Deepwater Horizon: ecosystem could take decades to recover

The Deepwater Horizon disaster could have a lasting impact on the Gulf of Mexico, according to a new paper suggesting that the region’s deep-sea soft-sediment ecosystem could take decades to recover from the 2010 oil spill.

The authors claim  provides comprehensive results on the spill’s effect on deep-water communities at the base of the Gulf’s food chain for the first time.

The spill resulted from an explosion on board the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that occurred on April 20, 2010, and resulted in a total of 4.9 million barrels (205.8 million gallons) of crude in what went on to become the largest offshore oil spill in US history.

BP’s internal records for the Macondo project conflicted with numbers sent to drilling regulators and established a pattern of “consistent misreporting” of well pressures, Alan Huffman, a Houston-based petroleum geophysicist, testified for the U.S. government in a trial over claims tied to the 2010 Gulf spill. The fudged numbers allowed BP to continue drilling for oil, he said.

The oil company created “a very misleading impression” about the well’s safety conditions and engaged in drilling operations that “I’ve never seen an operator do,” Huffman told a judge February 27 in New Orleans.

After hearing evidence in the trial, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans will decide who is liable for damages tied to the largest offshore spill in U.S. history and whether BP, Transocean Ltd. (RIG) or other companies that worked on the project were grossly negligent in their handling of the rig and well. His ruling in the nonjury trial on that issue will affect how much each company may have to pay.

[January 14]

Agreement Reached with U.S. Department of Justice on Deepwater Horizon Claims
ZUG, SWITZERLAND-Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG) (SIX: RIGN) today announced that it has reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve certain outstanding civil and potential criminal claims against the company arising from the April 20, 2010, accident involving the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico.

As part of this resolution, a Transocean subsidiary has agreed to plead guilty to one misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA) for negligent discharge of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and pay $1.4 billion in fines, recoveries and penalties, excluding interest.  This resolution will result in the Department of Justice concluding its criminal investigation of Transocean and settling its claims for civil penalties against the company relating to the spill from BP's Macondo well.  The company intends to satisfy its payment obligations over a period of five years, using cash on hand and cash flow from operations.  At September 30, 2012, Transocean had accrued an estimated loss contingency of $1.5 billion associated with claims made by the Department of Justice.

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[June 15 2010]
IMO number: 8764597
The DEEPWATER HORIZON was a Reading & Bates Falcon RBS8D design semi-submersible drilling unit capable of operating in harsh environments and water depths up to 8,000 ft (upgradeable to 10,000 ft) using 18¾in 15,000 psi BOP and 21in OD marine riser. here

Marshall Islands Registry in the hot seat: "The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico was built in South Korea. It was operated by a Swiss company under contract to a British oil firm. Primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a tiny, impoverished nation in the Pacific Ocean." full story
Guardian

BP’s single largest shareholder is the sprawling asset management firm BlackRock, based in New York City, which owned the equivalent of more than one billion shares of BP stock just two weeks before the Deepwater Horizon blowout, according to the financial analysis firm Capital IQ. (Bank of America owns a 34.1 percent stake in BlackRock.)

The second-largest American owner, and third largest over all, is State Street Global Advisors, based in Boston, with 307 million shares. After them are the mutual fund firm Capital Research and Management Company of Los Angeles, with 247 million shares, and the Vanguard Group, based in Malvern, Pa., with 140 million shares. Rounding out the top five is Franklin Resources of San Mateo, Calif., another publicly owned asset management firm, with 131 million shares.

More familiar names crop up further down the list, like Fidelity Investments, with 124 million shares; T. Rowe Price Group, with 93 million shares; and State Farm Insurance, with 79 million shares.

Then there are the banks: as of March 31, JPMorgan Chase held a respectable 76 million shares; Bank of America, 69 million shares; and Goldman Sachs, 42 million shares.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is another a major investor, with nearly 43 million shares.

here

Deepwater Horizon: BP's former chief executive head of Xstrata

 Ivan Glasenberg two years ago selected Tony Hayward to back the group’s initial public offering: the Glencore chief executive sees the former BP chief executive as one of the best in the oil industry.

. They share a lifestyle that involves near-constant travel. Both had to work hard to climb the corporate ladder..

The personal connection was evident Thursday at the maiden annual meeting of Glencore Xstrata as an enlarged company in Zug, Switzerland, with both men seeming at ease with their respective roles as chief executive and interim chairman.

Yet few expect him to stay in the job for long. Genel, his post-BP vehicle, is his primary focus these days: the company is now the largest independent crude producer in Iraqi Kurdistan.

[May 16]

John Bond, a City veteran and former chairman of Xstrata, earlier surprised investors by announcing he had been voted out of the top job at the miner and trader at its first annual shareholders' meeting, which he then asked Tony Hayward, the former chief executive of BP to lead.

Bond, who had been expected to relinquish his role once a replacement was found, gave no explanation for the vote in Zug, Switzerland, which was presumably backed by Glencore executives who still own almost 25 percent of the company.

As interim chairman, Hayward, already senior independent director, is expected to lead the nominations committee which will pick a permanent replacement. The committee had until Thursday been chaired by Bond.

A new chairman is expected to be appointed by the end of the year, a second source with knowledge of the matter said.

For Hayward, who said he felt "demonized and vilified" over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, the appointment at Glencore is a return to the top at a major UK-listed resource firm.

