Gulf Oil Spill

Step 1
Group C, BBC:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10317116

Step 2
Timeline

April 20 2010: 11 people died in explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion was caused by a surge in oil and gas. The blowout preventer system of valves (BOP) at the well head on the seabed is believed to have failed.

April 22 2010: Oil rig sinks and riser pipe that connected it to the well falls to the seabed. Oil and gas continue to flow from the pipe and blowout preventer. This caused a five mile (8km) oil slick.

Many efforts are made to contain the leak including booms, skimming, dispersion (chemicals break down oil), and burning.

May 2 2010: BP starts drilling one of two relief wells.

May 5 2010: BP successfully stops one leak.

May 16 2010: Starts drilling other well. The wells are expected to take two or three months to complete

May 16 2010: A tube is inserted into the leaking pipe, which funnels oil to surface.

May 26 2010 - May 29 2010 Top kill system starts and fails

June 2: Lower a cap over blowout preventer to funnel oil to surface. Leaky pipe is cut off. The cap does not fit quite right, but does save some oil.

June 16 2010: Engineers open a second route to surface by connecting another pipe, which connects to another rig.

July 10 2010: LMRP cap is removed to be replaced with a tightly fitting cap.

July 15: The valves inside are turned off and the flow is stopped for the first time since 20 April.

August 5 2010: Mud and cement pumped in to block well.

Key players
US Congress
Media
Transocean chief executive Steve Newman
Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce
BP CEO Tony Hayward

Key Terms
Deep Horizon Oil Rig: owned and mostly staffed by employees of exploration firm Transocean, under contract to BP

Centralisers:These devices make sure that the pipe or casing is centralised during cementing, to ensure a good job is done

Cement bond log: A sonic scanning device is lowered through the well on a wireline. It checks whether there are imperfections in bonding or other problems in the cement. If there are, more cement can be squeezed into affected sections.

Liner: a bit of casing hung from the bottom of the casing section above. Inside this would have been a further piece of tubing called a "Tieback".

The blowout preventer (BOP):  is supposed to stop this happening. The BOP, the size of a five-storey building, consists of a series of high-pressure valves, designed to prevent such a surge or kick from damaging the drilling operation. In this BOP, built by US firm Cameron to specifications by Transocean, there are five ram-type preventers and two annular preventers, according to Transocean's chief executive.


Blind ram shear: Last line of defence in BOP - cuts pipe

Annulus: Gap between pipe and rock, or between pipe and another pipe

Step 3:
We didn't really have time to share information during class.

Step 4:
WHOI Scientist or technical specialist

Step 5:
I am an environmental scientist whose focus is on the effects of the oil spill on populations and communities of organisms. I believe that the oil spill crisis will not be over until the negative effects are repared. This could take decades. For example, according to tests conducted in 2007 on a Cape Cod beach affected by the 1969 oil spill, fiddler crabs were negatively affected by oil even 38 years after the spill.

Questions:
BP: How do you plan to fix the damage done to the underwater ecosystems by oil pollution an chemical pollution caused by the spill?

Activists: Do you expect the organisms of the coastal region to fully recover based on their tolerance to previous habitat-related threats?

Gulf Folk: What effects on the gulf fauna have you noticed? What do you expect the long term effects of this spill to be on your career as a whole?

Government: What action do you plan to take where repairing ecosystemic damage is concerned?