Hope2012

GULF OF MEXICO

Gulf awash in 27,000 abandoned wells — and no one at all is checking to see if they are leaking

Prominent Oil Industry Insider: “Theres Another Leak, Much Bigger, 5 to 6 Miles Away”

Scientists: Newly discovered Gulf oil plume is 22-miles long, six-miles wide

Third Giant Underwater Oil Plume Discovered

BP Rig Atlantis “An Even Bigger Disaster In The Making”

As the oil continues to flow, some are charging that another BP operation in the Gulf is an even bigger disaster in the making.

For six months, Ken Abbott managed BP’s engineering documents for “Atlantis,” BP’s deep water platform nearly 200 miles south of New Orleans. He turned into a BP whistle-blower in February 2009 after finding what he says were thousands of Atlantis engineering documents and drawings that were neither complete nor reviewed properly by BP. That, Sawyer now says, was a serious safety violation.

Abbott and his lawyer quickly hired Mike Sawyer, a safety engineer consultant, who examined the BP documents in question. Sawyer tells CNN that oil rig “engineering drawings and specification are the primary means that workers use to ensure that they can operate the platform safely, and can ensure that they can shut it down or at least control any unsafe event.” Atlantis’ engineering documents and drawings, says Sawyer, were so incomplete that he fears another environmental disaster from BP.

BP Official Admits to Damage BENEATH THE SEA FLOOR

The evidence is growing stronger and stronger that there is substantial damage beneath the sea floor. Indeed, it appears that BP officials themselves have admitted to such damage. This has enormous impacts on both the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf, and the prospects for quickly stopping the leak this summer.

Whistleblower: BP Risks More Massive Catastrophes in Gulf

Senator confirms reports that wellbore is pierced; oil seeping from seabed in multiple places

Another Gulf oil spill: Well near Deepwater Horizon has leaked since at least April 30

Coast Guard to probe report of new Gulf spill: official

AROUND THE WORLD

Gulf Spill Just A Drop In The Bucket Compared To What Happens Every Day, Everywhere Else

One of the worst oil spills in history you’ve never heard of just happened.

On May 10th, 2010 ExxonMobile had an oil spill in Nigeria Delta. It is somewhere around the 16th worst oil spill in [wikipedia reported] world history, at 95,000 tonnes (696,350 barrels or 214,475,800 gallons). Nigeria’s agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it. Oil spills are a regular occurrence in Nigeria, about 300 a year, it is estimated over the past 50 years about 1.5 million tons have been dumped in the Delta, equivalent to the Gulf War oil spill (the largest spill on record) or 50+ Exxon Valdez.

Situation is Out of Control: Risk of Blowout on Norway’s Offshore Gullfaks C Platform

Chevron Drilling Oil Well in 8,530 Feet of Water, Says it Doesn’t Need Relief Well

If 5,000 feet is deep enough to make it very hard to fix any problems with an oil well, it would seem that 8,530 feet would deep enough to warrant extraordinary precautions (if you’re going to be drilling at all, not something I’m in favor of). But Chevron, who’s drilling a well at this depth off the coast of Newfoundland says that a relief well isn’t necessary (even though a relief well could probably have avoided the Deepwater Horizon disaster)

There’s another BP oil spill? – Shhh!! says BP, the Bushs’ and Their CIA a Federal Judge Finds Out

In one case, BP’s CEO of Alaskan operations hired a former CIA expert to break into the home of a whistleblower, Chuck Hamel, who had complained of conditions at the pipe’s tanker facility. BP tapped his phone calls with a US congressman and ran a surveillance and smear campaign against him. When caught, a US federal judge said BP’s acts were “reminiscent of Nazi Germany.”

Prudhoe Bay, BP’s Other Ticking Bomb

Nearly 5,000 miles from the oil-spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, BP and its culture of cost-cutting are contributing to another environmental mess in the Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska’s north shore, according to internal BP documents and more than a dozen employees interviewed over the past month.

After two serious oil spills and other mishaps at the remote site, the BP employees fingered a long list of safety issues that have not been adequately addressed, making the Prudhoe Bay oilfield vulnerable to a devastating accident that potentially could rival the havoc in the Gulf.

Mystery fuel leak seeps into Burrard Inlet

Chevron Corporation has been trying for weeks to locate the source of a “historic” leak from its Burnaby oil and gas refinery — a leak that has been seeping still-unknown amounts of oil, gas and diesel fuel into the Burrard Inlet since at least April 21.

The Oil Spill the World Forgot

As the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to dominate headlines around the world, public outrage is being focused more intensely upon BP and its gaffe-prone CEO Tony Hayward. But amidst this crisis, the public should not forget the atrocities committed by other massive oil companies. For example, Royal Dutch Shell‘s drilling operations have been spilling oil into the Niger Delta in Nigeria since 1958. Because Nigeria is an impoverished nation and oil revenues fund a majority of government operations, Shell and other companies have been able to drill and pollute without serious oversight for all these years. It is estimated that 13 million barrels of oil have spilled into the delta, making life even more difficult for the region’s destitute residents. Shell blames the constant spills on attacks from “rebels,” who are in fact minority ethnic groups who feel they have been exploited and displaced by foreign oil companies. But Shell would never consider pulling out of the region or finding ways to avoid ethnic strife. Instead, Shell has proceeded with business as usual, and spilled a record 14,000 tons of crude oil into the delta last year.