel pump.

This would allow other energy sources to compete on a level playing field, neither being utilized too early because we think 6,000,000 windmills would be nifty (that's the 100% number just to replace gasoline) nor utilized too late because we are ignoring the real cost of oil at the pump. Also, it would put the correct incentive on the consumer to purchase efficient vehicles (or not, at their choice).

A couple of miscellaneous points. First, some think that this spill will be in the $20 Billion area or less, but I doubt that it will be that cheap. Second, mere fuel efficiency increases do not yield reductions in oil consumption as you seem to indicate. It's well documented that fuel efficiency increases result in a partially offsetting vehicle usage increase, resulting in a lower reduction in oil consumption than was anticipated. Again, just getting the right price of oil cuts through all of that and the consumer makes the choice of how much oil to use and how to use it.

I'm a free market guy, and I'm unashamedly pro-oil. However, I think a good indicator of a broken market is when you have catastrophic events that a company ends up writing large checks for. They were not charging the consumer for that event, because everyone was hoping it wouldn't happen. That is a negative externality that is not reflected in the price the consumer pays, and the free market cannot behave correctly under those circumstances.

[Saint]

its all about greed...**** man kind...just gimme cash!


pathetic

[Macabee]

[quote=""IndyBrit""]Macabee,
Your numbers are way off. For example, this well is about 2,000 bopd (when we send it to the refinery instead of the beach), so it would take only about 40 wells this size to achieve your estimate of our total deepwater capacity. Worldwide, it is believed that deepwater oil may represent about 1/3 of total oil reserves - meaning it is an absolutely huge resource.
[/quote]

Lets see, you're saying this well should produce about 2000 barrels of oil per day. And you're saying 40 similar wells in deep water will also each produce 2000 barrels per day. So, 2000 barrels times 40 equals 80,000 total barrels of oil per day, and you're saying this equals 1% of US supply. Are you on crack? First, even if there were 40 deep water wells, 80,000 barrels of oil produced isn't even close to 1% of 20,680,000 (latest available) barrels of oil consumed each day.

Not only that, but according to BP, this well may contain an estimated 3 billion barrels of oil of which 450 million are extractable. This might seem like a lot of oil to a drill baby driller but it's not when compared to 20.7 million barrels used each day.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... rwOK1CUmMA

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_o ... onsumption

Mac

[IndyBrit]

Macabee,
We're only looking for 1% of 400,000,000 gallons per day, which is our daily gasoline usage (which is the only thing your suggested regulation affects). Which 40 of these wells would in fact produce. No need to get insulting.

This well won't contain 3 billion barrels, that would be the formation that the well is in. It may require a dozen or more wells to get the whole formation (they would use maybe 200 on land, but far fewer offshore).

I don't know where you get your 450 million figure from, but 30% would generally be extractable right up front, and another 30% down the road with secondary recovery techniques, so we'd really be talking about 2.4 billion barrels or so. One reservoir, that ultimately provides enough oil for 4 months of all usage in this country is pretty significant. This stuff has to come from somewhere; imagine any other single resource that covered our countries entire needs for four months. If it's not an oil reservoir that you are convinced we shouldn't be touching, I imagine you would think that was a significant amount of anything.

I know what I'm talking about here, and I'm as concerned qualitatively about this as you are (perhaps not to the same quantity, though). I'm trying to engage you in a serious conversation, and if you are held to the world as it is, rather than being allowed to treat the facts lightly, you will end up being a more effective advocate of your position. However, if you are insulting me without having thought through your statements, that indicates to me that you are more interested in displaying your disgust at this spill than in suggesting how to truly change the way we get our energy. Understandable, but not where I thought you were going with this.

[Macabee]

[quote=""IndyBrit""]We're only looking for 1% of 400,000,000 gallons per day, which is our daily gasoline usage (which is the only thing your suggested regulation affects). Which 40 of these wells would in fact produce. No need to get insulting.[/quote]

What is you're on then? Now your telling us that 80,000 is 1% 400,000,000! But I think you might have meant 8,000,000 because 40% of about 20,000,000 is 8,000,000. I'm a little broader minded about conversation and I'm not limited to only thinking about saving 1% of gasoline. I only suggested 1% as an example, obviously, more is better. What if everyone in the US drove a car like one of the green car of the year nominees? (disclaimer just in case it's suggested I'm saying otherwise, there are other steps that can be taken) I did not suggest anything regarding "regulation effects" at all so I have no idea why you said I did. I did cite cars as an example when I said " cars account for only 40% of US oil use but maybe you guys get the idea" When I suggested "you get the idea", I thought you would get the idea. I didn't realize you would posit that I suggested only conserving gasoline and no other oil or anything else. Of course I wouldn't suggest anything like that.

[quote=""IndyBrit""]I don't know where you get your 450 million figure from,[/quote]

I told you I got it from BP. I also posted a link right in my reply to a Bloomberg article with those very numbers just so that everyone could figure out where I got it from. BP also posts these items they call "press releases" right on their official web site.

[quote=""IndyBrit""]One reservoir, that ultimately provides enough oil for 4 months of all usage in this country is pretty significant. This stuff has to come from somewhere; imagine any other single resource that covered our countries entire needs for four months. If it's not an oil reservoir that you are convinced we shouldn't be touching, I imagine you would think that was a significant amount of anything.[/quote]

Do you realize that if we cut our oil consumption by 10%, that would be more than a month's worth of oil EVERY YEAR.

[quote=""IndyBrit""]I know what I'm talking about here, [/quote]

Really?

[quote=""IndyBrit""]and I'm as concerned qualitatively about this as you are (perhaps not to the same quantity, though). I'm trying to engage you in a serious conversation, and if you are held to the world as it is, rather than being allowed to treat the facts lightly, you will end up being a more effective advocate of your position[/quote]

I'll get right on those facts.

Mac