The Oil Drum: On Hurricanes, Oil Spills, Peak Oil, and the Future of BP

[profgoose]

Deepwater Oil Spill - the Hurricane Season - and Open Thread

Five years ago, shortly after Kyle Saunders (Prof. Goose) invited me to help him start The Oil Drum, Hurricane Dennis, a Category 4 hurricane, struck the Gulf of Mexico. It formed on July 4th, 2005 and dissipated on July 13th. This was the first hurricane that The Oil Drum covered, and the focus, naturally, was on the impact which it would have on oil production. This was significant, as the MMS reported.

Hurricane Dennis forced the evacuation of a total of 445 rigs and platforms, according to a Monday report from the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which was released a few minutes before the end of the regular trading session. The evacuations prompted the shut-in of 96.2% of daily oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as 62.4% of daily natural-gas production, according to the MMS.

The update was the main reason for the rally, said Phil Flynn, a senior analyst at Alaron Trading. "People were surprised that Dennis shut in 1.4 million barrels of daily oil production ," he said, emphasizing that that was a bigger loss of oil than many expected.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6571

EIA: If This Is Peak Oil, Then I’m Not Sure What The Problem Is

This is a guest post by Michael Levi who is a Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. It is a critique of Steven Kopits of Douglas Westwood's recent guest post. The version of the guest post Michael Levi is commenting on was published on Econobrowser under the title EIA: Hard Core Peak Oil Forecast. It was published earlier this week at The Oil Drum, under the title EIA: From Forecast of Oil Supply Abundance to Decade of Stagnation. The post was about the crude oil production scenarios in the US Department of Energy's International Energy Outlook 2010.

Steven Kopits claims that the new EIA oil supply projections are a “Hard Core Peak Oil Forecast”. His argument is that the EIA has been steadily reducing its oil supply projections for 2020 over its last four annual projections, and that this is a sign that EIA has “placed its fortunes firmly with the peak oil crowd”. I think he’s wrong. In any case, if this is what counts as peak oil, then I’m not sure why anyone is so excited about it.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6584

Drumbeat: June 10, 2010: The Gulf Coast oil spill's Dr. Doom (interview with Matt Simmons)

What do you think is in store for the future of BP?

They have about a month before they declare Chapter 11. They're going to run out of cash from lawsuits, cleanup and other expenses. One really smart thing that Obama did was about three weeks ago he forced BP CEO Tony Hayward to put in writing that BP would pay for every dollar of the cleanup. But there isn't enough money in the world to clean up the Gulf of Mexico. Once BP realizes the extent of this my guess is that they'll panic and go into Chapter 11.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6585

[Gregin Orlando]

1. BP oil disaster worse than we are being told

Not only is more oil leaking than we have been told by the corporations and their corporate media, there may be up to three oil leaks in the gulf in addition to the three at the Deepwater Horizon site. Furthermore, this means more than just fouled beaches and dead marine life. Oil can clog the intakes of water from the Gulf that is used to cool coal and nuclear power plants, resulting in power outages. It can also clog the intakes of desalinization plants that use reverse osmosis to produce drinking water for cities on the Gulf coast. For more information, check out: http://www.examiner.com/x-38220-Orlando-Independent-Examiner~y2010m6d9-Satellite-imagery-shows-up-to-three-oil-leaks-in-Gulf-FL-power-and-water-supplies-may-be-at-risk