Thad Allen: Containment Cap For Oil Spill Showing Promise

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The man heading the Obama administration's response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico said Tuesday that a new-installed containment cap on the stricken BP rig is helping to limit the leak.

Speaking at a Washington briefing, Adm. Chad Allen of the Coast Guard said that more than 14,800 barrels of oil have been kept out of Gulf waters in the last 24 hours. Allen told reporters the amount of oil kept from spilling into the Gulf "has climbed steadily" from the first day the containment cap was installed.

He also said officials will be meeting with BP to assess how well it is handling claims for relief from people hurt by the spill. Allen said the aim is "to see if we need to provide any oversight." He had said Monday BP was struggling to handle claims.

Allen responded tartly to a question about why more progress has not been made in taming the spill resulting from the April 20 explosion and fire.

"I have never said this is going well. We're throwing everything at it that we've got," he said in response to a questioned telephoned in to his briefing. "I've said time and time again that nothing good happens when oil is on the water." He called the accident a "catastrophe" for the region.

Comments

[mrJJ]

06:56 AM on 06/09/2010

Source: Los Alamos Monitor

snip

Ceramicrete bonds to itself, sets under water, is drillable and bonds to steel and rock and other earth materials.

The impetus to work on Ceramicrete was the Hot Dry Rock project at Fenton Hill at LANL’s (Los Alamos National Laboratory) Technical Area 57 in the Jemez Mountains, Brown said.

“We gave our suggestion to Don O’Sullivan, a LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory) scientist who intends to send it forward to a group appointed by DOE Secretary Steven Chu to look into solutions to this crisis,” Brown said during an interview Monday. “I also posted our solution on the BP Web site this morning in the hopes that it catches somebody’s attention that has authority to act on it.”

http://www.lcni5.com/cgi-bin/c2.cgi?075+article+News+20100608142010075075004

[Scott McVarish]

02:32 AM on 06/09/2010

don't let another crisis pass without taking some action: http://www.causes.com/causes/494210/about?m=cfc9554f = President Obama, Kick BP's Ass!

[SortiepieU]

11:10 PM on 06/08/2010

I read these comments and I wonder, can you people do a better job, and if so, then why are you on here making comments , why are you not out there doing it, talk to OBama tell him what to do and tell Allen he is taking money to make false statements and tell him he is relieved of his duty that you are taking over and you do a better job, get the whole covered and clean up the mess... Good Luck I am pulling for all of you

[seafarer00]

07:43 PM on 06/08/2010

The US has the "Jones Act" fleet of tankers. A company called OSG has two oil tankers designed for lightering in the Gulf of Mexico that are just sitting and waiting to do work. These tankers Overseas Cascade and Martinez. They also have 8 ships in the Jones Act fleet currently in layup.
Then there is Crowely Maritime with their ATC tankers 3 of the and Seabulk Tankers and even Polar Tankers. The ships are out there they just have to be mobilized for work. There are also FPSOs that have capability of transferring the crude oil to a shuttle tanker for delivery ashore. BP and the govt need to get off their butts and put these things into action and start lightering the drillship or in conjunction with a FPSO.

[seafarer00]

07:42 PM on 06/08/2010

Why is BP using a drillship, instead of an FPSO; a Production facilities on a floating unit are usually used to separate the fluids pumped from a well into the natural gas, crude oil and water. The storage aspect usually consists of storing the oil portion of the fluids obtained from a well; there has also been some discussion of liquefying the natural gas portion of the well fluids at a floating facility. The offloading aspect is the unit s capability of transferring the crude oil to a shuttle tanker for delivery ashore. FPSO could daily treat up to 40,000 barrels of oil, 25,000 barrels of water and 40 million cubic feet of gas. The vessel could store 197,000 barrels of treated crude oil, 36,000 barrels of offspec product and 18,000 barrels of water

[gravey72]

06:16 PM on 06/08/2010

With all previous numbers about this spill being complete fabrications...I find it very easy to believe that this figure is being overestimated!

[cheo]

06:00 PM on 06/08/2010

As this spill has progressed and public ire has grown, as the criticism of the admin. by Left and Right has grown stronger....I have to wonder how many of these critics take public transportation or are working to get it in their towns, how many ride their bikes or walk instead of drive, or at least consolidate trips and carpool, or at the very least drive an efficient car? Make sure their houses have efficient windows, insulation and appliances? I wonder how many make sure they never take their groceries home in plastic bags, choose other than plastic toys for their kids and eschew all the synthetic fibers the fitness conscious and outdoor loving populace has come to rely on. How many use re-usable water bottles and have given up buying tons of sodas? How many limit the numbers of TV's and computers in their homes, choose not to use synthetic fertilizers and pesticides in their yards, have given up having large areas of grass, try to buy things with little or no packaging?...well you get the idea.
I am not playing holier than thou here; I don't live off the grid--we have to work on it all the time in my household.
Just askin'.......

[democles]

04:48 PM on 06/08/2010

I don't believe a word out of his mouth. Most everything he has stated has turned out to be falsehoods perpetuated by BP.

[01202009]

05:05 PM on 06/08/2010

Where did you get this information from? Documentation please.

[democles]

08:36 PM on 06/08/2010

Look at any of his flow estimates. His clean up estimates. His surface spread estimates. His timetable estimates. His cap estimates. His sub-surface titration estimates. His wildlife kill estimates. In other words, take anything he said, add a week to it, and you'll find it is low ball in BP's favor. If this is too hard for you, then nod your head and repeat: the US and government and BP always tell the truth... over and over again.

