By Emma Reynolds
Last updated at 9:04 AM on 29th December 2011

BP employees could be charged with attempting a cover-up over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, it emerged today. Several Houston-based engineers and at least one supervisor may have provided false information to regulators about the risks associated with the drilling, according to sources. The staff members could be charged early next year over the April 2010 disaster, Fox News reported.

Investigation: BP’s staff could be charged individually, with the firm already facing up to $36.6million in fines and potential criminal charges as a company. Eleven workers were killed and four million barrels of oil were dumped into the Gulf of Mexico during the environmental catastrophe. If the BP employees are convicted, they could face up to five years in prison and a fine.

The U.S. Department of Justice may decide not to bring charges, however. It is not unusual for prosecutors to threaten charges to pressure people into cooperating in investigations, according to the news channel. BP itself is expected to face broader criminal charges, including violations of the federal Clean Water Act. There are also said to be questions over the accuracy of BP’s drilling permit applications. The company is already appealing against what could amount to $36.6million in administrative fines by U.S. regulators for safety violations.

Disaster: BP engineers may have tried to hide information from authorities in a cover-up

BP spokesman Daren Beaudo declined to comment on the potential for charges against employees or the company. The company has said it believed the accident was caused by a combination of events that involved multiple parties, not just BP.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

The accident has been under investigation by a federal task force in New Orleans for the past 18 months. Prosecutors have reviewed thousands of documents and conducted dozens of interviews, bringing some people before a grand jury, sources close to the investigation told Fox. The investigation recently looked into a key safety measure in deep-water drilling – the difference between the minimum amount of pressure that must be exerted in a well’s bore by drillers to keep the well from blowing out, and how much pressure would break apart the rock formation containing oil and gas. The narrower the margin between those two points, the more difficult a well is to control.

Federal regulations do not define what margin qualifies as safe, but companies are supposed to identify the margin in their applications for permits to drill. When a company cannot maintain that safety margin, it is supposed to suspend drilling and remedy the problem. Prosecutors have apparently asked whether information gathered during drilling – which helped determine the safety margin in the Deepwater Horizon situation – was properly reflected in amended drilling permit applications that had to be submitted to federal regulators.

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http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/12/29/144421391/report-criminal-charges-being-prepared-against-bp-for-gulf-oil-spill

NPR: Criminal Charges Possible Against BP Engineers For Gulf Oil Spill

07:40 am December 29, 2011

by MARK MEMMOTT

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig burned on April 21, 2010.

“U.S. prosecutors are preparing what would be the first criminal charges against BP PLC employees stemming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident, which killed 11 workers and caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history,” The Wall Street Journal reports this morning, citing “people familiar with the matter.”

[9:45 a.m. ET: See update below from NPR’s Carrie Johnson, who reports no decision has been made on whether to go ahead with charges.]

According to the Journal, the prosecutors are focusing on evidence that some BP engineers and supervisors may have given regulators false information about the risks associated with the drilling.

The Journal (longer excerpt posted here, by Fox News; both news outlets are owned by News Corp.) says that “a Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.” That version of the Journal report also notes that “Justice still could decide not to bring charges against the individuals, people familiar with the situation said. It’s not unusual for prosecutors to use the threat of charges to pressure people to cooperate in investigations.”

Bloomberg Businessweek says that “Scott Dean, a spokesman for BP in Chicago, and David Nicholas, a London-based spokesman for the company, declined to comment on the report.” It adds that:
“BP faces at least 350 lawsuits by thousands of coastal property owners and businesses claiming damages from the more than 4.1 million barrels of oil that gushed from its well off the Louisiana coast.”

As we’ve reported, all the companies involved in the spill have been trading accusations about which was most responsible.

Update at 9:45 a.m ET. “No Final Decisions About Charges Have Been Made”:
NPR’s Carrie Johnson reports that sources familiar with what’s happening say no final decisions about charges have been made. As she tells the NPR Newscast Desk:

“The Justice Department task force that has been investigating the spill is starting to wrap up its work. And while prosecutors are looking into criminal charges against engineers at BP who may have under-estimated the dangers of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, they haven’t yet decided whether to prosecute. Even if they do go ahead, defense attorneys for the engineers will have the option of appealing to higher ups at Justice.

“An attorney for one of the engineers said a decision to prosecute would be the beginning of the legal process, not the end.