[July 25 2010]
Tony Hayward, the embattled chief executive of BP, has agreed to step down and be replaced by Robert Dudley, the company’s most senior American executive who is now in charge of BP’s operations in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a person close to the company’s board.

Rena: little blue penguins create a public issue

While we all know that an oil spill is a bad thing, the sight of a Little Blue Penguin, covered in oil, brings the issue very much into the realms of the "here and now''.

Rena: clutch of blue penguins will not be reared

164 tonnes of heavy fuel oil has been pumped from Rena on to the barge Awanuia.

This means 645 tonnes of the 1370 tonnes thought to be left on the ship has been pumped. . But for the little blue penguins of Mount Maunganui this is breeding season, and the timing of the Rena oil spill in the Bay of Plenty could not have been much worse.

Locals put the number of breeding pairs of little blues penguins in this area at around 200 to 300; and the population now has the full attention of a team from Maritime New Zealand's National Oiled Wildlife Recovery unit, monitoring their burrows daily to help the birds survive this environmental disaster.

Whilst these nocturnal penguins may not appreciate such close attention as they incubate their eggs, the monitoring is critical. The penguins come ashore during the evening to find their burrows, and many are becoming oiled crossing rocks covered in thick tar-like oil.

"If a penguin becomes oiled and tries to preen itself, it can swallow the oil and become very sick. If we find a bird that is heavily oiled, we collect it and take it back to the wildlife recovery centre to be cleaned and rehabilitated," explains WWF-New Zealand Marine Programme Manager Rebecca Bird, one of 140 field staff working as part of Maritime New Zealand's oiled wildlife recovery efforts.

Around 120 little blue penguins have been rescued from the mount so far, and their chances of survival are comparatively good - penguins are some of the most resilient birds in recovering from oil spills. But Rebecca and the team are facing a tough choice - removing an oiled bird will give it a chance of survival, but its clutch is unlikely to survive:

"We checked on the pair of little blue penguins in the 'window nest' a couple of nights ago, and the mate was oiled so we had to take him away to the recovery centre to be looked after. Then the next night we found the other penguin was oiled and had to take her away. We hope that the birds we recover will be rehabilitated successfully, but it's heartbreaking to know that saving them means their clutch won't be reared," . Builders are racing to finish aviaries for the long-term care of hundreds of little blue penguins rescued following the oil spill.
here

Rena: cracks connected underneath hull

The two large cracks on either side of the ship are connected underneath the hull, but it is still held together through its internal structure. The bulbous section on the hull of the ship was also severely cracked and was being pushed upward as the ship's hull rested on the reef below. here note video

Rena: video boxship stranded on Reef off NZ

Rene: Liberian-flag boxship stranded on Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga NZ. The MV Rena's owners, Greece-based Costamare Inc, said they were "working tirelessly" on the response. .People know about the reef, and for it to plough into it for no particular reason - at night, in calm waters - tells you something terrible has gone wrong Officials say. 20-30 tonnes of oil have spilled into the Bay of Plenty, one of the country's top tourist destinations, since the MV Rena ran aground on October 5.
8806802 RENA A8XJ7 Container Ship 47230 1990
Official electronic charts that are considered 'paper equivalent' . at 22 years old this ship may still have been using paper charts,

http://www.bayofplentytimes.co.nz/news/oil-spill-tauranga-harbour-new-video/1129419/

Deepwater Horizon: RIG blasts BP

Transocean Ltd.'s (RIG) internal investigation blames decisions by BP PLC (BP, BP.LN) for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, contrasting with at least two earlier reports from U.S. government agencies that put a large share of the blame on Transocean.
wsj
report RIG
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Deepwater Horizon: 200 lawyers

NEW ORLEANS (CN sep 17, 2010) - More than 200 attorneys filled three courtrooms Thursday for a pretrial conference to chart the course of litigation for hundreds of lawsuits involving the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill. Presiding Judge Carl J. Barbier apologized that the courtroom was not large enough. "Unfortunately, this is the largest we have," he said to the roomful of more than 150 attorneys, packed along walls to the back doors.
The location was changed last minute from Judge Barbier's courtroom to larger courtroom in the Federal Courthouse, and two overspill rooms were opened before the hearing began.
"I'm not sure how many cases we already have," Barbier said, explaining that some cases from other courts have yet to be transferred to the Eastern District of Louisiana.
"Certainly there are currently hundreds and there will be hundreds, if not thousands more, filed," he said. "On top of all that, investigations by the federal government seeking criminal and civil damages are pending."
In August, a federal panel of judges selected New Orleans as the venue for all Deepwater Horizon oil spill-related lawsuits. The panel also appointed Judge Barbier.
FT read more

Horizon: taking the fifth, resignation

The buck stops here.

Mercado/ Deepwater Horizon/Well site leader Bob Kaluza -- who held the position traditionally known as "company man" -- didn't show up after being listed as witnesses for Tuesday's hearing. Kaluza's lawyer said he was exercising his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Tony Hayward the chief executive of oil giant BP, the leaseholder of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded April 20, 2010 is said to be negotiating his withdrawal.

Development Driller: moving out of hurricane's way

GSF Development Driller II IMO 8765515 , DEVELOPMENT DRILLER III IMO 8769121 Both Vanuatu-flag and owned ultimately by Transocean
will be preparing to move out of harm's way beginning tonight "This includes the rig drilling the relief well that will ultimately kill the well, as well as other vessels needed for containment.