[PaleFace215]

03:38 PM on 06/08/2010

Does this look like it's slowed down?
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/incident_response/STAGING/local_assets/html/Enterprise_ROV_2.html

How about this?
http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/incident_response/STAGING/local_assets/html/Skandi_ROV1.html

The lies are coming from the top. Obama has crossed over to the dark side.

[smile13]

03:31 PM on 06/08/2010

I think Thad Allen is a good man. He is doing a very good job.

[humandecency]

03:16 PM on 06/08/2010

"We're throwing everything at it we got" --- tires, toxic chemical dispersants. You name it. Sounds like "progress" to me. What a great thing these politicans have, the word "progress." Bet they can't wait to start drilling in the Gulf again in the name of "progress."

[smile13]

03:30 PM on 06/08/2010

We ALL need to DEMAND alt energy. For goodness sake they have been talking about it since 1952!! So sad.

[rambot02]

05:29 PM on 06/08/2010

So true, smile13, so true.

=^..^=

[getoffmedz]

03:10 PM on 06/08/2010

Obviously, Thad Allen got his check.

[SortiepieU]

11:08 PM on 06/08/2010

If you could and can do a better job than Allen, then why don't you volunteer... I bet they would be happy to hand it over to you

[getoffmedz]

11:42 AM on 06/09/2010

Send me that check and I'll see what I can do.

[Marcospinelli]

03:08 PM on 06/08/2010

On Dylan Ratigan's Show yesterday, oil expert Matt Simmons talks about the Deepwater Horizon blowout, and that BP is doing everything wrong --

"BP put the wrong size cap on, more oil and gas is escaping, they've sent for the right size which will arrive next month",

"It's spewing 150,000 barrels of oil a day and BP is patching the wrong part",

"a relief well isn't going to fix this",

"the whole N. Atlantic Ocean is at stake".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBL_MUGtWds

[getoffmedz]

03:11 PM on 06/08/2010

Megatons of suddenly decomposing marine life will do what to the Gulf waters and the atmosphere around it?

BP can't stop the consequences of their slipshod oversight and may NEVER be able to stop these multiple GUSHERS, f**k the terms "spill" or "leak." The Cap is nominal at best and is merely a way for them to make a buck. Their gushers will return at full strength when the first tropical depression threatens.

What is being poisoned to die horrible, twitching death under the water is not being seen. The horrorshow of carcasses never reach the surface.

The underwater kill is many orders higher than we see on land.

[krizpy99]

03:30 PM on 06/08/2010

Funny how we celebrate the end of the Age of Pisces by killing the fish in the sea, and usher in the Age of Aquarius by flooding the planet...

swell.

[FIGI]

03:53 PM on 06/08/2010

The takeaway from Matt Simmons I believe was: The real gusher is 7 miles away and can't be capped in any shape, form or fashion. Two choices: Let it gush for the next 30 years or nuke it.

[Marcospinelli]

04:41 PM on 06/08/2010

Yes.

And, we'll know more about that, the real source(s) of the breaches, when the Thomas Jefferson arrives there at the end of the week.

So then it becomes a question of the lesser of two ev!ls -- Letting the oil continue to gush, which means the death of the oceans (and humans on the planet, as 80% of our oxygen comes from the oceans) or exploding a nuclear device on the rupture to seal it.

The White House has responded already that it has no intention of doing the latter ("it's madness"). According to the Rolling Stone, US submarines were at the site shortly after the explosion surveying the damage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b307dNN1zBQ

It's hard to fathom that if Simmons and others are correct and there is another rupture, that the submarines wouldn't have discovered it and that Obama wouldn't have detonated a nuclear device to seal it by now.

But I can't dismiss Simmons' and others' expertise and opinions. Particularly in light of Obama's failure to clean house of Bush-Cheney-Oil-Industry plants, enforce regulations, perform stringent oversight, & his hands-off approach in the aftermath.

So we wait to hear from the Thomas Jefferson.

[mrJJ]

03:08 PM on 06/08/2010

BP oil spill nears Miami by June 9 says forecast
Source: College of Marine Science, University of South Florida

Deepwater Horizon oil spill trajectory forecast through June 10 using the Navy Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model for the Gulf of Mexico.

Quantities of oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout are forecast to round the Florida Peninsula by early in the morning on June 9. By June 10, oil may reach the coastal areas off of Boca Raton, FL.


Read more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsMNElZ1Z40

[Mark Badger]

03:03 PM on 06/08/2010

I think Admiral Thad Allen has sold out to BP. We all know the figures as to how much has been and is being spilled has been extremely lowball since the beginning. Today they say 14,800 barrels recovered when for how long we were hearing 5,000 a day was leaking. Have you seen the live feeds today?

This cap is not meant for recovering oil it was designed to dump dispersant to keep the oil hidden. Where is the heating system they said it was going to have? Do they really think we are stupid enough to believe that the dinky little pipe at the top was recovering that much oil, released under high pressure and chilled because of that, is sucking up that much oil? Do they think we are that stupid?

Thad Allen has sold out the American People for a future consulting job with BP. That is pretty bad when you think about it, that a man who has achieved his rank and stature, his wisdom of age, his service to his country, will not tell us the truth and he stands with Tony Hayward and BP.

And then to hear he is having shrimp cocktail with Tony Hayward. Well if this oil spill is a war as Allen calls it, then why does he dine with the enemy?

[FIGI]

03:55 PM on 06/08/2010

Both he and the Pres know it is hopeless. The real gusher can't be capped. The oil can't be contained or even cleaned up before it befouls just about everything. I think this is why Obama was so "slow" to respond.