“Meanwhile, the head of the task force, longtime Brooklyn prosecutor John Buretta, has stepped up his meetings with supervisors at Justice in Washington in recent weeks. Observers expect some decisions about criminal charges to come before a civil trial over liability for the spill begins in February.”

Now that we’ve added Carrie’s reporting, we’ve also tweaked the headline on this post. It originally read: “Report: Criminal Charges Being Prepared Against BP For Gulf Oil Spill.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-herring-kill-20111228,0,4854111.story

The fuel oil that discharged into San Francisco Bay from the cargo ship Cosco Busan devastated the herring population that feeds seabirds, whales and the bay’s last commercial fishery, study says.

On Rodeo Beach in Marin County, cleanup crews collected oil that had spilled into San Francisco Bay after the cargo ship Cosco Busan sideswiped the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 2007. Researchers now say that the fuel oil had a devastating effect on the bay’s herring population. (Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times / November 12, 2007)

By Kenneth R. Weiss, Los Angeles Times
December 27, 2011

Thick, tarry fuel oil disgorged into San Francisco Bay from a damaged cargo ship in 2007 was surprisingly toxic to fish embryos, devastating the herring population that feeds seabirds, whales and the bay’s last commercial fishery, scientists reported Monday.

Although the bay’s herring spawning grounds are now free of toxic oil, studies have found that the moderate-size spill of 54,000 gallons had an unexpectedly large and lethal effect.

The culprit, a common type of ship fuel called “bunker fuel,” appears to be especially toxic to fish embryos, particularly when exposed to sunlight, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“That’s the big lesson,” said John Incardona, a toxicologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service. “This bunker oil is literally the dregs of the barrel, and it’s much more toxic than crude oil.”

The container ship Cosco Busan spilled low-grade bunker fuel after it sideswiped the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on a foggy November morning four years ago. This type of sludge-like fuel is cheap and thus popular among operators of commercial shipping fleets that transport raw materials and goods around the globe.

Scientists have traditionally focused on larger crude oil spills, such as last year’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blowout in the Gulf of Mexico or 1989’s Exxon Valdez tanker disaster, in which 11 million gallons of oil were discharged into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The Exxon spill is suspected of wiping out the sound’s herring fishery, which has never bounced back.

From studies in Alaska, scientists knew that oil could cause heart deformities to developing herring in their embryonic sacs.

But after examining herring embryos placed in cages in shallow waters near the Cosco Busan spill site, researchers were surprised to find that nearly all had died, and their tissues were deteriorating faster than expected in the bay’s chilly water.

“We didn’t think there was enough oil spilled to cause this much damage,” said Gary Cherr, a study coauthor and director of the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory. He described the total spill as similar in size to a large backyard swimming pool.

Oil and water don’t mix. The fat-filled herring egg sacs can act like little sponges, soaking up the highly toxic compounds from the bunker fuel. Once exposed to sunlight during low tides, the oil compounds became even more lethal to developing fish.

“Bunker fuel is used worldwide and is spilled relatively often,” Cherr said. “It is important to look at small spills in sensitive areas,” he added, now that science understands the lethal potential of low concentrations.

The owners and operators of the Cosco Busan in September agreed to pay $44.4 million to cover government claims, the cost of the cleanup – about half of the spilled oil was captured – and bay restoration programs. Besides tarring about 30% of the bay’s herring spawning grounds, the spill killed about 6,800 seabirds and closed beaches for months.

ken.weiss@latimes.com

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/coast-guard-plans-to-use-dispersants-if-cuban-drilling-produces-oil-spill/1207054

TampaBay.com

By Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer
Posted: Dec 20, 2011 11:01 AM

As Cuba prepares to begin allowing a Spanish company to drill for oil 12 miles north of Havana next year, U.S. Coast Guard officials say they have learned from the mistakes made during the Deepwater Horizon disaster and will be prepared for the worst should a spill happen so close to the Florida Keys.

“We will attack it quickly, aggressively and as far from our shores as we can,” Rear Adm. William Baumgartner told reporters during a news conference Tuesday.

Attacking an offshore spill from Cuba would include spraying dispersants such as Corexit on any oil slick, to break it up and make it degrade more quickly, Baumgartner said.

“We will use every tool at our disposal,” said the admiral, who commands the Seventh Coast Guard District, headquartered in Miami. “Aerial dispersants are going to be an effective tool. Undispersed oil is more damaging to natural resources than dispersed oil.”

The use of Corexit during last year’s Deepwater Horizon cleanup proved to be controversial, especially after scientists from the University of South Florida and other institutions reported finding underwater plumes of dissolved oil droplets that they feared would affect marine life.

Environmental activists are already questioning whether using such dispersants to break up the oil would be a good idea so close to such sensitive areas as the Dry Tortugas National Park, the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, the National Key Deer Refuge and John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park.

“Just because it disappears doesn’t mean it’s not there,” said Jonathan Ullman of the Sierra Club’s South Florida office.

Baumgartner said his goal is not to protect Florida tourist-attracting beaches so much as it is to protect natural areas that are important to marine life, particularly coral reefs, mangroves and sea grass beds.

He said he expects the currents that flow through and near the Keys — the gulf’s Loop Current, the Florida Current and the Gulfstream — will help buffer Florida from contact with most of any oil that might be spilled in Cuban waters. But he conceded that eddies are likely to break off and carry some of the oil close enough to taint the shore.

That’s why he wants to attack it before it ever arrives. In addition to dispersants, Baumgartner said he would use skimmer boats, booms and controlled burns to stop the spill. However, a report on the Deepwater Horizon cleanup found that those tools did little to stop BP’s spill, with only 5 percent of the oil burned, and a mere 3 percent skimmed off the surface.

Cuba has agreed to let a Spanish company, Repsol, drill exploratory wells off its shores. Repsol’s safety record is spotty. In February 2008, its operation in Ecuador experienced a crude oil spill near the Yasuni National Park in a rainforest area. In February 2009, another oil spill occurred in Ecuador’s Amazon region after a rupture in a pipeline.

Repsol is bringing in an Italian-owned, Chinese-made drilling rig to drill the wells. U.S. officials are scheduled to inspect the rig when it reaches Trinidad and Tobago next week, Baumgartner said. Then it would head for Cuba and get to work drilling in January.

Currently Cuba gets its oil from Venezuela and relies on sugar, nickel mining and tourism for its economic wellbeing. But sugar production has fallen off, and the price of nickel worldwide has fallen. Meanwhile its tourism industry has been sputtering — so now the Cubans are ready to consider drilling for oil.

The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated Cuba’s offshore fields hold 4.6 billion barrels of oil and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and said the area has “significant potential.” The first block Repsol is expected to explore lies under 5,600 feet of water – 600 feet deeper than where BP’s Deepwater Horizon well exploded in April 2010.

Baumgartner and Capt. John Slaughter, his head of planning, said the main lesson they learned from Deepwater Horizon was to do a better job of coordinating with state and county emergency officials, who complained repeatedly about being ignored during last year’s cleanup. The admiral said he has personally briefed Gov. Rick Scott and talked with state and county officials about his contingency plans for any Cuban incident.

Craig Pittman can be reached at craig@tampabay.com
[Last modified: Dec 20, 2011 12:06 PM]

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/18/us-russia-platform-accidents-idUSTRE7BH0B420111218

Are there any doubts as to why we are opposed to offshore oil and gas exploration? Let’s put our resources into solar and other renewables. Now. And forget the transcontinental pipeline that will result in refining and exporting oil to other countries in exchange for degrading the environment of our country. DV

Sun Dec 18, 2011 7:41am EST
(Reuters) – An oil drilling rig with 67 crew on board capsized and sank off the Russian far east island of Sakhalin on Sunday.

Here is a timeline of some major oil industry accidents in the past 30 years:
March 1980 – The Alexander Keilland rig, a Pentagon-type semi-submersible rig in the North Sea’s Ekofisk field, breaks up after a fatigue fracture. As a result of storm winds and waves, 123 of the 212 crew were killed.

February 1982 – The Ocean Ranger semi-submersible drilling rig sinks about 166 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, while operating the Hibernia oil field. The accident, which occurred during a huge storm, killed 84 crew members.

October 1983 – The U.S. drill ship Glomar Java Sea sinks in the South China Sea around 63 miles southwest of Hainan Island, where it was contracted to ARCO China. It capsized and sank within minutes, killing all 81 people aboard.

August 1984 – A blowout on the Enchova platform operated by Brazilian state oil company Petrobras in the Campos Basin caused an explosion and a fire that led to the death of 42 workers as they were being evacuated. Seventeen others were injured in the explosion and fire.

July 1988 – In world’s worst oil rig disaster, 167 people are killed when Occidental Petroleum’s Piper Alpha oil rig in the North Sea explodes after a gas leak.
September 1988 – Four workers are killed when an oil rig owned by Total Petroleum of France explodes and sinks off the southeastern coast of Borneo.

November 3, 1989 – The 4,400-tonne Unocal-owned drillship capsizes and sinks during Typhoon Gay in the South China Sea, south of Bangkok. At least 91 of the 97 crew on board died.

January 1995 – Thirteen people are killed and many injured in an explosion on a Mobil oil rig off the coast of Nigeria.

January 1996 – Three people are killed in an explosion on a rig in the Morgan oil field in the Gulf of Suez.

March 2001 – The P-36 offshore production platform operated by Brazilian state oil company Petrobras was rocked by explosions that killed 11 people. It sank off the coast of Rio de Janeiro five days later, spilling some of the 10,000 barrels of fuel and crude it was storing into the Atlantic.

July 2005 – A fire destroyed the Mumbai High North processing platform off India’s west coast, killing 22 people and affecting 123,000 bpd of crude production, or 15 percent of the country’s domestic output. The platform was owned by ONGC.

October 2007 – During stormy weather, the Usumacinta rig collided with the Kab-101 platform off the coast of Mexico, causing fuel leaks and killing 22 workers who tried to flee in life rafts in one of state oil firm Pemex’s worst accidents.

April 20, 2010 – Explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig kills 11 workers. The rig, owned by Transocean Ltd and licensed to BP, was drilling 42 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana, in 5,000 feet of water. The well had reached 13,000 feet under the seabed. On April 22, the rig, valued at more than $560 million, sinks and a 5-mile oil slick forms.

May 13, 2010 – All 95 workers are rescued after the Aban Pearl platform, operated by Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA, sinks in the Caribbean Sea, apparently after water flooded one of the giant submarine rafts supporting the football field-sized structure.

December 18, 2011 – The ‘Kolskaya’ jack-up rig, operated by Russian offshore exploration company Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka (AMNGR), capsizes while being towed in a storm, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) off the coast of Sakhalin island. The rig had 67 crew aboard of whom 14 have been rescued.

– The rig had been doing work in the Sea of Okhotsk for a unit of state-controlled gas export monopoly Gazprom, the company said.

Sources: Reuters/www.oilrigdisasters.co.uk/ (Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://inhabitat.com/report-shows-18-5-mile-wide-cloud-of-air-pollution-rose-from-the-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill/

by Brit Liggett, 12/20/11

According to a study released today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the massive plume from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had an additional airborne component – about 8% of the oil from the spill evaporated and formed a cloud of pollution 18.5 miles wide – the size of a large urban area. The amount of airborne organic particles resulting from the evaporated oil was ten times more than what resulted from all surface burning of oil in the wake of the disaster.
“We could see the sooty black clouds from the burning oil, but there’s more to this than meets the eye. Our instruments detected a much more massive atmospheric plume of almost invisible small organic particles and pollutant gases downwind of the oil spill site,” said Ann M. Middlebrook, scientist at NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory’s (ESRL) Chemical Sciences Division (CSD) and lead author of the study. When oil started leaking from the damaged Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico in April of 2010 it rose to the surface of the Gulf where some of it burned, but a lot of it simply evaporated – according to the study.

Some of the evaporated oil – about 8% – became airborne organic particles small enough to be breathed by human lungs, formed a giant plume of pollution and headed toward the coastline with the prevailing winds. NOAA’s ESRL researchers made a computer model of the plume and discovered that their predictions of when the plume would have reached the shoreline matched up perfectly with a rise in particle pollution from local onshore air monitoring systems.

When the particle pollution entered the atmosphere it reacted with the small amount of nitrogen oxides in the oil spill’s vicinity – which existed in part due to cleanup and recovery efforts – and formed ozone pollution. “The levels of ozone were similar to what occurs in large urban areas. During the oil spill, it was like having a large city’s worth of pollution appear out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico,” said Daniel M. Murphy, NOAA scientist at ESRL/CSD and a co-author of the study. The NOAA gathered information for this study on two of their WP-3D research aircraft and from local monitoring systems on rigs, local ships and on land in the gulf.
+ NOAA press release

Read more: Report Shows 18.5-Mile-Wide Cloud of Air Pollution Rose From the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

Special thanks to Richard Charter